A Brief History
This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 20th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event.
Digging Deeper
On either August 20 or September 8-10, 480 BC, the Persians defeated the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae.
On August 20, 1858, naturalist Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution, the change of organisms over time through mutation and natural selection, in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.
On August 20, 1882, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture made its debut in Moscow.
On August 20, 1938, Yankees’ first baseman and “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig hit his 23rd Grand Slam of his career, a monumental major league baseball record that stood for 75 years until topped by Alex Rodriguez.
On August 20, 1940, communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico by agents of Joseph Stalin.
On August 20, 1940, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the war-torn United Kingdom, delivered one of his most stirring wartime speeches, one that hailed the efforts of the Royal Air Force (RAF), known from then on and forever after as “The Few.”
On August 20, 1977, the United States space probe, Voyager 2 was launched with the mission of studying the outer portions of our solar system and then becoming the first (with its sister ship, Voyager 1, actually launched two weeks later) man made object to enter inter-stellar space.
On August 20, 1995, a horrific rail accident occurred on India’s Northern Railway.
On August 20, 2008, the results of the internet voting of which top locations should be included in Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition were announced.
As of August 20, 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported a total of 2,615 suspected cases and 1,427 deaths (1,528 cases and 844 deaths being laboratory confirmed) in an epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) that is ongoing in West Africa.
On August 20, 2020, we finally got around to watching the third installment in the Deep Blue Sea movie franchise, the aptly named Deep Blue Sea 3.
Question for students (and subscribers): Which event that occurred on today’s date would you like to learn more about? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Andrews, John and Matt Baker. Timeline of World History. Thunder Bay Press, 2020.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
