December 20 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 11 days remaining until the end of the year. There are only 5 days left till Christmas.
Holidays
- Abolition of Slavery Day, also known as Fête des Cafres (Réunion, French Guiana)
- Bo Aung Kyaw Day (Myanmar)
- Christian Feast Day:
- Earliest date for Winter solstice‘s eve (Northern Hemisphere), and its related observances:
- International Human Solidarity Day (International)
- Macau Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (Macau)
In 69, Vespasian, formerly a general under Nero, enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor.
In 217, The papacy of Zephyrinus ends. Callixtus I is elected as the sixteenth pope, but is opposed by the theologian Hippolytus who accuses him of laxity and of being a Modalist, one who denies any distinction between the three persons of the Trinity.
In 1192, Richard I of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the Third Crusade.
In 1522, Siege of Rhodes: Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta.
In 1606, The Virginia Company loads three ships with settlers and sets sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
In 1803, The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans, Louisiana.
In 1808, Peninsular War: The Siege of Zaragoza begins.
In 1860, South Carolina becomes the first state to attempt to secede from the United States.
In 1893, The end of one of the most dramatic Test Matches of all time. In the first to involve six days of play, England became the first team to win one after following on at Sydney.
In 1915, World War I: The last Australian troops are evacuated from Gallipoli.
In 1917, Cheka, the first Soviet secret police force, is founded.
In 1924, Adolf Hitler is released from Landsberg Prison
In 1941, World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the “Flying Tigers” in Kunming, China. The American Volunteer Groups were volunteer air units organized by the United States government to aid the Nationalist government of China against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The only unit to actually see combat was the 1st AVG, popularly known as the Flying Tigers.
In 1942, World War II: Japanese air forces bomb Calcutta, India.
In 1946, The popular Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life is first released in New York, New York.
In 1951, The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity. The electricity powered four light bulbs.
In 1952, A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns in Moses Lake, Washington killing 87.
In 1955, Cardiff is proclaimed the capital city of Wales, United Kingdom.
In 1957, The initial production version of the Boeing 707 makes its first flight.
In 1959, Unknown attackers murder the Walker family in Osprey, Florida.
In 1960, The National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam is formed.
In 1967, A Pennsylvania Railroad Metroliner reaches over the limit of 155 mph on their New York Division, also present day Amtrak‘s Northeast Corridor.
In 1968, The Zodiac Killer kills Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, California.
In 1971, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto takes over as the fourth President of Pakistan.
In 1973, Bobby Darin, (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor of film and television. He performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock’n’roll, jazz, folk, and country died this day.
He started his career as a songwriter for Connie Francis. He recorded his first million-selling single, “Splish Splash“, in 1958. That was followed by “Dream Lover“, “Mack the Knife“, and “Beyond the Sea“, which brought him worldwide fame. In 1962 he won a Golden Globe Award for his first film, Come September, co-starring his first wife, actress Sandra Dee.
In 1973, The Prime Minister of Spain, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.
In 1976, Richard J. Daley, American politician, 48th Mayor of Chicago (b. 1902) died.
In 1977, Djibouti and Vietnam join the United Nations.
In 1984, The Summit Tunnel fire is the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million liters of gasoline derails near the town of Todmorden, England in the Pennines.
In 1985, Pope John Paul II announces the institution of World Youth Day.
In 1987, In the worst peacetime sea disaster, the passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker Vector in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, killing an estimated 4,000 people (1,749 official).
In 1988, The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed in Vienna, Austria.
In 1989, United States invasion of Panama: The United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega. This is also the first combat use of purpose-designed stealth aircraft.
In 1991, A Missouri court sentences the Palestinian militant Zein Isa and his wife Maria to death for the honor killing of their daughter Palestina.
In 1991, Paul Keating sworn in as the 24th Prime Minister of Australia after defeating Bob Hawke in a leadership ballot of the Australian Labor Party.
In 1994, Dean Rusk, American diplomat, 54th United States Secretary of State (b. 1909) died. He served as the United States Secretary of State from 1961 to 1969 under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Rusk is the joint-second-longest serving U.S. Secretary of State of all time, behind only Cordell Hull and tied with William H. Seward.
In 1995, NATO begins peacekeeping in Bosnia.
In 1995, American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757, crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali, Colombia killing 159.
In 1996, NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.
In 1999, Macau is handed over to China by Portugal.
In 2004, A gang of thieves steal £26.5 million worth of currency from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, one of the largest bank robberies in British history.
In 2005, Aleksandër Moisiu University was founded in Durrës, Albania.
In 2007, Elizabeth II becomes the oldest monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.
In 2007, The Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and O Lavrador de Café by Brazilian modernist painter Candido Portinari, are stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art.
In 2007, Nine states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — have no broad-based state income tax. Residents were once allowed to deduct their state and local sales tax payments from federal income tax returns. In the Democrats controlled House and Senate, and under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid taxpayers in those nine states are about to be hit with a collective tax increase of over ten billion dollars. The average family in each those states – including Tennessee — will send about $551 a year more to Washington thanks to the current Congressional leadership. Some people say “there’s not a dimes worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats.” They are right, because for Tennessee taxpayers the difference is actually over $1.5 BILLION DOLLARS! Thank You Democrat Party……
In 2012, Larry L. King, an American journalist, author, and playwright (b. 1929) died. He was best remembered for his 1978 Tony Award-nominated play The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which became a long-running production on Broadway and was later turned into a feature film starring Burt Reynolds, Charles Durning and Dolly Parton
