Also on this day
Lead Story
1911
On this day in 1911, a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends the first telegram around the world via commercial service. Exactly 66 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sends a different kind of message–a phonograph record containing information about Earth for extraterrestrial beings–shooting into...
American Revolution
1794
On this day in 1794, General “Mad Anthony” Wayne proves that the fragile young republic can counter a military threat when he puts down Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket’s confederacy near present-day Toledo, Ohio, with the newly created 3,000-man strong Legion of the United States at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.
Although...
Automotive
2004
On August 20, 2004, 83 tow trucks roll through the streets of Wenatchee, Washington, in an event arranged by the Washington Tow Truck Association (WTTA). “The Guinness Book of World Records” dubbed it the world’s largest parade of tow trucks.
According to the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame...
Civil War
1862
New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley publishes a passionate editorial calling on President Abraham Lincoln to declare emancipation for all slaves in Union-held territory. Greeley’s blistering words voiced the impatience of many Northern abolitionists; but unbeknownst to Greeley and the public, Lincoln was already moving in the direction of emancipation.
In...
Cold War
1968
In the face of rising anti-Soviet protests in Czechoslovakia, Soviet troops (backed by troops from other Warsaw Pact nations) intervene to crush the protest and restore order. The brutal Soviet action shocked the West and dealt a devastating blow to U.S.-Soviet relations.
The troubles in Czechoslovakia began when Alexander Dubcek took...
Crime
1989
Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their parents, Jose and Kitty, to death in the den of the family’s Beverly Hills, California, home. They then drove up to Mulholland Drive, where they dumped their shotguns before continuing to a local movie theater to buy tickets as an alibi. When the pair...
Disaster
1995
A collision between two trains in northern India kills 358 people on this day in 1995. It was the worst train accident in the country’s history, eclipsing a deadly 1981 accident. Both of the killer crashes involved cows. Due to the special significance of the cow in the Hindu religion,...
General Interest
1940
Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer–Ramón Mercader–was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day.Born in the Ukraine of Russian-Jewish parents in 1879, Trotsky embraced...
1968
On the night of August 20, 1968, approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring”–a brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public demonstrations and other non-violent tactics, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks....
1982
During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. It was the beginning of a problem-plagued mission that would stretch into 17 months and leave 262 U.S. servicemen dead.In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon,...
Hollywood
1918
On this day in 1918, Jacqueline Susann, the author of Valley of the Dolls, the 1966 mega-hit novel about the showbiz lives of three women (reportedly modeled in part after Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly), is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Like her characters in Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline...
Literary
1918
Bestselling author Jacqueline Susann is born on this day in Philadelphia to a schoolteacher mother and artist father.
Susann moved to New York in her 20s to work as a model and actress. She played minor roles in a score of Broadway plays and later tried her luck in Hollywood, with...
2013
On this day in 2013, the prolific, best-selling author Elmore Leonard, whose crime novels include “Get Shorty,” “Rum Punch” and “Out of Sight,” dies at age 87 in Bloomfield Village, Michigan. Known for his pitch-perfect dialogue, sparse prose and offbeat characters, Leonard penned dozens of novels and short stories, a...
Music
1977
As children, they called themselves the Heavenly Sunbeams, and no name could have been more appropriate to their sound. Their smash hit, “Best Of My Love,” which topped the Billboard pop chart on this day in 1977, was one of the biggest, most spine-tingling hits of the disco era, and...
Old West
1804
Sergeant Charles Floyd dies three months into the voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, becoming the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die during the journey.
Lewis and Clark left St. Louis the previous May, heading up the Missouri River with a party of 35 men, called the...
Presidential
1833
On this day in 1833, future President Benjamin Harrison is born in North Bend, Ohio.
Politics had long been the Harrison family business. At the time of his birth, Harrison’s father was serving Ohio in the United States House of Representatives, while his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was serving as a...
Sports
1920
On this day in 1920, seven men, including legendary all-around athlete and football star Jim Thorpe, meet to organize a professional football league at the Jordan and Hupmobile Auto Showroom in Canton, Ohio. The meeting led to the creation of the American Professional Football Conference (APFC), the forerunner to the...
Vietnam War
1954
President Eisenhower approves a National Security Council paper titled “Review of U.S. Policy in the Far East.” This paper supported Secretary of State Dulles’ view that the United States should support Diem, while encouraging him to broaden his government and establish more democratic institutions. Ultimately, however, Diem would...
1971
General Duong Van Minh and Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, fellow candidates for the October presidential election, accuse incumbent President Nguyen Van Thieu of rigging the election and withdraw from the race.
In the United States, the FBI began investigating journalist Daniel Schorr, who was targeted by the Nixon administration because...
1974
In the wake of Nixon’s resignation, Congress reduces military aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion to $700 million. This was one of several actions that signaled the North Vietnamese that the United States was backing away from its commitment to South Vietnam.
World War I
1932
On this day in 1932, in Flanders, Belgium, the German artist Kathe Kollwitz unveils the monument she created to memorialize her son, Peter, along with the hundreds of thousands of other soldiers killed on the battlefields of the Western Front during World War I.
Born in 1867 in Koningsberg, East Prussia,...
World War II
1944
On this day in 1944, 60 British soldiers, commanded by Major Roy Farran, fight their way east from Rennes toward Orleans, through German-occupied forest, forcing the Germans to retreat and aiding the French Resistance in its struggle for liberation. Code-named Operation Wallace, this push east was just another nail in...
