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Historical Events

20 Mar 1345
Saturn Jupiter and Mars-conjunction thought cause of plague epidemic
20 Mar 1525
Paris parliament begins pursuit of Protestants
20 Mar 1569
Duke of Alva leads tenth penning in Les Ponts de C
20 Mar 1600
The Linkping Bloodbath takes place on Maundy Thursday in Linkping Sweden
20 Mar 1627
France & Spain sign accord for fighting protestantism
20 Mar 1697
Willem de Vlamingh returns to Batavia after exploring South Land
20 Mar 1703
Ak incident 46 of the 47 surviving Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their masters death in Edo
20 Mar 1739
Iranian ruler Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city stealing the jewels of the Peacock Throne
20 Mar 1774
The British parliament passes first of the Intolerable Acts the Boston Port Act which closed Boston harbor until colonists would pay for damages following the Boston Tea Party
20 Mar 1800
French army defeats Turks at Helipolis & advance to Cairo
20 Mar 1813
Lady Hester Stanhope sets out for ancient city of Palmyra the first western woman to visit
20 Mar 1814
Prince Willem Frederik becomes monarch of Netherlands
20 Mar 1816
US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions
20 Mar 1861
An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza Argentina
20 Mar 1865
2nd day of Battle of Bentonville North Carolina
20 Mar 1883
Unity treaty of Paris signed protects industrial property
20 Mar 1885
Jan Ernst Matzeliger received patent number 274207 for his lasting machine which creates wood or stone molds of customers feet
20 Mar 1885
Yiddish theater opens in NY with Golldfaden operetta
20 Mar 1886
1st AC power plant in US begins commercial operation in Massachusetts
20 Mar 1888
Start of the Sherlock Holmes Adventure A Scandal in Bohemia
20 Mar 1888
The premiere of the very first Romani language operetta staged in Moscow Russia.
20 Mar 1891
53rd Grand National Irish jockey trainer Harry Beasley wins aboard 41 Come Away
20 Mar 1892
54th Grand National Capt. Roddy Owen wins aboard 201 chance Father OFlynn
20 Mar 1896
Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
20 Mar 1897
1st US orthodox Jewish Rabbinical seminary (RIETS) incorporates in NY
20 Mar 1897
France signs treaty with Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia
20 Mar 1900
US Secretary of State John Hay announces that all nations to whom he sent notes calling for an open door policy in China have essentially accepted his stand
20 Mar 1902
France and Russia issue a joint declaration that approves the Anglo-Japanese Alliance but stipulates that they have the right to protect interests in China and Korea
20 Mar 1911
National Squash Tennis Association forms (NYC)
20 Mar 1911
Winter Garden Theater opens at 1634 Broadway NYC
20 Mar 1914
1st international figure-skating tournament held in US New Haven
20 Mar 1920
1st flight from London to South Africa lands (took 1 months)
20 Mar 1920
Australasian Championships Mens Tennis Adelaide Pat OHara Wood beats fellow Australian Ronald Thomas 6-3 4-6 6-8 6-1 6-3
20 Mar 1921
Upper Silesia votes for amalgamation with Germany in a plebiscite that is 63% in favor
20 Mar 1922
USS Langley is commissioned US Navys 1st aircraft carrier
20 Mar 1922
WIP-AM in Philadelphia PA begins radio transmissions
20 Mar 1923
Bavarian minister of interior refuses to forbid Nazi Sturm Abteilung
20 Mar 1923
Belgian Senate rejects Dutch University in Ghent
20 Mar 1924
Finnair begins scheduled flight of Helsinki-Tallinn
20 Mar 1930
Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 129.39 kph
20 Mar 1931
Bishop Schreiber warns against national-socialism in Berlin
20 Mar 1932
Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Region in RSFSR becomes Kara-Kalpak ASSR
20 Mar 1933
Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp is completed
