On this day in history

September 20

27 births · 14 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

9 years ago

Born this day

1934

Sophia Loren

Turns 92

Photo (modified): Unknown. Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images · Public domain

Oldest record

960th

Battle of Fulford

event anniversary

Famous births27

1754 · 272 yrs

Paul I of Russia

Paul I (Russian: Па́вел I Петро́вич, romanized: Pavel I Petrovich; 1 October 1754 – 23 March 1801) was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination in 1801. Paul remained overshadowed by his mother, Catherine the Great, for most of his life.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 46

View profile Photo (modified): Vladimir Borovikovsky · Public domain

1758 · 268 yrs

Jean-Jacques Dessalines

Jean-Jacques Dessalines (French pronunciation:; Haitian Creole: Jan-Jak Desalin; 20 September 1758 – 17 October 1806) was the first Haitian Emperor, leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 48

View profile Photo (modified): Louis Rigaud · Public domain

1833 · 193 yrs

Ernesto Teodoro Moneta

Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (Italian:; September 20, 1833 – February 10, 1918) was an Italian journalist, nationalist, revolutionary soldier and later a pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He adopted the motto In varietate unitas!

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MediaDied aged 84

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1842 · 184 yrs

James Dewar

Sir James Dewar ( DEW-ər; 20 September 1842 – 27 March 1923) was a Scottish chemist and physicist. He is best known for his invention of the vacuum flask, which he used in conjunction for his research into the liquefaction of gases.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 80

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1853 · 173 yrs

Chulalongkorn

Chulalongkorn (20 September 1853 – 23 October 1910), posthumously honoured as King Chulalongkorn the Great, was the fifth king of Siam from the Chakri dynasty, titled Rama V.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 57

View profile Photo (modified): Bain News Service, publisher. · Public domain

1872 · 154 yrs

Maurice Gamelin

Maurice Gustave Gamelin (French pronunciation:; 20 September 1872 – 18 April 1958) was a French general who served as head of the French Army from 1935 and as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies in France from the outbreak of the Second World War to his dismissal during the Battle of France in May 1940.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1878 · 148 yrs

Upton Sinclair

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 148

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1899 · 127 yrs

Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher and historian of philosophy whose work greatly influenced twentieth-century political theory in the United States and the study of classical political thought.

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PoliticsWould be 127

View profile Photo (modified): Monozigote · CC BY-SA 4.0

1900 · 126 yrs

Humberto Castelo Branco

Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco (20 September 1897 – 18 July 1967) was a Brazilian military officer and politician who served as the 26th president of Brazil, the first leader of the Brazilian military dictatorship following the 1964 coup d'état.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 126

View profile Photo (modified): Governo do Brasil · Public domain

1925 · 101 yrs

Ananda Mahidol

Ananda Mahidol (20 September 1925 – 9 June 1946) was the eighth king of Siam (later Thailand) from the Chakri dynasty, titled Rama VIII. At the time he was recognised as king by the National Assembly in March 1935, he went to Switzerland when he was nine years-old.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyWould be 101

View profile Photo (modified): กรมแผนที่ทหารบก (Royal Thai Army Survey Department) · Public domain

1934 · 92 yrs

Sophia Loren

Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (Italian:; born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren ( lə-REN, Italian:), is an Italian actress, active in her native country and the United States.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmAge 92

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown. Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images · Public domain

1940 · 86 yrs

Tarō Asō

Tarō Asō (麻生太郎, Asō Tarō; born 20 September 1940) is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2008 to 2009. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he also served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance from 2012 to 2021.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsAge 86

View profile Photo (modified): Cabinet Public Relations Office of the Cabinet Secretariat · CC BY 4.0

Showing 12 of 27

Famous deaths14

1576 · 450 yrs

Gerolamo Cardano

Gerolamo Cardano (Italian:; also Girolamo or Geronimo; French: Jérôme Cardan; Latin: Hieronymus Cardanus; 24 September 1501– 21 September 1576) was an Italian polymath whose interests and proficiencies ranged through those of mathematician, physician, biologist, physicist, chemist, astrologer, astronomer, philosopher,…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY 4.0

