Browse events, births, deaths and holidays on October 20 throughout history.
Mary Elizabeth Truss is a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day …
Liz Truss steps down as British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party amid the country's political…
BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission comprises two orbiters: the …
The BepiColombo spacecraft is launched on an Ariane 5 rocket to study Mercury.
The Syrian civil war was an armed conflict that began with the Syrian revolution in March 2011, when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggere…
Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declare victory in the Raqqa campaign.
The Libyan crisis is the current humanitarian crisis and political-military instability occurring in Libya, beginning with the Arab Spring protests of 2011, which led to two civil…
Libyan Crisis: Rebel forces capture Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mutassim in his hometown of Sirte and…
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and security through …
The general conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passes the…
The Sloan Great Wall (SGW) is a cosmic structure formed by a giant wall of galaxies. Its discovery was announced from Princeton University on October 20, 2003, by J. Richard Gott …
The Sloan Great Wall, once the largest cosmic structures known to humanity, is discovered by students at Princeton…
Top Gear is a British motoring-themed magazine television programme. It is a revival of the 1977–2001 show of the same name for the BBC, devised by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman…
Top Gear, the revived popular British TV motoring magazine, premieres on BBC.
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the …
Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-73.
The moment magnitude scale is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment. Mw was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori. Before Hank…
A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people.
A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the …
A massive firestorm breaks out in the hills of Oakland and Berkeley, California killing 25 people and destroying more…
Aeroflot Flight 6502 was a Soviet domestic passenger flight operated by a Tupolev Tu-134A from Sverdlovsk to Grozny via Kuibyshev, which crashed in Kuibyshev on 20 October 1986. 7…
Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashes while landing at Kuibyshev Airport (now Kuromoch International Airport) in Kuibyshev (now…
FC Spartak Moscow is a Russian professional football club based in Moscow. Having won 12 Soviet championships and 10 Russian championships, it is the country's most successful clu…
During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki…
The Brink's Company is an American cash handling company, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Its operations include cash-in-transit, ATM replenishment & maintenance, and cash ma…
Two police officers and a Brink's armored car guard are killed during an armed robbery carried out by members of the…
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964. The group originally formed as My Backyard and comprised Ronnie Van Zant (vocals), Gary Rossingto…
A plane carrying the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in woodland in Mississippi, United States. Six people, including…
The Luling–Destrehan Ferry was a ferry across the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana, connecting Luling and Destrehan. The ferry was one of three routes then operate…
The Luling–Destrehan Ferry MV George Prince is struck by the Norwegian freighter SS Frosta while crossing the…
The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives asso…
Watergate scandal: "Saturday Night Massacre": United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot…
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of t…
The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is divided into 33 province-level divisions, including two special administrative regions. Be…
China launches simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line, igniting the Sino-Indian War.
The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Uni…
The Soviet Navy performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a…
Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale, was Governor of Southern Rhodesia from 1942 to 1944, High Commissioner for Southern Africa from 1944 to 1951, and Governor of Kenya fr…
The Governor of Kenya Evelyn Baring declares a state of emergency and begins arresting hundreds of suspected leaders…