June 20
Events
Pre-1600
- 451 - Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory.
- 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan.
- 1295 - The Treaty of Anagni, an attempt mediated by the papacy to end the War of the Sicilian Vespers, is signed by the crown of Aragon, the kingdom of France and kingdom of Naples.
1601–1900
- 1622 - The Battle of Höchst takes place during the Thirty Years' War.
- 1631 - The Sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Barbary slave traders.
- 1652 - Tarhoncu Ahmed Pasha is appointed Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1685 - Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater.
- 1756 - A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
- 1782 - The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.
- 1787 - Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the 'United States'.
- 1789 - Deputies of the French Third Estate take the Tennis Court Oath.
- 1791 - King Louis XVI, disguised as a valet, and the French royal family attempt to flee Paris during the French Revolution.
- 1819 - The U.S. vessel arrives at Liverpool, United Kingdom. It is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey is made under sail.
- 1837 - King William IV dies, and is succeeded by his niece, Victoria.
- 1840 - Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph.
- 1862 - Barbu Catargiu, the Prime Minister of Romania, is assassinated.
- 1863 - American Civil War: West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state.
- 1877 - Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- 1893 - Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother.
- 1895 - The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is officially opened.
- 1900 - Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China.
- 1900 - Baron Eduard Toll, leader of the Russian Polar Expedition of 1900, departs Saint Petersburg in Russia on the explorer ship Zarya, never to return.
1901–present
- 1921 - Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in the city of Chennai, India, begin a four-month strike.
- 1926 - The 28th International Eucharistic Congress begins in Chicago, with over 250,000 spectators attending the opening procession.
- 1942 - The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp.
- 1943 - The Detroit race riot breaks out and continues for three more days.
- 1943 - World War II: The Royal Air Force launches Operation Bellicose, the first shuttle bombing raid of the war. Avro Lancaster bombers damage the V-2 rocket production facilities at the Zeppelin Works while en route to an air base in Algeria.
- 1944 - World War II: The Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot".
- 1944 - World War II: During the Continuation War, the Soviet Union demands unconditional surrender from Finland during the beginning of partially successful Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive. The Finnish government refuses.
- 1944 - The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space.
- 1945 - The United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip.
- 1948 - The Deutsche Mark is introduced in Western Allied-occupied Germany. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany responded by imposing the Berlin Blockade four days later.
- 1956 - A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.
- 1959 - A rare June hurricane strikes Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence killing 35.
- 1960 - The Mali Federation gains independence from France.
- 1963 - Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union and the United States sign an agreement to establish the so-called "red telephone" link between Washington, D.C., and Moscow.
- 1964 - A Curtiss C-46 Commando crashes in the Shengang District of Taiwan, killing 57 people.
- 1972 - Watergate scandal: An -minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.
- 1973 - Snipers fire upon left-wing Peronists in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in what is known as the Ezeiza massacre. At least 13 are killed and more than 300 are injured.
- 1973 - Aeroméxico Flight 229 crashes on approach to Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport, killing all 27 people on board.
- 1975 - The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as "summer blockbusters".
- 1979 - ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan National Guard soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle during the Nicaraguan Revolution. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
- 1982 - The International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide opens in Tel Aviv, despite attempts by the Turkish government to cancel it, as it included presentations on the Armenian genocide.
- 1982 - The Argentine Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the Falklands War.
- 1988 - Haitian president Leslie Manigat is ousted from power in a coup d'état led by Lieutenant General Henri Namphy.
- 1990 - Asteroid Eureka is discovered.
- 1990 - The 7.4 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X, killing 35,000–50,000, and injuring 60,000–105,000.
- 1991 - The German Bundestag votes to move seat of government from the former West German capital of Bonn to the present capital of Berlin.
- 1994 - The 1994 Imam Reza shrine bomb explosion in Iran leaves at least 25 dead and 70 to 300 injured.
