December 20 in history

On December 20:

69 – Vespasian, formerly a general under Nero, entered Rome to claim the title of emperor.

 

217 – The papacy of Zephyrinus ended. Callixtus I was elected as the sixteenth pope, but was opposed by the theologian Hippolytus who accused him of laxity and of being a Modalist, one who denies any distinction between the three persons of the Trinity.

1192  Richard the Lion-Heart was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the Third crusade.

1522 – Suleiman the Magnificent accepted the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who were allowed to evacuate. They eventually settled on Malta and became known as the Knights of Malta.

  

1803 – The Louisiana Purchase was completed at a ceremony in New Orleans.

 

1865  Elsie De Wolfe, American socialite and interior decorator, was born  (d. 1950).

 

1868 Harvey Firestone, American automobile pioneer, was born (d. 1938).

 

1894  Sir Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia was born (d. 1978).

 

1901  Robert Van de Graaff, American physicist and inventor, was born  (d. 1967).

 

 

1907  Paul Francis Webster, songwriter, was born  (d. 1984).

 

 1913 The Great Strike of 1913, which began in late October when Wellington waterside workers stopped work, ended when the United Federation of Labour (UFL) conceded defeat.

1927  Kim Young-sam, first civilian President of South Korea after a series of dictatorships, was born.

1944  Bobby Colomby, American musician (Blood, Sweat & Tears), was born.

1945 Peter Criss, American drummer and singer (Kiss), was born.

1948 Alan Parsons, British music producer and artist, was born.

1951 The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricy.  The electricity powered four light bulbs.

Experimental Breeder Reactor Number 1 in Idaho, the first power reactor.

1955 – Cardiff was proclaimed the capital city of Wales.

 Cardiff City Hall

1957  Billy Bragg, English singer and songwriter, was born.

1973 Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, was assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.

1984 The Summit tunnel fire, the largest underground fire in history, as a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derails near the town of Todmorden in the Pennines.

 1987 History’s worst peacetime sea disaster, when the passenger ferry Doña Paz sank after colliding with the oil tanker Vector 1 in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines  killing an estimated 4,000 people (1,749 official).

1988 The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was signed in Vienna

1989  United States invasion of Panama: The United States sent troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega.

1995  NATO began peacekeeping in Bosnia.

1996 NeXT merged with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.

1999 Macau was handed over to the People’s Republic of China by Portugal.

2007  Queen Elizabeth II became the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.

2007 – The painting Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by Pablo Picasso, was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art, along with O Lavrador de Café, by the major Brazilian modernist painter Candido Portinari.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia