Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 20
This is a list of selected February 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
Use only ONE image at a time
-
Shetland -
Andreas Hofer -
John George Diefenbaker -
John Glenn -
Metropolitan Museum of Art -
Robert de la Salle -
A Ranger spacecraft (NASA) -
Photo of the moon taken by Ranger 8 -
Avro CF-105 Arrow
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1472 – James III of Scotland officially annexed Orkney and Shetland from Christian I of Denmark as part of a dowry payment Christian owed after his daughter Margaret married James. | Orkney: refimprove; Shetland: unreferenced section |
| 1810 – Andreas Hofer, a Tyrolean patriot and the leader of a rebellion against Napoleon's forces, was executed by firing squad. | no footnotes |
| 1913 – Australian politician King O'Malley drove in the first survey peg to mark the commencement of work on the construction of Canberra, a planned city designed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin. | Featured on March 12 |
| 1942 – World War II: American flying ace Edward O'Hare shot down five enemy planes during a single sortie defending the aircraft carrier USS Lexington, and earned himself the Medal of Honor. | refimprove section |
| 1944 – Second World War: Allied forces began a bombing campaign that became known as Big Week, launching massive attacks on the German aircraft industry in an attempt to lure the Luftwaffe into a decisive battle. | unreferenced section |
| 1962 – Aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, circling the planet three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes. | refimprove section, John Glenn featured on October 29 |
| 1998 – At the age of 15, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold medal winner in the history of the Winter Olympic Games up until that time. | refimprove section |
| 2005 – Spanish voters passed a referendum on the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, despite the lowest turnout in any election since the transition to democracy in the 1970s. | unreferenced section |
| Alfred Escher |b|1819 | lead too short |
Eligible
- 1685 – The French colonization of Texas began the landing of colonists led by Robert de La Salle near Matagorda Bay.
- 1835 – An earthquake registering approximately 8.5 Mw devastated Concepción, Chile, and triggered a tsunami that destroyed neighbouring Talcahuano.
- 1846 – Polish insurgents in the Free City of Kraków led an uprising attempting to incite a fight for national independence that was put down by the Austrian Empire nine days later.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The Union Army suffered a one-in-three casualty rate at the Battle of Olustee near Lake City, Florida.
- 1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art , today the largest art museum in the United States with a collection of more than two million works, opened in New York.
- 1905 – The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that states had the authority to order compulsory vaccination.
- 1931 – Paraguayan anarchists briefly seized the city of Encarnación as part of a larger plan to initiate a social revolution in the country.
- 1943 – The Saturday Evening Post published the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms, among the most widely distributed paintings ever produced, in support of U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms.
- 1959 – Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow interceptor-aircraft program amid much political debate.
- 1965 – The NASA spacecraft Ranger 8 spacecraft transmitted 7,137 photographs of the Moon in the final 23 minutes of its mission before crashing as planned in Mare Tranquillitatis.
- 1970 – The Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Pathum Thani province, now one of the largest Buddhist temples in Thailand, was founded.
- 2009 – The Tamil Tigers attempted to crash two aircraft laden with C-4 in suicide attacks on Colombo, Sri Lanka, but the planes were shot down before they reached their targets.
- 2010 – Severe flooding and mudslides on the island of Madeira, Portugal, killed 51 people.
- Born/died this day: | Wulfric of Haselbury |d|1154| Judith Montefiore |b|1784| Hod Stuart |b|1879| P. G. T. Beauregard |d|1893| Elizabeth Holloway Marston |b|1893| Ivan Albright |b|1897| Ansel Adams |b|1902|Johnny Checketts |b|1912| Maria Goeppert Mayer |d|1972| Gail Kim |b|1977| Audrey Munson |d|1996| Tōru Takemitsu |d|1996
Notes
- Four Freedoms appears on January 6, so Rockwell's Four Freedoms should appear in the same year.
February 20: Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes in Ukraine (2014); Family Day in Canada (2023); Washington's Birthday / Presidents' Day in the United States (2023); Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2023)
- 1816 – Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome to jeers from the audience.
- 1943 – A fissure opened in a cornfield in the Mexican state of Michoacán and continued to erupt for nine years, forming the cinder cone Parícutin (pictured).
- 1988 – The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
- 1992 – Appearing on the talk show Larry King Live, U.S. industrialist Ross Perot announced that he would begin a presidential campaign if "ordinary people" wanted him to run for office.
- Laura Bassi (d. 1778)
- Forbes Burnham (b. 1923)
- Jiah Khan (b. 1988)