20 Mar 1934
Rudolf Kuhnold demonstrates radar in Kiel Germany
20 Mar 1934
American all-round female super athlete Babe Didrikson Zaharias pitches a hitless inning for Philadelphia As in their exhibition pre-season baseball game against Brooklyn Dodgers
20 Mar 1939
7000 Jews flee German occupied Memel Lithuania
20 Mar 1942
Convoy PQ13 departs Reykjavik Iceland to Russia
20 Mar 1944
Bus falls off bridge into Passaic River NJ killing 16
20 Mar 1945
US 70th Infantry division and 7th Armour division attack Saar
20 Mar 1947
180 tonne blue whale (record) caught in South Atlantic
20 Mar 1948
1st live televised musical Eugene Ormandy on CBS followed in 90
20 Mar 1948
102nd Grand National 501 chance Sheilas Cottage first mare to win the GN for 46 years ridden by Irish jockey Arthur Thompson
20 Mar 1951
Indonesian army offensive against Darul Islam on Java
20 Mar 1951
Fujiyoshida a city located in Yamanashi Prefecture Japan in the center of the Japanese main island of Honsh is founded
20 Mar 1952
Final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan by US Senate
20 Mar 1954
King & I closes at St James Theater NYC after 1246 performances
20 Mar 1954
16th NCAA Mens Basketball Championship La Salle beats Bradley 92-76
20 Mar 1954
1st newspaper vending machine used (Columbia Pennsylvania)
20 Mar 1955
KXTV TV channel 10 in Sacramento CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
20 Mar 1956
E Ochab succeeds Beirut as 1st secretary of Polish CP
20 Mar 1956
Mount Bezymianny on Kamchatka Peninsula (USSR) explodes
20 Mar 1956
Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp
20 Mar 1957
Britain accepts NATO offer to mediate in Cyprus but Greece rejects it
20 Mar 1958
Clandestine Burasi Bizim Radio (communist) begins transmitting
20 Mar 1958
Greek Clandestine Radio (communist) Voice of Truth 1st transmission
20 Mar 1962
Sjoukje Dijkstra becomes world champion figure skater
20 Mar 1964
ESRO established European Space Research Organization
20 Mar 1965
27th NCAA Mens Basketball Championship UCLA beats Michigan 91-80
20 Mar 1965
10th Eurovision Song Contest France Gall of Luxembourg wins singing Poupee de cire poupee de son written by Serge Gainsbourg in Naples
20 Mar 1965
Wales misses out on a 4th Grand Slam after losing to France 22-13 at Stade Colombes Paris despite winning the Five Nations Rugby Championship
20 Mar 1967
WOET (now WPTD) TV channel 16 in Dayton OH (PBS) begins broadcasting
20 Mar 1968
Military intervene in South-Yemen (leftist ministers resign)
20 Mar 1971
Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark resigns in protest at what he views as a limited security response by the British government
20 Mar 1972
19 mountain climbers killed on Japans Mount Fuji during an avalanche
20 Mar 1972
S Mansholt succeeds Malfatti as chairman of European Committee
20 Mar 1972
Donegall Street bombing the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonate its first car bomb on Donegall Street in Belfast four civilians two RUC officers and a UDR soldier killed while 148 people were wounded
20 Mar 1973
NBC TV premiere of pilot episode of Police Story based on Los Angeles Police Dept. Joseph Wambaughs writings
20 Mar 1974
The Super Cops directed by Gordon Parks premieres in NYC New York
20 Mar 1976
Jevgeni Kulikov skates world record 1000m (115.70)
20 Mar 1977
Communists and socialists win French municipal elections
20 Mar 1977
Parisians elect former PM Jacques Chirac as 1st mayor in a century
20 Mar 1977
PGA Tournament Players Championship Sawgrass CC Mark Hayes wins in windy conditions 2 strokes ahead of runner-up Mike McCullough
20 Mar 1978
Flyers Rick MacLeash scores on 6th penalty shot against Islanders
20 Mar 1979
Columbia flies on Shuttle carrier aircraft to Kennedy Space Center
20 Mar 1980
The Mi Amigo ship containing Englands pirate radio Caroline sinks
