Today in History - July 20
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833 Jul 20,
Ansegis (Ansegius, 63), French abbot of Fontenelle, author, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1304 Jul 20, Francisco Petrarch
(d.1374), Italian poet and scholar, founder of Renaissance Humanism,
was born in Arezzo. He was educated at Avignon and saw himself as a
Florentine, Italian, and man of the world. He was a poet and autodidact
who never stopped studying until his death.
(V.D.-H.K.p.131)(HN, 7/20/98)
1402 Jul 20, In the Battle of
Angora the Mongols, led by Tamerlane "the Terrible," defeated the
Ottoman Turks and captured Sultan Beyazid I. The Turks eventually
regained control of the city and it remained a part of the Ottoman
Empire for the next five centuries. Around 2,000 BCE the site of the
present day city was a Hittite village known as Ancyra. It was
conquered in 333 BC by Macedonians led by Alexander the Great. Because
of its central Anatolian Plateau location on the Ankara River, it
became an important commercial center. Angora’s name was changed to
Ankara in 1930.
(HN, 7/20/98)(Ot, 1993, p.6)(HNQ, 4/15/02)
1573 Jul 20, Lancelot of Brederode
(Netherlands), water beggar, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1588 Jul 20-22, The Spanish
Armada, after month in Corunna, set sail for England. The Duke of
Medina Sedonia sailed in the flagship San Martin with Admiral Juan
Martinez de Recalde.
(HN, 7/20/01)(ON, 3/02, p.2)
1591 Jul 20, Anne Hutchinson,
religious liberal who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
for her views, was born.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1627 Jul 20, English fleet under
George Villiers reached La Rochelle. [see Jul 10]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1636 Jul 20, John Oldham, trader
in Mass., was murdered by Indians.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1715 Jul 20, The Riot Act went
into effect in England.
(HFA, '96, p.34)(HN, 7/20/01)
1749 Jul 20, Earl of Chesterfield
said: "Idleness is only refuge of weak minds."
(MC, 7/20/02)
1752 Jul 20, John C. Pepusch (85),
English composer (Beggar's Opera), died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1773 Jul 20, Scottish settlers
arrived at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada).
(MC, 7/20/02)
1785 Jul 20, Mahmud II, sultan of
Turkey (1808-39), Westernizer, reformer, was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1788 Jul 20, The governor of the
French colony of Pondicherry, Vietnam, abandoned plans to place King
Nhuyen Anh back on the throne.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1808 Jul 20, Napoleon decreed that
all French Jews adopt family names.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1810 Jul 20, Colombia declared
independence from Spain.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1824 Jul 20, Alexander
Schimmelfennig, Brig. General Union volunteers, was born in Prussia.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1836 Jul 20, Charles Darwin
climbed Green Hill on Ascension.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1847 Jul 20, Max Liebermann,
German impressionist painter, was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1850 Jul 20, John Graves Shedd,
president of Marshall Field and Company, was born. He was the first
Chicago merchant to give his employees a half-day off on Saturdays.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1861 Jul 20, The New York Tribune
compared Peace Democrats to the venomous Copperhead snake, which
strikes without warning. During the American Civil War, Northerners who
advocated restoration of the Union through a negotiated settlement with
the South was referred to as Peace Democrats.
(HNQ, 10/9/99)
1861 Jul 20, The Congress of the
Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Va.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1861 Jul 20, In the first major
battle of the Civil War [see June 10], Confederate forces repelled an
attempt by the Union Army to turn their flank in Virginia. The battle
becomes known by the Confederates as Manassas, while the Union called
it Bull Run. It was fought on Judith Carter Henry’s farm.
(HN, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 5/10/02)
1862 Jul 20-Sep 20, A guerrilla
campaign in GA (Porter's & Poindexter's) left US 580 and CS 2,866
casualties.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1864 Jul 20, Confederate General
John Bell Hood attacked Union forces under General William T. Sherman
outside Atlanta. Gen. Hood lashed out against the Union right wing
north of the city. Repulsed but undaunted, Hood turned to strike the
Federal left wing, Major General James B. McPherson’s Army of the
Tennessee, east of Atlanta. He deployed Major General Benjamin F.
Chatham’s corps northeast of the city and sent Lieutenant General
William J. Hardee's corps around McPherson’s left flank with orders to
crush the Army of the Tennessee on the morning of July 22. Both corps
were then to assail the rest of Sherman’s host. Battle of Peachtree
Creek was part of the Atlanta Campaign.
(HN, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 7/19/01)(MC, 7/20/02)
1867 Jul 20, Imperial troops in
Guizhou, China, killed 20,000 Miao rebels.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1868 Jul 20, The 1st use of tax
stamps on cigarettes.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1870 Jul 20, Vladimir D. Nabokov,
Russian jurist, minister of Justice (1918-19), was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1871 Jul 20, British Columbia
joined Confederation as a Canadian province. Canada’s government
promised BC a railroad link to the eastern provinces as it joined the
nation.
(AP, 7/20/97)(ON, 11/07, p.9)
1872 Jul 20, Mahlon Loomis
patented a wireless radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1881 Jul 20, Sioux Indian leader
Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn,
surrendered to federal troops.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
1890 Jul 20, Theda Bara, actress
(Love Goddesses), was born as Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1894 Jul 20, 2000 federal troops
were recalled from Chicago with the end of the Pullman strike.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1903 Jul 20, Pope Leo XIII died.
He served 25 years, four months and 17 days.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1911 Jul 20, Generals Henry Wilson
and Auguste Dubail signed a plan for British Expeditionary army in case
of war with Germany.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1914 Jul 20, Armed resistance
against British rule began in Ulster.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1917 Jul 20, The US draft lottery
in World War I went into operation.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1917 Jul 20, Alexander Kerensky
became the premier of Russia.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1917 Jul 20, The Pact of Corfu was
signed between the Serbs, Croats & Slovenes to form Yugoslavia.
[see Dec 1, 1918]
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917yugoslavia1.html)
1919 Jul 20, Sir Edmund Hillary,
the first man reach the summit of Mount Everest, was born in New
Zealand.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1920 Jul 20, Elliot L. Richardson,
US Attorney General (1973), Sec of Defense (1973), was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1923 Jul 20, In Mexico Francisco
Villa (aka Pancho Villa, b.1877) [Doroteo Arango], general and
revolutionist, died in an ambush. In c1999 Friedrich Katz of the Univ.
of Chicago published "The Life and Times of Pancho Villa." In 2001
Frank McLynn authored "Villa and Zapata."