- 1996 - Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-78 to conduct life science and microgravity research aboard the Spacelab module.
- 2003 - The Wikimedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.
- 2011 - RusAir Flight 9605 crashes in Besovets during approach to Petrozavodsk Airport, killing 47.
- 2019 - Iran's Air Defense Forces shoot down an American surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz amid rising tensions between the two countries.
- 2025 - The first EF5 tornado in 12 years occurs in Enderlin, North Dakota.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1005 - Ali az-Zahir, Fatimid caliph of Egypt
- 1389 - John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, English statesman
- 1469 - Gian Galeazzo Sforza, duke of Milan
- 1566 - Sigismund III Vasa, Polish and Swedish king
- 1583 - Jacob De la Gardie, Swedish soldier and politician, Lord High Constable of Sweden
1601–1900
- 1634 - Charles Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy
- 1642 - George Hickes, English minister and scholar
- 1647 - John George III, Elector of Saxony
- 1717 - Jacques Saly, French sculptor and painter
- 1723 - Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher and historian
- 1737 - Tokugawa Ieharu, Japanese shōgun
- 1754 - Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt, princess of Baden
- 1756 - Joseph Martin Kraus, German-Swedish composer and educator
- 1761 - Jacob Hübner, German entomologist and author
- 1763 - Wolfe Tone, Irish rebel leader
- 1770 - Moses Waddel, American minister and academic
- 1771 - Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, Scottish philanthropist and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Kirkcudbright
- 1771 - Hermann von Boyen, Prussian general and politician, Prussian Minister of War
- 1777 - Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Canadian bishop
- 1778 - Jean Baptiste Gay, vicomte de Martignac, French politician, 7th Prime Minister of France
- 1786 - Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, French poet and author
- 1796 - Luigi Amat di San Filippo e Sorso, Italian cardinal
- 1808 - Samson Raphael Hirsch, German rabbi and scholar
- 1809 - Isaak August Dorner, German theologian and academic
- 1813 - Joseph Autran, French poet and author
- 1819 - Jacques Offenbach, German-French cellist and composer
- 1847 - Gina Krog, Norwegian suffragist and women's rights activist
- 1855 - Richard Lodge, English historian and academic
- 1858 - Charles W. Chesnutt, American novelist and short story writer
- 1859 - Christian von Ehrenfels, Austrian philosopher
- 1860 - Alexander Winton, Scottish-American race car driver and engineer
- 1860 - Jack Worrall, Australian cricketer, footballer, and coach
- 1861 - Frederick Gowland Hopkins, English biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1865 - George Redmayne Murray, English biologist and physician
- 1866 - James Burns, English cricketer
- 1867 - Leon Wachholz, Polish scientist and medical examiner
- 1869 - Laxmanrao Kirloskar, Indian businessman, founded the Kirloskar Group
- 1870 - Georges Dufrénoy, French painter and academic
- 1872 - George Carpenter, American 5th General of The Salvation Army
- 1875 - Reginald Punnett, English geneticist, statistician, and academic
- 1882 - Daniel Sawyer, American golfer
- 1884 - Mary R. Calvert, American astronomer and author
- 1884 - Johannes Heinrich Schultz, German psychiatrist and psychotherapist
- 1885 - Andrzej Gawroński, Polish linguist and academic
- 1887 - Kurt Schwitters, German painter and illustrator
- 1889 - John S. Paraskevopoulos, Greek-South African astronomer and academic
- 1891 - Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, Italian soprano
- 1891 - John A. Costello, Irish lawyer and politician, 3rd Taoiseach of Ireland
- 1893 - Wilhelm Zaisser, German soldier and politician
- 1894 - Lloyd Hall, American chemist and academic
- 1896 - Wilfrid Pelletier, Canadian pianist, composer, and conductor
- 1897 - Elisabeth Hauptmann, German author and playwright
- 1899 - Jean Moulin, French soldier and engineer