July 20th in History

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong steps onto the surface of the Moon.

Today in History

  • The Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights begins (1848)
  • Ford ships its first automobile (1903)
  • Adolf Hitler survives the “Bomb Plot” assassination attempt (1944)*
  • Apollo 11 lands on the Moon (1969)
  • A mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, kills 12 and wounds 70 (2012)
  • The US and Cuba restore diplomatic relations after more than 50 years (2015)

* The “Bomb Plot” assassination attempt is the starting point for my alternate history novel with Douglas Niles, Fox on the Rhine.

Birthdays

  • Alexander the Great, conqueror (356 BCE)
  • Gregor Mendel, geneticist (1822)
  • Alberto Santos-Dumont, aviation pioneer (1873)
  • Edmund Hillary, first to climb Mount Everest (1919)
  • Alistair MacLeod, writer (1936)
  • Diana Rigg, actress (1938)
  • Natalie Wood, actress (1938)
  • Carlos Santana, musician (1947)

Deaths

  • Peregrine White, first Pilgrim child born in the New World (1704)
  • Andrey Markov, mathematician (1922)
  • Pancho Villa, Mexican general (1923)
  • Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the Soviet secret police (1926)
  • Guglielmo Marconi, inventor (1937)
  • Bruce Lee, actor and martial artist (1973)
  • James Doohan, played Scotty on Star Trek (2005)
  • Tammy Faye Bakker, evangelical talk show host (2007)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Engineer’s Day (Costa Rica)
  • Independence Day (Colombia)
  • International Chess Day
  • Lempira’s Day (Honduras)
  • National Ice Cream Sundae Day (US)
  • National Lollypop Day (US)
  • Tree Planting Day (Central African Republic)
  • World Jump Day

July 20 is the 201st day of the year (202nd in leap years). There are 164 days remaining until the end of the year.