November 20
Events
Pre-1600
- 284 - Diocletian is chosen as Roman emperor.
- 762 - During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels.
- 1194 - Palermo is conquered by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1407 - John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, agree to a truce, but Burgundy would kill Orléans three days later.
- 1441 - The Peace of Cremona ends the war between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan, after the victorious Venetian enterprise of military engineering of the Galeas per montes.
1601–1900
- 1695 - Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho.
- 1739 - Start of the Battle of Porto Bello between British and Spanish forces during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
- 1776 - American Revolutionary War: British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.
- 1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
- 1805 - Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna.
- 1815 - The Second Treaty of Paris is signed, returning the French frontiers to their 1790 extent, imposing large indemnities, and prolonging the occupation by troops of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia for several more years.
- 1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex from the western coast of South America.
- 1845 - Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata: Battle of Vuelta de Obligado.
- 1861 - American Civil War: A secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
- 1873 - Garnier Expedition: French forces under Lieutenant Francis Garnier captured Hanoi from the Vietnamese.
- 1900 - The French actress Sarah Bernhardt receives the press at the Savoy Hotel in New York at the outset of her first visit since 1896. She talked about her impending tour with a troupe of more than 50 performers and her plans to play the title role in Hamlet.
1901–present
- 1910 - Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí, denouncing Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution.
- 1917 - World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins: British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.
- 1936 - José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad.
- 1940 - World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
- 1943 - World War II: Battle of Tarawa begins: United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
- 1945 - Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
- 1946 - Indonesian National Revolution: 96 Indonesian including I Gusti Ngurah Rai were killed during the Battle of Margarana with Dutch forces.
- 1947 - The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
- 1959 - The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.
- 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
- 1968 - A total of 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company's No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in the Farmington Mine disaster.
- 1969 - Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
- 1969 - Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971.
- 1974 - The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.
- 1974 - The first fatal crash of a Boeing 747 occurs when Lufthansa Flight 540 crashes while attempting to takeoff from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 59 out of the 157 people on board.
- 1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
- 1979 - Grand Mosque seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6,000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from French special forces to put down the uprising.
- 1980 - Lake Peigneur in Louisiana drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole.
- 1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0, the first graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft, is released.
- 1989 - Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia, swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
- 1990 - Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union's most prolific serial killers, is arrested; he eventually confesses to 56 killings.
- 1991 - An Azerbaijani MI-8 helicopter carrying 19 peacekeeping mission team with officials and journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend District of Azerbaijan.
- 1992 - In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
- 1993 - Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
- 1993 - North Macedonia's deadliest aviation disaster occurs when Avioimpex Flight 110, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashes near Ohrid Airport, killing all 116 people on board.
- 1994 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war.
- 1996 - A fire breaks out in an office building in Hong Kong, killing 41 people and injuring 81.
- 1998 - A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
- 1998 - The first space station module component, Zarya, for the International Space Station is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
- 2003 - After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
- 2015 - Following a hostage siege, at least 19 people are killed in Bamako, Mali.
- 2016 - Jimmie Johnson wins his seventh NASCAR Cup Series championship to tie Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the most all-time.
- 2022 - The 2022 FIFA World Cup begins in Qatar. This is the first time the tournament was held in the Middle East.
