Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 20
This is a list of selected April 20 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
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Pierre Trudeau -
Claude Bernard -
Louis Pasteur (requires undeletion)
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Louis Pasteur -
Billie Holiday -
Portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper -
Vädersolstavlan, attributed to Urban målare -
Red Army Faction logo, showing a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun on top of a red star, overlaid with the letters "RAF" -
Fernando Lugo
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1303 – Pope Boniface VIII issued a bull establishing what is now Sapienza University of Rome, today one of the largest universities in Europe. | refimprove section |
| 1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament of the Commonwealth of England by force, eventually replacing it with the Barebone's Parliament. | refimprove section |
| 1836 – The US Congress passed an act creating the Wisconsin Territory. | unreferenced section |
| 1862 – French chemist Louis Pasteur and physiologist Claude Bernard completed the first test on pasteurization. | need to verify date |
| 1908 – The inaugural season of the New South Wales Rugby League premiership began with nine teams competing in Australia's first Rugby league football competition. | needs more footnotes |
| 1912 – Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, and Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, were opened. | Tiger Stadium: unreferenced section |
| 1939 – Billie Holiday recorded her version of "Strange Fruit", which gained fame as an emblem of the Civil Rights Movement. | refimprove section |
| 1999 – Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold embarked on a massacre, killing 13 people and wounding over 20 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. | refimprove section |
| 2008 – American Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar auto race. | refimprove section |
| 2010 – An explosion on Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, caused the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. | POTD for 2016 |
Eligible
- 1535 – The appearance of sun dogs over Stockholm, Sweden, inspired the painting Vädersolstavlan, the oldest colour depiction of the city.
- 1792 – After Foreign Minister Charles François Dumouriez presented the French Legislative Assembly with a long list of grievances against Austria, France declared war to begin the French Revolutionary Wars.
- 1818 – Four days after the Court of King's Bench in England upheld a murder suspect's right to trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
- 1914 – A fire and a gun battle between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado, led to 17 deaths in the Ludlow Massacre.
- 1939 – Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday was celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany.
- 1968 – Pierre Trudeau succeeded Lester B. Pearson as Prime Minister of Canada.
- 1978 – Soviet fighters shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 after it violated Soviet airspace.
- 2008 – Fernando Lugo became the first non-Colorado Party candidate to be elected President of Paraguay in 61 years.
April 20: Ridván begins at sunset (Bahá'í Faith); 4/20 (cannabis culture)
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- 1657 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English fleet under Admiral Robert Blake attacked a Spanish treasure fleet at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands.
- 1828 – French explorer René Caillié became the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu who later returned alive, for which he later received a 10,000-franc prize from the Société de géographie.
- 1884 – Pope Leo XIII (pictured) published the encyclical Humanum genus, denouncing Freemasonry as well as a number of beliefs and practices purportedly associated with it such as popular sovereignty and the separation of church and state.
- 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the Shadow Cabinet.
- 1998 – The violent German revolutionary group known as the Red Army Faction announced that it had dissolved.