(WUD, 1994, p.1593)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC,
5/5/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A14)(MC, 7/20/02)
1931 Jul 20, The trial of
Constance May Flood Gavin, an alleged illegitimate daughter, began in
San Mateo, Ca., for a daughter’s share in James L. Flood estate. Before
closing arguments Judge George Buck ordered a directed verdict in favor
of the Flood family. 10 jurors refused to sign the verdict. Buck lost
elections the following year to Maxwell McNutt, the lawyer for
Constance. Gavin later received a $1.2 million out-of-court settlement.
(SMMB)(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.A28)
1933 Jul 20, Nelson Doubleday,
publisher (Doubleday), owner (NY Mets), was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1933 Jul 20, Cormac McCarthy,
novelist (All the Pretty Horses), was born.
(HN, 7/20/01)
1933 Jul 20, Vatican state
secretary Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) signed an accord with Hitler.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1935 Jul 20, The 1st broadcast of
"Gang Busters" played on NBC-radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1937 Jul 20, Don Budge (22),
American tennis player, defeated Baron Gottfried von Cram (28) of
Germany at Wimbledon in a semi-final round to see who would face
England. James Thurber later described the Budge-Cramm five-set
marathon as “the greatest match in the history of the world.”
(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W8)
1937 Jul 20, Guglielmo Marconi
(b.1874), Italian engineer, inventor of wireless telegraphy, marquis
(radio, Nobel 1909), died in Rome.
(ON, 11/99, p.10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1938 Jul 20, Diana Rigg, actress
(Emma Peel-Avengers, Hospital), was born in Doncaster, England.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1938 Jul 20, Natalie Wood
(d.1981), (From Here to Eternity, West Side Story, Splendor in
the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause), was born as Natasha Nikolaevna
Gurdin.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1939 Jul 20, Judy Chicago, artist,
was born.
(HN, 7/20/01)
1939 Jul 20, Joseph Mendes da
Costa, sculptor, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1942 Jul 20, Time put Russian
composer Dmitri Shostakovitch on its cover.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1942 Jul 20, The first detachment
of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), later known as WACs, began
basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
(HN, 7/20/02)(AP, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, President Roosevelt
was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1944 Jul 20, US 15th Air Force
attacked Friedrichshafen and Memmingen. Flying Fortresses of US 8th Air
Force attacked Leipzig and Dessau.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, US invaded Japanese
occupied Guam. Japanese aircraft carrier Hijo was sunk by US air attack.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, A heavy storm
hampered a British offensive at Caen.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, A branch of the
German resistance led by Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg planted a
bomb underneath the table where Hitler was standing at Hitler's
Rastenburg headquarters in East Prussia that wounded but did not kill
Hitler. This incited the Fuhrer to wipe out the Prussian aristocracy.
This is covered in Otto Friedrich's book on the Moltke family: "Blood
and Iron." [see 1800, Helmuth and/or 1840, James von Moltke]
(WSJ, 11/7/95, p.A-21)(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
"In fact, although many of the
conspirators were tortured, beheaded and strangled by piano wire hung
from meat hooks... Col. Stauffenburg and three of his fellow officers
were executed by firing squad in the courtyard of the Benderblock
around midnight of that fateful day." Gen. Friedrich Olbricht was
executed along with Gen. Ludwig Beck, chief Germany general staff. The
20th of July Special Commission of the Third Reich was created after
the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler to find and
expose conspirators and other enemies of the regime. Some 400
investigators employed all of the Gestapo-designed methods of torture
against enemies of the Nazis until the end of the war. Some 5,000
Germans were executed in the months following the assassination attempt
for their part in the conspiracy or alleged sympathy with the
conspirators.
(WSJ, 11/29/95, p.A-15)(HNQ, 12/3/98)(MC, 7/20/02)
Ludwig and Kunrat
Hammerstein-Equord participated in the plot to kill Hitler and went
into hiding when the plot failed. 4 members of the family were taken to
concentration camps, but were later freed by the allies.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A19)
1944 Jul 20, The death march of
1,200 Jews from Lipcani, Moldavia, began.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1945 Jul 20, Paul Valery (b.1871),
French poet (Le cimetiere Marin, Mon Faust), died at age 73. He was
buried in his home town of Sete.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1947 Jul 20, Carlos Santana,
legendary guitar player, was born in Autlan, Mexico.
(SSFC, 10/14/07, Par p.18)
1948 Jul 20, William Forster, US
Communist Party chairman, was arrested.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1948 Jul 20, Syngman Rhee (b.1875)
was elected president of South Korea. He served to 1960.
(HN, 4/26/98)(MC, 4/26/02)(MC, 7/20/02)
1949 Jul 20, Israel's 19 month war
of independence ended with a ceasefire agreement with Syria. According
to Israel's Foreign Ministry, 6,373 people, or nearly 1 percent of the
Jewish population, were killed during Israel's War of Independence.
(www.wikipedia.org)(AP, 12/8/07)
1950 Jul 20, In one of the first
American actions in the Korean War, the U.S. Army’s Task Force Smith
was pushed back into the Naktong perimeter by superior North Korean
forces.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1951 Jul 20, Jordan's King
Abdullah Ibn Hussein was assassinated in Jerusalem by a
Palestinian extremist. Prince Hussein (15) witnessed the murder. Talal
became king with the assassination of his father, Abdullah ibn-Hussein,
who ruled when Jordan was a British mandate.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A13)(MC,
7/20/02)
1953 Jul 20, USSR and Israel
recovered diplomatic relations.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1954 Jul 20, An armistice for
Indo-China was signed and Vietnam separated into North & South.
[see Jul 21]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1954 Jul 20, West German secret
service head Otto John defected to German DR.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1956 Jul 20, Great Britain refused
to lend Egypt money to build Aswan Dam.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1956 Jul 20, France recognized
Tunisia's independence. [see Mar 20]
(MC, 7/20/02)
1958 Jul 20, King Hussein of
Jordan broke off diplomatic relations with UAR.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1960 Jul 20, The submarine George
Washington became the 1st submerged sub to fire a Polaris missile.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1962 Jul 20, Dmitri Shostakovitch
completed his 13th Symphony.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1962 Jul 20, George Macaulay
Trevelyan (86), English royal historian, died.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1967 Jul 20, Race riots took place
in Memphis, Tenn.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1967 Jul 20, Pablo Neruda received
the 1st Viareggio-Versile prize.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1968 Jul 20, Joseph Keilberth
(b.1908), German conductor (Bayreuth Festival), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Keilberth)
1969 Jul 20, Astronaut Neil
Armstrong took his legendary "one small step for man, one giant leap
for mankind." He and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin made the first successful
landing of a manned vehicle on the moon when they touched down in
Apollo 11. Armstrong stepped down from the ladder of the landing module
Eagle to become the first man ever to walk on the moon. The two
astronauts explored the moon's surface for 2 1/2 hours, with amazed TV
audiences looking on. Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom for his accomplishments and his contributions to the space
program. Edwin Aldrin became the second man to step foot on the moon
shortly after Neil Armstrong hopped off the lunar lander Eagle at 10:56
p.m. Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon for about two hours during
their 22-hour lunar stay. Thomas Kelly (d.2002 at 72) was the engineer
who had overseen the building of the lunar module.
(V.D.-H.K.p.182, 341)(TMC, 1994, p.1969)(AP,
7/20/97)(HNPD, 7/20/98)(HNQ, 9/14/00)(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A24)
1973 Jul 20, Bruce Lee (b.1940),
[Lee Yuen Kam], American-born martial arts expert and film actor, died
in Hong Kong 3 weeks before the opening of his new film "Enter the
Dragon." He was born in San Francisco and raised in Hong Kong. In 2000
Davis Miller authored "The Tao of Bruce Lee, A Martial Arts Memoir."
(SFEC, 8/13/00, BR p.4)(SFC, 7/21/03,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee)
1974 Jul 20, Turkey invaded Cyprus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus)
1976 Jul 20, Hank Aaron hit his
755th and final home run off the California Angels' Dick Drago at
Milwaukee County Stadium.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Aaron)
1976 Jul 20, US Air Force
Brigadier General Harry Aderholt lowered the American flag for the last
time at Military Assistance Command Thailand headquarters on Bangkok’s
Sathorn Road.
(www.nationmultimedia.com/sunday/20060709/)
1976 Jul 20, The Viking I robot
spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars and began
taking soil samples.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
1977 Jul 20, A flash flood hit
Johnstown, Pa., killing more than 80 people and causing $350 million
worth of damage.
(AP, 7/20/08)
1977 Jul 20, The UN Security
Council voted to admit Vietnam to the world body.
(AP, 7/20/07)
1982 Jul 20, Irish Republican Army
bombs exploded in two London parks, killing eight British soldiers,
along with seven horses belonging to the Queen’s Household Cavalry.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1983 Jul 20, The US House censured
Reps. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts and Daniel B. Crane of Illinois for
having sexual relations with pages. Studds, a liberal Democrat who
acknowledged having sex with a 17-year-old male page in 1973 and making
sexual advances to two others, admitted an error in judgment but did
not apologize. The first openly gay member of Congress went on to win
re-election until his retirement in the mid-1990s. Crane admitted
having sex several times with a 17-year-old female page in 1980. He
apologized to the House in a quavering voice "for the shame I have
brought down on this institution." The conservative Republican was
defeated a year later.
(AP,
9/30/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Congressional_page_sex_scandal)
1984 Jul 20, James Fixx (b.1932),
jogger and writer, died of a heart attack while running in Vermont. His
books included “The Complete Book of Running” (1977).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx)
1985 Jul 20, US divers found the
wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha.
(www.atochastory.com/)
1987 Jul 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to approve a U.S.-sponsored resolution
demanding an end to the Persian Gulf war between Iraq and Iran, a move
supported by Iraq and dismissed by Iran.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1988 Jul 20, Massachusetts Gov.
Michael Dukakis received the Democratic presidential nomination at the
party's convention in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1988 Jul 20, Iranian leader
Ayatollah Khomeini accepted a truce with Iraq, even though he said the
decision was like drinking poison.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1989 Jul 20, President Bush called
for a long-range space program to build an orbiting space station,
establish a base on the moon and send a manned mission to the planet
Mars.
(AP, 7/20/99)
1990 Jul 20, William J. Brennan
(1906-1997), US Supreme Court Justice, one of the court’s most liberal
voices, left office after serving over 33 years.
(AP,
7/20/00)(www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/90/)
1990 Jul 20, A federal appeals
court set aside Oliver North’s Iran-Contra convictions, reversing one
outright.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1991 Jul 20,
President Bush, visiting Turkey, was cheered by thousands of people in
Ankara.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 20, Lebanon joined Syria
in agreeing to participate in Mideast peace talks with Israel.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1991 Jul 20, Russian President
Boris N. Yeltsin banned political activity in government offices and
republic-run businesses, effectively curtailing the influence of the
Communist Party.
(AP, 7/20/01)
1992 Jul 20, Vaclav Havel, the
playwright who led the Velvet Revolution against communism, formally
stepped down as president of Czechoslovakia after failing to halt the
country's pending breakup into two entities. He was later elected
president of the Czech Republic.
(AP, 7/20/02)
1993 Jul 20, Vincent Foster Jr.,
deputy White House council, was found dead in a Virginia Park near
Washington. His death was claimed to be a suicide. An eye-witness later
claimed to see "suspicious-looking man" and a car with Arkansas
license plates not far from the scene. His death was later concluded to
be a suicide. Information relating to these events were later leaked by
a source identified as "Deep Water."
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A7)(SFC, 7/16/97, p.A3)(WSJ,
2/18/98, p.A24)(AP, 7/20/98)
1993 Jul 20, A day after firing
William Sessions as FBI director, President Clinton named federal judge
Louis Freeh (b.1950) to replace him. Freeh served until June, 2001.
(AP, 7/20/98)(WSJ, 6/14/02, p.A4)
1994 Jul 20, OJ Simpson offered a
$500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife's killer.
(www.courttv.com/news/flashback/july.html)
1994 Jul 20, Bosnian Serbs
rejected an international peace plan sponsored by the United States,
Russia, France, Britain and Germany.
