October 20 is the 293rd day of the year (292nd in leap years). There are 73 days remaining until the end of the year. (Photo: General Douglas MacArthur (center) wades ashore during the initial landings at Leyte, Philippine Islands, October 20, 1944.)

Today in History

• Notorious pirate Calico Jack is captured by the British Royal Navy (1720)
• The US Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase (1803)
• The US and UK sign a treaty that settles the Canadian-US border along the 49th parallel…for the most part. (But see this installment of Bizarre Borders for details.) (1818)
• General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines at the forefront of a US invasion (1944)
• The US House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigating Communist infiltration of Hollywood (1947)
• In the “Johnny Bright Incident,” white Oklahoma A&M football player Wilbanks Smith violently assaults Drake University African-American player Johnny Bright during the game (1951)
• Jacqueline Kennedy marries Αριστοτέλης Ωνάσης (Aristotle Onassis) (1968)
• Watergate Scandal: The “Saturday Night Massacre“ takes place (1973)
• The Sydney Opera House opens (1973)
• A plane carrying members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes, killing three band members (and two others), and seriously injuring the rest (1977)
• Members of the Black Liberation Army carry out an armed robbery of a Brinks armored car, killing two police officers and a Brinks guard (1981)

Birthdays

• Christopher Wren, architect (1632)
• Báb, founder of بابیه‎ (Bábism) (1819)
• Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s School Days (1822)
• Arthur Rimbaud, poet (1954)
• Charles Ives, composer (1874)
• Bela Lugosi, actor (1882)
• Margaret Dumont, Marx Brothers foil (1882)
• Jelly Roll Morton, pianist and bandleader (1885)
• Rex Ingram, actor (1895)
• Arlene Francis, game show regular (1907)
• Grandpa Jones, Hee Haw regular (1913)
• Art Buchwald, columnist (1925)
• Joyce Brothers, psychologist and media personality (1972)
• Mickey Mantle, baseball player (1931)
• Rosey Brown, football player (1932)
• Barrie Chase, dancer (1935)
• Jerry Orbach, actor (1935)
• Robert Pinsky, poet (1940)
• Earl Hindman, actor — next-door neighbor in the TV sitcom Home Improvement (1942)
• Lewis Grizzard, comedian and author (1946)
• Tom Petty, singer-songwriter (1950)
• Melanie Mayron, actress (1952)
• Keith Hernandez, baseball player (1953)
• Viggo Mortensen, actor (1958)
• Michelle Malkin, conservative columnist (1970)
• Snoop Dogg, rapper (1971)
• Eddie Jones, basketball player (1971)
• Dannii Minogue, singer-songriter (1971)
• John Krasinski, actor (1979)
• Candice Swanepoel, supermodel (1988)

Deaths

• Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer (1890)
• Eugene V. Debs, US Socialist Party presidential candidate (1926)
• Anne Sullivan, taught Helen Keller (1936)
• Henry L. Stimson, World War II US Secretary of War (1950)
• Herbert Hoover, 31st US President (1964)
• Paul Dirac, physicist and Nobel laureate (1984)
• Joel McCrea, actor (1990)
• Burt Lancaster, actor (1994)
• Jack Elam, actor (2003)
• Jane Wyatt, actress (2006)
• Bob Guccione, founded Penthouse magazine (2010)
• معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي (Muammar Gaddafi), Libyan “Brother Leader” (2011)

Holidays

• Birth of the Báb (Bahá’í )
• Change Your Oil Day (US, informal)
• International Day of the Air Traffic Controller (International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers)
• Kenyatta Day (Kenya, until 2010)
• Miss American Rose Day (Miss American Rose Pageants)
• Monster Mash Day (celebrating the day the 1962 hit song reached #1)
• National Brandied Fruit Day (US)
• Revolution Day (Guatemala)
• Spirit Day (GLAAD)
• Suspenders Day (US, informal)
• World Osteoporosis Day (International)