Wikipedia defines history as the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. It came from the Greek word ‘historia’ – which means ‘inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation’.
Did you know? There are many who claim Herodotus, a fifth century BC Greek historian, as the “father of history”.
This website utilizes pages from Wikipedia to extract historical events from 3761 BC up to the present. There are 105,060 records in the database that include events, births and deaths of popular individuals. The present day Gregorian calendar was adopted to show dates of interest.
Let us begin with today’s history. You may also enter a specific day using the form on the top bar. Year is optional.
What are the important events that happened on April 20? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
April 20: Facts & Myths About This Day
April 20 is the 111th day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 255 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Saturday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is April 7, 2024 – a Saturday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 28,559,520 minutes has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘hectadecahenagon’ day.
Aries is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Diamond is the modern birthstone for this month. Opal is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 284 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,138 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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April 20 Historical Events
- 1836 –U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
- 1861 –American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
- 1926 –Western Electric and Warner Bros. announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film.
- 1968 –English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
- 1999 –Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.
Who were born on April 20?
- 1633 –Emperor Go-Komyo of Japan (d. 1654)
- 1884 –Daniel Varujan, Armenian poet (d. 1915)
- 1904 –George Stibitz, American scientist (d. 1995)
- 1925 –Ernie Stautner, German-born American football player (d. 2006)
- 1931 –John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles, British businessman and peer
Who died on April 20?
- 1991 –Don Siegel, American film director (b. 1912)
- 1996 –Tran Van Tra, Vietnamese general and politician (b. 1918)
- 1999 –Rick Rude, American professional wrestler (b. 1958)
- 2007 –Fred Fish, a computer programmer on the GNU Debugger and “Fish disks” (b. 1952)
- 2011 –Chris Hondros, American photographer (b. 1970)
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