(AP, 7/20/99)
1995 Jul 20, Baseball
Hall-of-Famers Duke Snider and Willie McCovey pleaded guilty in New
York to tax evasion.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1995 Jul 20, Leaders of the
University of California voted to drop affirmative action policies on
admissions and hiring.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1996 Jul 20, At the Atlanta
Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the Games' first gold, in the
10-meter air rifle.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, In his weekly radio
address, President Clinton paid tribute to America's Olympic athletes
at the just-opened Atlanta games, as well as 16 high school students
from Montoursville, Pa., who died in the crash of TWA Flight 800.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1996 Jul 20, A new sculpture
museum was scheduled to open in Copan National Park, Honduras, with
exhibits of Mayan work.
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.25)
1996 Jul 20, In Spain the Basque
separatist group ETA set off 3 bombs at tourist sites. One at the
airport of Reus and 2 at the beach resorts of Cambrils and Salou.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Jul 20, In Uganda rebels of
the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted some 80 people, half of them
students, 125 miles north of Kampala.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A1)
1997 Jul 20, Seven people were
arrested after New York City police found scores of deaf Mexicans kept
in slave-like conditions and forced to peddle trinkets for the
smugglers who had brought them to the United States.
(AP, 7/20/98)
1997 Jul 20, From Qatar it was
reported that as many as 30% of Qatari women work. Some 6,000 graduated
each year from the Univ. of Qatar.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A20)
1997 Jul 20, Palestinian security
forces arrested 4 Palestinian police officers who were accused of
planning to attack Jewish settlers. Israel had arrested 4 Palestinian
policemen a week earlier for planned attacks at the settlement of Har
Bracha.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 20, Turkish troops killed
50 Kurdish guerrillas in the southeast. That raised the weekly total to
84.
(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A9)
1998 Jul 20, A smoky fire aboard
the cruise ship Ecstasy just two miles from the Florida shore forcing
its return to port.
(AP, 7/20/99)
1998 Jul 20, In Nigeria Gen’l.
Abubakar announced that elections would be held in 1999 and power
passed to a civilian president on May 29.
(SFEC, 7/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 20, Russia won an $11.2
billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help avert the
devaluation of its currency. Anatoly Chubais later admitted that he
lied to the IMF about the state of the Russian economy to get a $4.8
billion loan released.
(AP, 7/20/99)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 20, Saudi Arabia attacked
a Yemeni island in the Red Sea and killed 3 guards. 3 islands and parts
of the Empty Quarter, a vast desert with potential for oil, were under
contention.
(SFEC, 7/21/98, p.A7)
1998 Jul 20, In Tajikistan 4 UN
employees were killed while on routine patrol.
(SFC, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1999 Jul 20, In Tulia, Texas, an
indictment was handed down for the arrest of 46 people on drug charges
under the testimony of undercover agent Tom Coleman. A probe into the
arrests was opened in 2002 and in 2003 Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35
defendants. In 2004 45 of those arrested split a $6 million civil
rights settlement. In 2005 Tom Coleman, former undercover drug agent,
was sentenced to 6 years on probation for perjury in the bogus drug
busts. In 2005 Nate Blakeslee authored “Tulia: Race, Cocaine and
Corruption in a Small Texas Town.”
(SFC, 6/3/03, p.A3)(SFC, 8/23/03, p.A3)(SFC,
1/15/05, p.A6)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.M3)
1999 Jul 20, After 38 years at the
bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom’s "Liberty Bell Seven"
Mercury capsule was lifted to the surface.
(AP, 7/20/00)
1999 Jul 20, Algerian government
sources said rebels had cut the throats of 9 villagers in Medea
province.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C2)
1999 Jul 20, In Belarus the term
of Pres. Lukashenko expired. He had extended his term to 2002 but the
US said it would no longer recognize him.
(WSJ, 7/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 20, In Kashmir 20 Hindus
were killed in 3 separate incidents by Muslim insurgents.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C2)
2000 Jul 20, The Mideast summit,
resurrected only hours after its reported demise, moved forward with
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stepping in for President
Clinton, who had left for an economic summit in Japan.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A1)(AP, 7/20/01)
2000 Jul 20, A federal grand jury
indicted two former Utah Olympic officials for their alleged roles in
paying one million dollars in cash and gifts to help bring the 2002
games to Salt Lake City.
(AP, 7/20/01)
2000 Jul 20, Willamette Industries
of Portland was fined $11.2 million under the federal Clean Air Act
plus $8 mil in contributions to environmental projects. It also agreed
to install an estimated $74 million worth of pollution control
equipment. The company estimated the new equipment at $28 mil.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.A5)(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 20, It was reported that
an experiment at Princeton showed light traveling beyond its previous
known limit.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 20, In Egypt at least 15
people were killed when a 6-story factory building collapsed in
Alexandria.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.B10)
2000 Jul 20, In Japan Prime
Minister Mori presided in informal discussions between G-8 leaders and
4 leaders from poor nations. Pres. Clinton arrived in Okinawa and went
directly to the Cornerstone of peace Memorial where the names of
237,318 people, who died in the battle of Okinawa, are inscribed.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A12)(SFC, 7/21/00, p.A8)
2000 Jul 20, The Stock Trading
Center of Vietnam (STC), located in Ho Chi Minh City, was officially
inaugurated. Trading commenced on July 28, 2000.
(http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/abacus-stocks-Vietnam-stock-exchange.html)
2001 Jul 20, Ira Einhorn,
convicted in absentia of killing his girlfriend, was flown from France
and handed over to Philadelphia police.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2001 Jul 20, Vanessa Leggett, a
fledgling crime writer, was jailed in Texas on contempt charges for
refusing to hand over her research notes on Robert Angleton to a
federal grand jury. Leggett was released Jan 4, 2002.
(SFC, 1/4/02, p.A17)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2001 Jul 20, It was reported that
China planned to buy 38 Russian Su-30 MKK ground attack jets worth $2
billion.
(SFC, 7/20/01, p.D4)
2001 Jul 20, A G-8 economic
summit, planned in Genoa, Italy, expected over 100,000 demonstrators.
The summit opened with raging street battles between police and
demonstrators; one protester was fatally shot by officers. Carlo
Giuliani (23) was shot and killed by police while protesting at the G-8
summit. At least 100 people were injured. In 2008 a court convicted 15
Italian officials of abusing protesters held in at police garrison
following violent demonstrations during the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa.
