On This Day August 20th

 OTD

August 20th is the two-hundredth-thirty-second day of the year, and there are 133 days remaining until the end of the year.

 

Event

 1308 – Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.

1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola ends with the British's failure to capture Pensacola, Florida.

1794 – Northwest Indian War: United States troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

1852 – Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, losing at least 150 lives.

1858—Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

1882 – Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

1910 – Extreme fire weather in the Inland Northwest of the United States caused many small wildfires to merge into the Great Fire of 1910, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2) and killing 87 people.

1920 – The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio

1975 – Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

1991—Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rallied outside the Soviet Union's parliament building, protesting the coup that aimed to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.

 

Birthdays

 1561 – Jacopo Peri, Italian singer and composer (d. 1633)

1710 – Thomas Simpson, English mathematician and academic (d. 1761)

1847 – Bolesław Prus, Polish journalist and author (d. 1912)

1873 – Eliel Saarinen, Finnish architect and visionary, co-designed the National Museum of Finland (d. 1950)

1890 – H. P. Lovecraft, American short story writer, editor, novelist (d. 1937)

1913 – Roger Wolcott Sperry, American neuropsychologist and neurobiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)

1931 – Don King, American boxing promoter.

1948 – Robert Plant, English singer-songwriter.

1966 – Dimebag Darrell, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2004)

  

Holiday Spotlight

 National Radio Day

Did you know that although Guglielmo Marconi is often credited with inventing the radio, Nikola Tesla actually demonstrated radio technology in 1893? The development of radio spanned many years, with contributions from various scientists, such as Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, who discovered radio waves in the 1880s. Lee de Forest is known for transmitting the first public radio broadcast featuring opera stars in 1910. Radio revolutionized the music industry and quickly became a popular medium for news and sports broadcasting in the early 20th century. With the digital and wireless advancements, radio has evolved and is still appreciated for its vintage charm, even though it no longer dominates the entertainment and news media landscape the way it used to.

 

Holidays And Observance.

International Day of Medical Transporters

Lemonade Day

National Bacon Lover's Day

National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day

National Radio Day

Virtual Worlds Day

World Mosquito Day