20 Mar 1980
US appeals to International Court on hostages in Iran
20 Mar 1981
Argentine ex-president Isabel Peron sentenced to 8 years
20 Mar 1981
Jean Harris sentenced 15-to-life for slaying of Scarsdale Diet Dr
20 Mar 1982
1st-class debut of Richie Richardson Leeward Is v Barbados
20 Mar 1982
Joan Jett & Blackhearts I Love Rock n Roll goes 1 for 7 weeks
20 Mar 1982
Rev A Treurnicht forms Conservative Party of South Africa
20 Mar 1984
Andy Kaufman & Fred Blassies My Breakfast With Blassie premieres
20 Mar 1984
Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
20 Mar 1984
Nigerian Major-General Babatunde Idiagbon launches a campaign on National Consciousness and Enlightenment
20 Mar 1985
Libby Riddles is 1st woman to win Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race
20 Mar 1986
228 KPH gust of wind strikes Cairngorm (UK record)
20 Mar 1986
New York City passes its first lesbian and gay rights legislation
20 Mar 1987
Soviet filmmakers arrive in Hollywood for an entertainment summit
20 Mar 1987
Yvonne van Gennip skates ladies world record 5 km (720.36)
20 Mar 1988
David Henry Hwangs M. Butterfly premieres in NYC
20 Mar 1988
Eritrean War of Independence Having defeated the Nadew Command the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front enters the town of Afabet victoriously concluding the Battle of Afabet.
20 Mar 1989
Richard J Kerr replaces Robert M Gates as deputy director of CIA
20 Mar 1991
Court awards Peggy Lee 3 million in suit against Disney
20 Mar 1991
Supreme Court rules unanimously employers cant exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage fetus
20 Mar 1992
Janice Pennington is awarded 1.3M for accident on Price is Right set
20 Mar 1993
Dan Jansen skates world record 500m (36.02 sec)
20 Mar 1993
IRA-bomb kills 3 year old in Warrington England
20 Mar 1994
Cyrano - The Musical closes at Neil Simon NYC after 137 performances
20 Mar 1994
Flowering Peach opens at Lyceum Theater NYC for 41 performances
20 Mar 1994
No Mans Land closes at Criterion Theater NYC after 61 performances
20 Mar 1994
14th Golden Raspberry Awards Indecent Proposal wins
20 Mar 1994
Brett Hart wins WWF championship at Wrestlemania X at Madison Square Garden New York
20 Mar 1994
El Salvadors 1st presidential election following 12-year-old civil war
20 Mar 1994
Laura Davies wins LPGA Standard Register Ping Golf Tournament
20 Mar 1994
Mashonaland U-24 beat Matabeleland on 1st inning to win Logan Cup
20 Mar 1994
Zulu-king Goodwill Zwelithini founds realm in South Africa
20 Mar 1995
Poison Gas released in Tokyo subway 12 killed 4700 injured
20 Mar 1996
Love Thy Neighbor opens at Booth Theater NYC
20 Mar 1996
Erik & Lyle Menendez found guilty of killing their parents
20 Mar 1996
UK admits humans can catch CJD (Mad Cow Disease)
20 Mar 1997
Play On opens at Brooks Atkinson Theater NYC for 61 performances
20 Mar 1997
Mens Figure Skating Championship in Lausanne won by Elvis Stojko (CAN)
20 Mar 1999
Legoland California the first Legoland outside of Europe opens in Carlsbad California
20 Mar 1999
19th Golden Raspberry Awards An Alan Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn wins
20 Mar 2000
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown is captured after a gun battle that leaves a Georgia sheriffs deputy dead
20 Mar 2001
Petrobras 36 Oil Platform the worlds largest oil rig sinks with 400000 US gallons of fuel and crude oil aboard after suffering three explosions on March 15
20 Mar 2005
A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka Japan its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed hundreds are injured and evacuated.
20 Mar 2006
Cyclone Larry makes landfall in eastern Australia destroying most of the countrys banana crop.
20 Mar 2006
Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby.
