TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 20
1505 Jews are expelled from Orange Burgundy by Philibert of Luxembourg
1769 Ottawa Chief Pontiac is murdered by an Indian in Cahokia
1775 British troops begin the siege of Boston.
1836 The Territory of Wisconsin is created.
1841 Edgar Allen Poe’s first detective story is published.
1862 First pasteurization test completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard
1879 The first mobile home (horse-drawn) is used in a journey from London to Cyprus.
1914 33 killed by soldiers during mine strike in Ludlow CO
1914 US President W Wilson, having dispatched more naval ships to Mexico, asks a joint session of Congress to approve armed force if necessary; Congress approves
1920 Balfour Declaration recognized, makes Palestine a British Mandate
1926 1st check sent by radio facsimile transmission across the Atlantic
1940 The first electron microscope is demonstrated.
1942 Pierre Laval, the premier of Vichy France, in a radio broadcast, establishes a policy of “true reconciliation with Germany.”
1962 The New Orleans Citizens Committee gives free one-way ride to blacks to move North.
1965 People’s Republic China offers North Vietnam military aid
1971 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the practice of busing for racial desegregation.
1977 Supreme Court rules “Live Free or Die” may be covered on New Hampshire licenses
1978 Soviet air defense shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 902
1979 President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit which swam up to his fishing boat in Plains, Georgia
1980 Climax of Berber Spring in Algeria sees hundreds of Berber political activists arrested
1983 President Reagan signs a $165B bail out for Social Security
1987 US deports Karl Linnas, charged with nazi war crimes, to USSR
1993 Uranus passes Neptune (this occurs once every 171 years)
1999 Two students enter Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and open fire with multiple firearms, killing 13 students and teachers, wounding 25 and eventually shooting themselves.
2007 Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2010 The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes, killing 11 and causing the rig to sink, causing a massive oil discharge into the Gulf of Mexico and an environmental diaster
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