1863 · 163 yrs

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Siegmund Friedlaender · Public domain

1898 · 128 yrs

Theodor Fontane

Theodor Fontane (German pronunciation:; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Carl Breitbach · Public domain

1933 · 93 yrs

Annie Besant

Annie Besant (née Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was an English socialist, theosophist, freemason, educationist, and activist involved in women's rights, Home Rule, and Indian nationalism. She gave support to both Irish and Indian self-rule.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1942 · 84 yrs

Kārlis Ulmanis

Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis (Latvian:; 4 September 1877 – 20 September 1942) was a Latvian politician and dictator.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 149

View profile Photo (modified): Bain News Service, publisher · Public domain

1957 · 69 yrs

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius (Finland Swedish:; born Johan Christian Julius Sibelius; 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early modern periods.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 91

View profile Photo (modified): Paul Heckscher · Public domain

1975 · 51 yrs

Saint-John Perse

Alexis Leger (French:; 31 May 1887 – 20 September 1975), better known by his pseudonym Saint-John Perse (also Saint-Leger Leger), was a French poet, writer and diplomat, awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 139

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown · Public domain

1979 · 47 yrs

Ludvík Svoboda

Ludvík Svoboda (Czech pronunciation:; 25 November 1895 – 20 September 1979) was a Czech general and politician. He fought in both World Wars, for which he was regarded as a national hero, and he later served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1975.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 130

View profile Photo (modified): Anonymous Unknown author · Public domain

1993 · 33 yrs

Erich Hartmann

Erich Alfred Hartmann (19 April 1922 – 20 September 1993), nicknamed Bubi, was a German fighter pilot during World War II and the most successful fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare. He flew 1,404 combat missions and participated in aerial combat on 825 separate occasions.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 104

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1996 · 30 yrs

Paul Erdős

Paul Erdős (Hungarian: Erdős Pál; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 113

View profile Photo (modified): Topsy Kretts · CC BY 3.0

1999 · 27 yrs

Raisa Gorbacheva

Raisa Maximovna Gorbacheva (née Titarenko; 5 January 1932 – 20 September 1999) was a Soviet and Russian activist and philanthropist who was the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 94

View profile Photo (modified): Yuryi Abramochkin / Юрий Абрамочкин · CC BY-SA 3.0

2000 · 26 yrs

Gherman Titov

Gherman Stepanovich Titov (Russian: Герман Степанович Титов; 11 September 1935 – 20 September 2000) was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut who, on 6 August 1961, became the second human to orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 2, preceded by Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

SpaceWould be 91

View profile Photo (modified): John F. Kennedy, Gherman Titov,.jpg : Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs · Public domain

Showing 12 of 14

Events5

1066 · 960 yrs

Battle of Fulford

The Battle of Fulford was fought on the outskirts of the village of Fulford, just south of York in England, on 20 September 1066. King Harald III of Norway, also known as Harald Hardrada, a claimant to the English throne, and Tostig Godwinson, his English ally, fought and defeated the Northern Earls Edwin and Morcar.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1187 · 839 yrs

Conquest of Jerusalem

The siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to the forces of the Ayyubid Sultanate under sultan Saladin. Earlier that summer, Egyptian forces under Saladin had defeated the kingdom's army and conquered several cities.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1792 · 234 yrs

Battle of Valmy

The Battle of Valmy, also known as the Cannonade of Valmy, was the first major victory by the army of France during the Revolutionary Wars that followed the French Revolution. The battle took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1854 · 172 yrs

Battle of Alma

The Battle of the Alma (short for Battle of the Alma River) took place during the Crimean War between an allied expeditionary force (made up of French, British, and Ottoman forces) and Russian forces defending the Crimean Peninsula on 20 September 1854. The allies had made a surprise landing in Crimea on 14 September.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2017 · 9 yrs

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the ultimate goal being their total elimination.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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