20 Mar 2010
56th National Film Awards (India) Antaheen wins the Golden Lotus
20 Mar 2010
France edges England 12-10 at Stade de France Saint Denis to complete a Grand Slam and win the Six Nations Rugby Championship Frances 17th title
20 Mar 2012
50 people are killed and 240 injured in a wave of terror attacks across 10 cities in Iraq
20 Mar 2012
Disney movie John Carter records one of the largest losses in cinema history with a 200 million dollar write down
20 Mar 2013
Pierre Deligne wins the Abel Prize in mathematics
20 Mar 2017
Indian rivers Yamuna and the Ganges declared living entities by court in the state of Uttarakhand
20 Mar 1885
Yiddish theater opens in NY with Goldfaden operetta
20 Mar 1937
England beats Scotland 6-3 at Murrayfield Edinburgh to clinch the Home Nations Rugby Championship and Triple Crown
20 Mar 1944
2500 women trample guards and floorwalkers to purchase 1500 alarm clocks announced for sale in a Chicago Illinois department store
20 Mar 1949
LPGA Titleholders Championship Womens Golf Augusta CC Amateur Peggy Kirk wins her only major title by 2 strokes from Patty Berg and Dorothy Kirby
20 Mar 1954
16th NCAA Mens Basketball Championship La Salle beats Bradley 92-76 Explorers small forward Tom Gola is named tournament Most Outstanding Player
20 Mar 1965
27th NCAA Mens Basketball Championship UCLA beats Michigan 91-80 Bruins back-to-back National titles Gail Goodrich 42 points
20 Mar 1982
France beats Ireland 22-9 at the Parc des Princes Paris but the Irish take the Five Nations Rugby Championship with a 3-1 record and also their 5th Triple Crown
20 Mar 1993
France beats Wales 26-10 at Parc des Princes Paris for its 10th outright Five Nations Rugby Championship
20 Mar 1994
WrestleMania X Madison Square Garden NYC Bret Hart beats Yokozuna to win WWF Championship
20 Mar 1997
World Mens Figure Skating Championship in Lausanne won by Elvis Stojko of Canada
20 Mar 1890
General Federation of Womens Clubs founded in the United States
20 Mar 1945
US 70th Infantry Division captures Saarbrucken immediately prior the invasion of Germany by the western Allies
20 Mar 1995
Members of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo release sarin gas on three lines of the Tokyo subway killing 13 people and injuring over 1000
20 Mar 2013
First Breakthrough Prizes worlds most generous science prize worth 3 million awarded in Mathematics Life Sciences and Physics established by Julia and Yuri Milner
20 Mar 1948
1st live televised symphony performances Eugene Ormandy leads Philadelphia Orchestra on CBS followed 90 minutes later by Arturo Toscanini leading the NBC Orchestra on NBC
20 Mar 1956
Edward Ochab succeeds Bolesaw Bierut as 1st secretary of the Polish Communist Party
20 Mar 1956
Mount Bezymianny on Kamchatka Peninsula (USSR) erupts
20 Mar 1956
Tunisia gains independence from France when the Protocol agreement signed between the two countries
20 Mar 1982
Rev Andries Treurnicht forms Conservative Party of South Africa
20 Mar 1984
Andy Kaufman and Fred Blassies film My Breakfast With Blassie premieres
20 Mar 1984
US Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
20 Mar 1997
Cheryl L. West and Shelden Epps musical Play On an adaptation of Shakespeares Twelfth Night set in 1940s Harlem featuring music of Duke Ellington opens at Brooks Atkinson Theatre NYC runs for 61 performances
20 Mar 1854
Anti-slavery activists within the US Whig political party opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act form new Republican Party notable politicians who switched allegiance include Abraham Lincoln Rutherford B. Hayes Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison
20 Mar 1854
Boston Public Library opens in Boston Massachusetts as the first large free municipal library in the US [1]
20 Mar 1958
50 inches of snow falls across the MasonDixon line
20 Mar 1697
Dutch sea captain Willem de Vlamingh returns to Batavia after exploring South Land (west coast of Australia)
20 Mar 1883
Jan Matzeliger receives his 1st patent (number 274207) for shoe lasting machine which mechanized shoe production
20 Mar 1885
Yiddish theater opens in New York City with an operetta by Abraham Goldfaden
20 Mar 1930
American engine builder Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 80.4 mph (129.39 kph)
20 Mar 1993
IRA-bomb kills 3-year-old in Warrington England
20 Mar 2019
A woman who can smell Parkinsons disease has helped researchers identify molecules on the skin of people with the disease in Manchester England
