Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October 20
This is a list of selected October 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, featured list 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.
| ← October 19 | October 21 → |
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Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Maria Theresa of Austria -
Naval Battle of Navarino by Garneray -
Sydney Opera House
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1827 – An allied British, French, and Russian naval force destroyed a combined Ottoman and Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino, a decisive moment in the Greek War of Independence. | refimprove sections |
| 1883 – Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancón, ending Peru's involvement in the War of the Pacific. | Tagged with {{Refimprove}}, {{stub}} |
Eligible
- 1951 – African-American college football player Johnny Bright was the victim of an on-field assault that eventually provoked changes in NCAA football rules and mandated the use of more protective helmets with face guards.
- 1961 – The Soviet Union performed the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf class submarine.
- 1967 – Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin filmed an unidentified subject at Six Rivers National Forest in California who they claimed was a bigfoot.
- 1973 – Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, formally opened the Sydney Opera House on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour.
- 1991 – An urban fire killed 25 people, injured 150 others, and destroyed over 3,000 homes in the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, California.
October 20: Birth of the Báb, a holy day in the Bahá'í Faith; Simchat Torah (Judaism, 2011)
- 1740 – Per the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Maria Theresa (pictured) assumed the throne of the Habsburg Monarchy in Austria.
- 1818 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed the Treaty of 1818, which settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel between the Pacific Ocean and Lake of the Woods.
- 1917 – The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparing for and carrying out the Russian Revolution, held its first meeting.
- 1939 – Pope Pius XII published his first major encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, seen as setting a tone for his papacy.
- 1941 – World War II: German soldiers began a massacre of thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in Nazi-occupied Serbia.