(SFC, 7/17/01, p.A6)(AP, 7/20/02)(SFC, 7/21/01,
p.A1)(AP, 7/15/08)
2001 Jul 20, In Macedonia 2 int’l.
monitors and their interpreter were found killed by a land mine near
Tetovo.
(SFC, 7/21/01, p.E1)
2001 Jul 20, In Sri Lanka
thousands of demonstrators were blocked from marching into the capital
to protest the suspension of parliament by Pres. Kumaratunga. 2 people
were killed.
(SFC, 7/20/01, p.D4)(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 20, In the West Bank an
explosion leveled the office of Yasser Arafat in Hebron and Rajai Abu
Rajab, an activist in the Tanzim, was found dead.
(SFC, 7/21/01, p.E1)
2001 Jul 20, The New Partnership
for Africa's Development (NEPAD) was formally adopted at the 37th
session of the (OAU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government in
Lusaka, Zambia.
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.48)(
http://www.nepad.org/2005/files/inbrief.php)
2002 Jul 20, Omar Bernal, rebel
commander of the 63rd front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, surrendered Saturday to soldiers in southern
Colombia, saying he had lost faith in the decades-old guerrilla
uprising.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Greece police
arrested two more alleged November 17 terrorists, Iraklis Kostaris and
Costas Karatsolis, both 36-year-old real estate agents. One was
believed to be a hit man in four assassinations including those of a
U.S. Air Force sergeant and a British brigadier.
(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, A car exploded near a
mosque in an Israeli Arab neighborhood of Tel Aviv, killing the driver.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, The number of
Japanese who have died after taking diet pills imported from China has
risen to four and 124 have fallen ill, Kyodo news agency reported
quoting a Health Ministry report.
(Reuters, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, Refugees in flight
from Liberia's war surged to 200,000, and those reaching safety in
neighboring Guinea spoke of worsening atrocities by President Charles
Taylor's forces: looting, raping, burning and killing trapped
villagers. Jubilant government troops strutted through heavily looted
Tubmanburg after driving away rebel forces who had controlled it for
close to three months.
(AP, 7/20/02)(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, In southeastern
Nigeria unarmed women occupying at least four ChevronTexaco facilities
said they had freed their two hostages in return for a promise from oil
executives to meet with them.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Nigeria a huge
fire broke out Saturday at ChevronTexaco's main oil terminal, days
after unarmed village women ended a 10-day siege that crippled the oil
giant's local operations.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 20-22, In Nigeria dozens
of villagers have been killed, many hacked to death, in three days of
clashes between rival political factions battling for influence in an
oil-rich area of the Niger Delta.
(AP, 7/23/02)
2002 Jul 20, In Lima, Peru, 29
people, and a lion and tiger that were part of the show, died in a
blaze started by bartenders who were doing tricks with fire at Utopia,
an unlicensed night club.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2002 Jul 20, In northeastern
Sicily a passenger train derailed and apparently crashed into an
abandoned house, killing at least eight people and injuring some 30
others.
(AP, 7/21/02)
2002 Jul 20, Sudan signed a peace
deal with southern rebels in Kenya.
(WSJ, 7/22/02, p.A1)
2003 Jul 20, President Bush
welcomed Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to his Texas ranch for a
two-day visit.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, American generals
said a new Iraqi civil defense force would be created over the next 45
days with some 7,000 militia members. Gen. John Abizaid, the top
commander of coalition forces in Iraq, predicted that resistance to
U.S. forces in Iraq would grow in coming months as progress was made in
creating a new government to replace the dictatorial regime of Saddam
Hussein.
(SFC, 7/21/03, p.A1)(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, Two soldiers from the
101st Airborne Division were killed and another wounded when their
convoy came under rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire in
northern Iraq.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, William Woolfolk
(86), writer for cartoon characters like Batman and Captain Marvel,
died. He coined one of Captain Marvel's signature lines: "Holy Moley,"
and authored the 1968 bestseller "The Beautiful Couple."
(SFC, 8/11/03, p.A16)
2003 Jul 20, Ben Curtis, an
unknown PGA Tour rookie in his first major championship, won the
British Open.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2003 Jul 20, In France 2
explosions rocked central Nice, slightly injuring at least 16 people
and damaging several government buildings.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, The Israeli and
Palestinian prime ministers held a two-hour meeting, kicking off 10
days of international diplomacy aimed at solidifying a fragile Mideast
cease-fire.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 20, In southern Japan
weekend mudslides destroyed more than a dozen homes, killing 16 people.
(AP, 7/22/03)
2003 Jul 20, In Liberia rebels
advanced deeper into the war-ravaged capital, trading mortar, grenade
and machine-gun fire with government troops.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2004 Jul 20, Former national
security adviser Sandy Berger quit as an informal adviser to Democrat
John Kerry's presidential campaign after disclosure of a criminal
investigation into whether he'd mishandled classified terrorism
documents.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2004 Jul 20, Microsoft said it
would make a one-time dividend payment of $32 billion and buy back up
to $30 billion in company stock over the next 4 years.
(WSJ, 7/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 20, In Afghanistan US
forces killed one militant and captured 5 others including a brother of
Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Jul 20, Monsoon floods,
tornadoes and rains roared through already inundated villages in South
Asia, killing 42 more people. 15 died in Bangladesh and 27 in India.
Fresh rains in Asia took the rainy season death toll to nearly 800.
(AP, 7/21/04)(Reuters, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, Britain's government
backed long-standing plans to build a railway network linking east and
west London at a cost of around 10 billion pounds.
(AFP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, EU lawmakers elected
a pro-European from Spain to be its next president as the expanded
European Parliament met for the first time. The 732-member assembly
chose Josep Borrell, a relatively unknown Spanish Socialist, to its top
job.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Former Guam Gov. Carl
Gutierrez (1995-2003) was acquitted on charges he used government
workers and public money to build and improve his cliffside ranch.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, President Ricardo
Maduro said he is sending troops to help police quell a clash between
loggers and environmentalists in south-central Honduras.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, In Iran a prominent
history professor twice condemned to death on blasphemy charges was
informed of a three year jail sentence for insulting Islamic sacred
beliefs.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, A Filipino truck
driver held hostage in Iraq for nearly two weeks was freed, a day after
his nation withdrew its final peacekeepers from Iraq.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, A bomb attack on an
Iraqi minibus killed four civilians and injured two others near Baqouba.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Israeli helicopter
gunships and tanks fired on Hezbollah guerrilla positions in southern
Lebanon, killing one guerrilla, Lebanese security officials reported.