20 Mar 2019
Finland is the worlds happiest country South Sudan is worlds least happy according to annual World Happiness Report
20 Mar 2019
Four men arrested in South Korea for secretly filming 1600 hotel guests and selling the footage via a website
20 Mar 2019
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts calls the states flooding the most widespread destruction we have ever seen in our states history
20 Mar 2020
India hangs four men for 2012 gang rape and murder of woman on a bus in New Delhi countrys first hanging since 2013
20 Mar 2020
Smoke from Australian bushfires killed more people than the fires - 417 vs 33 according to new study published in Medical Journal of Australia
20 Mar 2021
Miami Beach imposes a state of emergency and a curfew as large crowds descend on the area for spring break
20 Mar 2021
Overseas spectators will not be allowed to attend the Tokyo Summer Olympics due to the pandemic Japanese organizers confirm
20 Mar 2021
Severe one-in-a-hundred-year flooding in Sydney and the surrounding state of New South Wales prompts evacuation orders
20 Mar 2022
Intense fighting in Ukrainian city of Mariupol continues as Russian forces encircle the city trapping 300000 people [1]
20 Mar 2023
Somalian drought may have killed 43000 people in 2022 half of them children under five according to new research presented by UNICEF in Mogadishu [1]
20 Mar 2023
Sri Lanka receives bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) worth 2.9bn amid its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948 [1]
20 Mar 2023
UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says world has less than a decade to stop catastrophic warming must reduce greenhouse gases by half by 2030 and cease adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by early 2050s [1]
20 Mar 1602
United Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) forms granted a monopoly in all Dutch sea-borne trade with Asia
20 Mar 1932
Legendary Australian race horse Phar Laps last race winning the Agua Caliente Handicap in Mexico in record time
20 Mar 1941
Exhibition Planning and Construction in the East opens in Berlin to showcase Generalplan Ost (plan for the East) German rural settlements after planned deportation of millions of Slavs [1]
20 Mar 1995
Dow Jones Industrial Average hits record 4083.68
20 Mar 2024
French mathematician Michel Talagrand awarded Abel prize for his work on probability theory and describing randomness [1]
20 Mar 2024
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar the countrys first gay and biracial taoiseach announces he is stepping down after serving 2017-2020 and since December 2022 [1]
20 Mar 1525
Parliament of Paris begins persecuting Protestants
20 Mar 1602
United Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) is formed and granted a monopoly on all Dutch sea-borne trade with Asia
20 Mar 1627
France and Spain sign an accord to fight Protestantism
20 Mar 1833
US and Siam sign the Treaty of Amity and Commerce establishing friendly relations and commerce between the two states
20 Mar 1854
Republican Party is formally organized in Ripon Wisconsin
20 Mar 1964
European Space Research Organization (ESRO) is established
20 Mar 1986
228 kmh gust of wind strikes Cairngorm (UK record)
20 Mar 1988
Battle of Afabet Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front enters the town of Afabet after defeating the Nadew Command during the Eritrean War of Independence
20 Mar 1996
Erik and Lyle Menendez are found guilty of killing their parents
20 Mar 1997
US tobacco company Liggett admits cigarettes are addictive
20 Mar 1999
Legoland California the first Legoland outside Europe opens in Carlsbad California
20 Mar 2005
Magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka Japan in its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed and hundreds are injured and evacuated
20 Mar 2006
Inaugural World Baseball Classic Japan wins the international tournament 10-6 over Cuba at Petco Park in San Diego California
20 Mar 2017
Indian rivers Yamuna and Ganges are declared living entities by a court in the state of Uttarakhand
20 Mar 2025
A wildfire ignites in Uiseong county South Korea burns for 10 days killing 30 people and destroying 4000 structures including UNESCO World Heritage sites [1]
20 Mar 2025
Former swimmer Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe is the first woman and the first African to be elected president of the International Olympic Committee [1]