POPnews - July 20th

911 CE - The Viking Rollo laid siege to Chartres, giving the Franks under Richard, Duke of Burgundy, and France's Robert I a decisive victory; peace would be confirmed later in the fall with the Treaty of Saint Clair-sur-Epte, which Rollo signed with Charles the Simple.

1304 - Following the Fall of Stirling Castle (after the second of eight sieges in that castle's history) during the Wars of Scottish Independence England's King Edward I took the last rebel stronghold of the war.

1402 - During the Ottoman-Timurid Wars - at the Battle of Ankara - Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I.

1656 - Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeated the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led by Polish King John II Casimir at the Battle of Warsaw.

1917 - The Corfu Declaration - which led to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia - was signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.

1932 - Police fired tear gas at members of the Bonus Expeditionary Force - more commonly known as the Bonus Army, a group of First World War veterans who had been marching toward the White House - proving that the recent scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was no isolated event.

1944 - Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1947 - Police in Burma arrested former Prime Minister U Saw and 19 others on charges of assassinating Prime Minister U Aung San and seven members of his cabinet the previous day.

1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated by Palestinian Mustapha Shukri Usho while attending prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

1969 - Apollo 11 made a successful moon landing; seven years later to the day, Viking 1 would make its own successful landing, on Mars.

1976 - Hank Aaron hit his 755th home run, breaking Babe Ruth's 41-year-old record.

1982 - The Provisional IRA detonated two bombs - in London's Hyde Park and Regents Park - killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses.

1984 - The then-current Miss America, Vanessa Williams, was asked to resign her post when nude photographs of her appeared in Penthouse magazine. Unlike the vast majority of previous and subsequent scandal-free Misses America, Ms. Williams went on to have a successful career as an actor and recording artist in addition to marrying NBA superstar Rick Fox; she also famously appeared as Wilhelmina Slater in the smash hit sitcom Ugly Betty.

1987 - Larry Kramer, co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis, was appointed to a federal panel on AIDS by President Ronald Reagan; Kramer had previously been critical of the President's utterly predictable silence on the issue.

1989 - A show of photographs by the recently deceased yet still controversial artist Robert Mapplethorpe was held at Project for the Arts in Washington DC; the show had previously been slated for the Corcoran Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, but was canceled by them due to the nature of the works.

1992 - Václav Havel resigned as president of Czechoslovakia.

1999 - Calling it an 'evil cult', the government of the People's Republic of China outlawed Falun Gong, and began a systemic persecution of its practice and membership.

2005 - Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage when Bill C-38 received Royal Assent.

2006 - The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia brought about a war which is still raging.
*
share on: facebook