Hezbollah said it killed two Israeli soldiers.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, The U.N. General
Assembly called for the structure to be torn down in compliance with a
world court ruling. Israel's construction of its West Bank barrier
continued.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2004 Jul 20, In Nepal Communist
rebels freed about 50 students and a dozen teachers.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 20, Pakistani officials
acknowledged the closing and bulldozing of 2 refugee camps Zarinoor 1
& 2 in South Waziristan. The government had decided to dismantle
all camps within 3 miles of the Afghan border.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.A9)
2004 Jul 20, In Saudi Arabia the
head of slain American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was kidnapped
and decapitated by militants last month, was found by security forces
during a raid that targeted the hideout of the Saudi al-Qaida chief.
Two militants were killed.
(AP, 7/21/04)
2005 Jul 20, A day after being
tapped by President Bush, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts paid
courtesy calls on senators while a conservative group purchased TV ad
time in support of his nomination and abortion rights groups staged
protests.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2005 Jul 20, Eastman Kodak Co.
said it is cutting as many as 10,000 more jobs as the company that
turned picture-taking into a hobby for the masses navigates a tough
transition from film to digital photography.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, SF Bay Area air
quality officials impost the toughest regulations in the nation to
reduce flaring in the East Bay’s 5 oil refineries.
(SFC, 7/21/05, p.B1)
2005 Jul 20, Actor James Doohan
(85), who transported the crew of "Star Trek" through space on the
command "Beam me up, Scotty," died. He has asked that his ashes be
blasted into space.
(AFP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Two Afghans released
from Guantanamo Bay claimed about 180 Afghans at the U.S. detention
facility were on a hunger strike to protest alleged mistreatment and to
push for freedom.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Cambodia handed over
some 107 Montagnards, a largely Christian hilltribe people, to
Vietnamese authorities. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia
after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central
Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious persecution
of ethnic minorities. In January, Vietnam, Cambodia and the UNHCR
signed a memorandum of understanding to resettle or repatriate about
700 ethnic minority Vietnamese who were estimated at the time to be in
Cambodia.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Haitang was
downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it moved into
southeast China, leaving a trail of destruction. The death toll in
Taiwan and in China rose to 15.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Canada legalized gay
marriage, becoming the world's 4th nation to grant full legal rights to
same-sex couples.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In India the
Chattisgarh state government said it will begin supplying arms to
tribespeople who have formed vigilante groups to protect themselves
from attacks by Maoist rebels.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Sunni Muslim members
on a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution suspended their
participation in the wake of a colleague's assassination, saying they
need more security. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an army
recruiting center in central Baghdad, killing at least 10 people.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, A Milan prosecutor
sought arrest warrants for six more purported CIA operatives, accusing
them of helping plan the kidnapping of an Egyptian radical Muslim
cleric.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Kashmir a car bomb
blew up an army jeep, killing 5 soldiers and at least one civilian and
injuring 20 others near a school in an elite neighborhood of Srinagar.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, Japanese electronics
giant Hitachi said it has become the first foreign company to win
certification from US transport authorities for its bomb-detection
equipment, opening up major new markets.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Kenya riot police
beat demonstrators with truncheons and fired tear gas canisters as
protests in Nairobi persisted over proposed constitutional amendments
that critics say leave the president with too much power.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Lebanon
PM-designate Fuad Siniora announced a cabinet of 24 ministers. The
lineup for the first time included a member of the Hizb Allah movement.
Mohammed Fneish became energy minister. Hizb Allah ally Tarrad Hamadeh
retained the post of labor minister.
(http://tinyurl.com/m8ctm)
2005 Jul 20, In Mexico more than
1,000 people marched through the streets of the colonial capital of
southern Oaxaca state to demand that picketers disband a blockade that
has trapped journalists inside a newspaper building for about a month.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Hurricane Emily
slammed into northeastern Mexico with 125 mph winds.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Palestine the
ruling Fatah movement and the Islamic Hamas agreed to end several days
of clashes in northern Gaza that took the lives of two bystanders.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, President Vladimir
Putin said Russia won't allow foreign organizations to finance
political activities in the country.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Yemen at least 11
people were killed in clashes with police after rioters threw stones
and set fires in streets to protest against subsidy cuts that nearly
doubled petrol prices.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2006 Jul 20, President Bush
delivered his first address to the 97th annual NAACP convention after
having declining invitations for five years in a row. He received mixed
support. Bush said he knew racism existed in America and that many
black voters distrusted his Republican Party; Bush promised to improve
the GOP's rocky relations with blacks.
(AP, 7/20/06)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A4)(AP, 7/20/07)
2006 Jul 20, The US Senate voted
98-0 to renew the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act for another
quarter-century.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2006 Jul 20, The US released new
postage stamps featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl and
a half dozen other superheroes.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, The SEC filed
criminal and civil charges against executives at Brocade Communications
in San Jose, Ca., for back-dating stock options. Estimates had it that
some 29% of 7,774 US companies may have backdated option grants from
1996-2002.
(SFC, 7/22/06, p.C3)
2006 Jul 20, California’s Gov.
Schwarzenegger authorized $150 million in loans to the state’s stem
cell agency. A day earlier Pres. Bush vetoed legislation that would
have expanded federal funding for stem cell research.
(SFC, 7/21/06, p.B1)
2006 Jul 20, In Afghanistan
coalition forces killed 6 Taliban in the district of Garmser in Helmand
province.
(AP, 7/22/06)
2006 Jul 20, The UN food agency
said China became the world's third-largest food aid donor in 2005, the
same year it stopped receiving assistance from the World Food Program,
while the US and the EU remained the top two contributors.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, German and US
scientists began a 2-year project to decipher the genetic code of the
Neanderthal.
(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A6)
2006 Jul 20, India arrested three
men in connection with last week's Mumbai bombings that killed more
than 180 men.
(Reuters, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 20, Iraq's top Shiite
cleric urged his followers to refrain from reprisal violence against
Sunnis, his strongest call yet for an end to increasing sectarian
bloodshed that threatens to erupt into full-scale civil war. Car bombs
in Baghdad killed 9 police officers and 6 civilians. A roadside bomb in
eastern Baghdad killed 2. Police in Baghdad found 38 bodies, most of
whom were shot in the head. A car bomb exploded at a village gas
station in Tikrit, killing 13 people who had gathered around the
vehicle after discovering a corpse inside. An explosion in Kirkuk
killed 7 people. Gunmen assassinated a former official of Saddam's
Baath party in Karbala.
