Portal:Belgium/Anniversaries/July/July 20

• 1517: birth of Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld-Vorderort, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
• 1960: Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the US and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute
• 1969: cyclist Eddy Merckx wins his first Tour de France, he also wins the maillot vert and the maillot à pois rouges, and had the Young Riders' maillot blanc existed at the time he was young enough to win that as well
• 1994: death of Paul Delvaux, surrealist painter
• 1995: death of Ernest Mandel, Trotskyist, essayist, and survivor of the Holocaust