(AP, 7/20/06)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 20, Israeli troops met
fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas as they crossed into
Lebanon to seek tunnels and weapons for a second straight day, and
Israel hinted at a full-scale invasion.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, Israeli forces killed
3 people and wounded six in the Gaza Strip. The army dropped leaflets
on towns and villages warning that homes hiding weapons would be
attacked.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, In southwest Pakistan
300 tribal militants surrendered to authorities, where President Pervez
Musharraf says an insurgency is dying down. In a search near the former
rebel stronghold of Dera Bugti, troops seized 10 surface-to-air
missiles, 195 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, 270 hand grenades,
205 rockets and 201 mortar shells.
(AFP, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 20, Residents of central
Somalia said that hundreds of Ethiopian troops were patrolling the town
of Baidoa in armored vehicles, less than a day after Islamic militants
moved near the base of the weak, UN-backed government.
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 20, Bio Fuel Systems, a
Spanish company, claimed to have developed a method of breeding
plankton and turning the marine plants into oil, providing a
potentially inexhaustible source of clean fuel.
(Reuters, 7/20/06)
2007 Jul 20, On the Caribbean
island of St. Maarten Georgia state athletes Randy Newton and Bryan
Kilgore were killed. Michael Registe was later accused of the murders
and faced extradition.
(SSFC, 7/19/09, p.A6)
2006 Jul 20, Luis Jefferson Lira
Rodriguez (20), a Venezuela soldier, massacred 8 people at Ranch Adi,
but said he acted on orders from at least one other lieutenant who
claimed there was a Colombian rebel camp nearby. Officials later said
rape was the motive and that the soldier acted alone.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2007 Jul 20, President Bush signed
an executive order prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment, including
humiliation or denigration of religious beliefs, in the detention and
interrogation of terrorism suspects.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2007 Jul 20, Kevin Andre Smoot
(43), a former executive of Eagle Global Logistics’ freight forwarding
station in Houston, a company that shipped military cargo to Iraq,
pleaded guilty to lying about a fraud scheme that bilked the government
out of more than a million dollars. Smoot admitted that he lied to
federal investigators who questioned him about a scheme to inflate
invoices by adding a "war risk surcharge" of 50 cents for each kilogram
of freight transported to Baghdad.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, Purdue Pharma L.P.,
the maker of OxyContin, and 3 of its executives were ordered to pay a
$634.5 million fine for misleading the public about the painkiller's
risk of addiction.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, A 4.2 earthquake
jolted San Francisco Bay area residents awake, breaking glass and
rattling nerves, although there were no immediate reports of injuries.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, In Ohio an ambulance
heading to a hospital was broadsided by a car in Crane Township and 5
people were killed including 3 EMT technicians and 2 patients.
(SFC, 7/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Jul 20, Tammy Faye Messner
(b.1942) died in Missouri. As Tammy Faye Bakker she had helped her
husband, Jim, build a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire that
collapsed in disgrace. She divorced her husband of 30 years, with whom
she had two children, in 1992 while he was in prison for defrauding
millions from followers of their PTL ("Praise the Lord" or "People that
Love") television ministries. In 1993 she married Roe Messner, a former
PTL contractor and chief builder of Heritage USA, a PTL theme park in
South Carolina. In 1996 Messner was sentenced to 27 months in prison
for federal bankruptcy fraud.
(AP, 7/22/07)(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.B7)
2007 Jul 20, Pete Wilson (b.1945),
TV anchor for KGO-TV in SF, died one day after a heart attack suffered
during hip replacement surgery at Stanford Hospital.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 20, Angola, Namibia and
South Africa launched a joint commission designed to lay the groundwork
for a sustainable and environmental approach of their shared fishing
grounds in the Atlantic Ocean.
(AFP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, An election committee
said Bako Saakian, Nagorno-Karabakh's former security chief, won the
presidency of the Armenian-controlled breakaway region with 85% of the
vote.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Hundreds of thousands
of people packed the streets of La Paz to protest efforts to relocate
Bolivia's capital in one of the largest demonstrations in the history
of the Andean country. La Paz backers said switching the capital from
Bolivia's largest city, with a metropolitan population of 1.7 million,
to Sucre, population 250,000, would be expensive and divisive.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Sen. Antonio Carlos
Peixoto de Magalhaes (79), one of Brazil's most influential
politicians, died. He had held on to power as the country came under a
military dictatorship and returned to democracy.
(AP, 7/21/07)(SFC, 7/23/07, p.D6)
2007 Jul 20, China said it had
shut down several firms at the heart of food and drug safety scares,
including a chemical plant implicated in the deaths of 94 people in
Panama. China also said that it "strongly opposed" decisions by the
United States to initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty
investigations on imports of some woven sacks and steel pipes from
China. Total deaths in Panama reached 116 from contaminated medications.
(AP, 7/20/07)(Reuters, 7/20/07)(AP, 5/10/08)
2007 Jul 20, In southern China a
mentally ill man wielding a wrench wounded 18 children and a teacher in
a kindergarten before fleeing on a motorcycle. Police nabbed the
attacker at his home and sent him to hospital because he had stabbed
himself in the stomach.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, A magnitude-6.1 quake
hit far western Xinjiang's mountainous Tekes county. Chinese
authorities relocated 8,250 people after the earthquake damaged and
destroyed thousands of mud brick houses.
(AP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul 20, Aid officials said
clashes between rival militia groups in eastern Congo have killed nine
fighters and reduced dozens of houses to smoldering ruins. The fighting
erupted a week ago in Minembwe, about 120 miles southwest of the
eastern lakeside city of Uvira.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Ecuador's Pres.
Rafael Correa overturned a ban on the sale of shark fins, which are
popular in Asia, but stipulated they can only be sold if the sharks are
caught by fishermen accidentally.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Ethiopia pardoned and
freed 38 opposition politicians and activists following international
condemnation of their imprisonment and days after US lawmakers took
steps to criticize the country's human rights record.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, A heat wave sweeping
central and southeastern Europe killed at least 13 people this week,
with soaring temperatures sparking forest fires, damaging crops and
prompting calls to ban horse-drawn tourist carriages.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Two suspects in the
1994 Rwandan genocide, a priest and a prefect, were arrested in France
on a warrant from an international court investigating the massacres.
Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Roman Catholic priest in Normandy, and Laurent
Bucyibaruta, a former prefect, were jailed before possible extradition
to Tanzania where the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is
based.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, In Iraq 4 people were
killed and three wounded when clashes broke out in the Shiite village
of Ajemi near Khalis. A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier in Diyala
province. Iraqi troops detained 46 suspected militants and killed five
others in a new operation in eastern Diyala. A US airstrike killed six
militants in Husseiniyah, according to US military, disputing claims by
Iraqi officials and relatives of the victims that 18 civilians died in
the attack.
(AP, 7/20/07)(AP, 7/21/07)(AP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul 20, Israel released more
than 250 Palestinian prisoners, aiming to bolster embattled President
Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with the Islamic militants of Hamas.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, The UN said that it
had confined a group of peacekeepers to their base in Ivory Coast after
receiving allegations of widespread sexual abuse, the latest in a
string of accusations of sexual violations by UN forces around the
world.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Suspected Islamic
rebels attacked Hindu pilgrims with hand grenades for the second time
in a week in India's portion of Kashmir, wounding 11 people.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, Lebanon’s army used
loudspeakers to urge Islamic extremists inside a Palestinian refugee
camp in northern Lebanon to surrender, as sporadic fighting continued.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Officials said
Liberia's former House speaker and an ex-military commander have been
charged with treason for their involvement in an alleged coup plot.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Nigeria filed a new
lawsuit against US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer claiming some 6.5
billion dollars in damages for deaths allegedly stemming from drug
trials. In Sokoto, Nigeria's main Islamic city, mobs burned down houses
in Shiite neighborhoods in apparent reprisal for the murder this week
of a radical Sunni Muslim cleric. In northern Nigeria at least one
person died and about 100 were detained in a series of dawn raids
following sectarian clashes sparked by the killing of a popular Sunni
cleric In southern Nigeria Gunmen killed a Lebanese businessman in his
home. Later in the day attackers tried to ambush a truck carrying
several foreign workers in what appeared to be a kidnapping attempt.
(AFP, 7/20/07)(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Pakistan’s Supreme
Court reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, ruling that
his suspension by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was illegal. Clashes
broke out between Pakistani troops and militants in North Waziristan
after a suicide car bomber hit a security checkpoint, killing four
people. In northwestern Pakistan lightning and heavy rain caused
landslides that destroyed homes in two villages, killing more than 70
people.
(AP, 7/20/07)(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 20, The WTO said Rwanda
plans to import a generic HIV/AIDS medicine made in Canada, making it
the first country to test a World Trade Organization waiver on drug
patents.
(Reuters, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, Rade Terzic, Serbia's
former state prosecutor, was arrested on suspicion he belonged to a
criminal gang linked to former President Slobodan Milosevic.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 20, President Thabo Mbeki
hailed the launch of a rolling news network in South Africa as an
opportunity to break free of Western news agendas and give a more
rounded picture of the continent.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2008 Jul 20, Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to
Afghanistan in talks with its Western-backed leader and vowed to pursue
the war on terror "with vigor" if he is elected. 9 policemen were
killed in international military air strikes called in when police and
troops clashed after mistaking each other for Taliban. International
soldiers had moved into a district in Farah province without informing
police, who thought they were militants. 3 children were killed in the
southern province of Helmand when a bomb blew up a minivan. One NATO
soldier was killed in Khost province. A precision missile strike by
British aircraft killed Abdul Rasaq, a Taliban leader who led fighters
in the Musa Qala area of Helmand province.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AFP, 7/20/08)(SFC, 7/21/08, p.A7)
2008 Jul 20, In Australia Pope
Benedict XVI said a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the
world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism of
their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In central Bolivia a
Venezuelan military helicopter often used to transport Bolivian
President Evo Morales crashed. Four Venezuelan military personnel and a
Bolivian officer were reported killed.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, Beijing started its
most drastic pollution-control plan, restricting car use and limiting
factory emissions in a last-minute push to clear smog-choked skies for
the August Olympics.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Well over a million
Colombians, clad in white and shouting "No more kidnapping," marked
their independence day with marches and concerts demanding freedom for
hostages still held by leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern India a
packed bus collided with a truck in Uttar Pradesh state, killing at
least 17 people and wounding 35 others.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Activists said Iran
has sentenced eight women and one man convicted of adultery to death by
stoning. The nine, who are between 27 and 50 years old, were convicted
of adultery in separate cases in different Iranian cities.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Iraq a new airport
opened in Najaf in what the prime minister said was a key step in the
reconstruction of a country devastated by war. The government said an
oil refinery in Iraq's western desert has resumed production. American
soldiers killed two armed relatives of a provincial governor during a
raid in Salahuddin province against al-Qaida in Iraq. 2 private
security contractors were killed in a car bombing in Mosul. 8 Iraqis
were injured in the blast.
(AP, 7/20/08)(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Israel British PM
Gordon Brown, on his first official visit as prime minister, said that
economic development was key to bringing peace to the Middle East.
Brown demanded that Israel cease settlement construction and promised
more money to jump-start the battered Palestinian economy.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Barack Obama made a
brief stop in Kuwait, a key US ally. The delegation met with the emir,
Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and other senior officials.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Lebanon Shehadeh
Jawhar, military commander of the Jund al-Sham group, died from wounds
in the previous day’s clash with members of the mainstream Palestinian
Fatah movement.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 19, Morocco's police
seized more than 10 tons of drugs during raids in the north of the
country and along its coasts.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 20, In Pakistan five
militants died in a failed assault on the Tora Warai military fort near
Hangu. The army said security forces had killed 15 militants and
detained 60 others, in the first major action against insurgents under
Pakistan's new government.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern Spain 4
bombs exploded at popular seaside resorts in Cantabria, after warning
calls from the Basque separatist group ETA. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Sri Lankan government
forces captured a Tamil Tiger rebel base in the north after a 48-hour
battle that left at least 15 rebels dead. Air force jets destroyed six
rebel boats.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, A state newspaper
reported that Zimbabwe will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned
firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's
government to locals and investors from "friendly" countries.
(Reuters, 7/20/08)
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