Births
Pre-1600
- 270 - Maximinus II, Roman emperor
- 939 - Emperor Taizong of Song
- 1545 - Ernst Ludwig, Duke of Pomerania
1601–1900
- 1602 - Otto von Guericke, German physicist and politician
- 1603 - Fasilides, Ethiopian emperor
- 1620 - Avvakum, Russian priest and saint
- 1625 - Paulus Potter, Dutch painter
- 1629 - Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg
- 1660 - Daniel Ernst Jablonski, Czech-German theologian and reformer
- 1688 - Gyeongjong of Joseon, 20th king of the Joseon Dynasty
- 1715 - Pierre Charles Le Monnier, French astronomer
- 1717 - George, Orthodox archbishop, preacher, philosopher and theologian
- 1726 - Oliver Wolcott, American politician
- 1733 - Philip Schuyler, American general and senator
- 1737 - José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, Spanish-Mexican scientist and cartographer
- 1739 - Jean-François de La Harpe, French writer and literary critic
- 1748 - Jean-François de Bourgoing, French diplomat, writer and translator
- 1750 - Tipu Sultan, Indian ruler
- 1752 - Thomas Chatterton, English poet
- 1753 - Louis-Alexandre Berthier, 1st Prince of Wagram
- 1755 - Stanisław Kostka Potocki, Polish noble, politician and writer
- 1761 - Pope Pius VIII
- 1776 - Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Austrian violinist
- 1781 - Karl Friedrich Eichhorn, German captain and jurist
- 1781 - Bartolomeo Pinelli, Italian illustrator and engraver
- 1782 - Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, Dutch painter
- 1783 - Georgios Sinas, Greek entrepreneur and banker
- 1784 - Marianne von Willemer, Austrian actress and dancer
- 1787 - Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse, German firearms inventor and manufacturer
- 1788 - Félix Varela, Cuban-born Roman Catholic priest
- 1794 - Eduard Rüppell, German naturalist and explorer
- 1801 - Mungo Ponton, Scottish inventor
- 1808 - Albert Kazimirski de Biberstein, French orientalist
- 1813 - Franz Miklosich, Slovenian linguist and philologist
- 1830 - Mikhail Dragomirov, Russian general
- 1834 - Franjo Kuhač, Croatian conductor and composer
- 1841 - Victor D'Hondt, Belgian mathematician, lawyer, and jurist
- 1841 - François Denys Légitime, Haitian general
- 1841 - Wilfrid Laurier, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Canada
- 1850 - Joseph Samuel Bloch, Austrian rabbi and deputy
- 1850 - Charlotte Garrigue, wife of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
- 1851 - Mikhail Albov, Russian writer
- 1851 - John Merle Coulter, American botanist
- 1851 - Margherita of Savoy, Italian Queen consort
- 1853 - Oskar Potiorek, Austro-Hungarian Army officer
- 1855 - Josiah Royce, American philosopher
- 1857 - Helena Westermarck, Finnish artist and writer
- 1858 - Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and educator, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1860 - José Figueroa Alcorta, President of Argentina,
- 1861 - Camillo Laurenti, Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
- 1862 - Georges Palante, French philosopher and sociologist
- 1862 - Edvard Westermarck, Finnish philosopher and sociologist
- 1864 - Percy Cox, British Indian Army officer
- 1866 - Kenesaw Mountain Landis, American lawyer and judge
- 1866 - Maria Letizia Bonaparte, daughter of Prince Napoléon Bonaparte
- 1867 - Patrick Joseph Hayes, American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
- 1867 - Gustav Giemsa, German chemist and bacteriologist
- 1869 - Zinaida Gippius, Russian writer and editor
- 1869 - Josaphata Hordashevska, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic nun
- 1871 - William Heard Kilpatrick, American pedagogue
- 1871 - Augusto Weberbauer, German naturalist
- 1873 - Ramón Castillo, Argentine politician
- 1873 - William Coblentz, American physicist
- 1873 - Georges Caussade, French composer
- 1873 - Daniel Gregory Mason, American composer and music critic
- 1874 - James Michael Curley, American lawyer, politician, 53rd Governor of Massachusetts, and criminal
- 1875 - Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg, German diplomat
- 1876 - Rudolf Koch, German designer
- 1877 - Herbert Pitman, English sailor
- 1880 - Walter Brack, German swimmer
- 1881 - Irakli Tsereteli, Georgian politician
- 1882 - Ernestas Galvanauskas, Lithuanian engineer and politician
- 1883 - Edwin August, American actor and director
- 1883 - Tony Gaudio, Italian American cinematographer
- 1884 - Norman Thomas, American minister and politician
- 1885 - George Holley, English footballer
- 1885 - Kaarlo Vasama, Finnish gymnast
- 1886 - Robert Hunter, American golfer
- 1886 - Karl von Frisch, Austrian-German ethologist and zoologist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1886 - Alexandre Stavisky, French financier and embezzler
- 1887 - Jean Ducret, French footballer
- 1888 - Dennis Fenton, American sports shooter
- 1889 - Edwin Hubble, American astronomer and cosmologist
- 1890 - Robert Armstrong, American actor
- 1890 - Harald Madsen, Danish actor
- 1890 - Lauri Tanner, Finnish gymnast
- 1891 - Reginald Denny, English actor
- 1892 - James Collip, Canadian biochemist and academic, co-discovered insulin
- 1893 - André Bloch, French mathematician
- 1893 - Grace Darmond, Canadian-American actress
- 1894 - Johann Nikuradse, Georgian-born German engineer and physicist
- 1895 - Pierre Cot, French politician
- 1896 - Chiyono Hasegawa, Japanese supercentenarian
- 1896 - Carl Mayer, Austrian-Jewish screenplay writer
- 1897 - Germaine Krull, German photographer and political activist
- 1898 - Richmond Landon, American high jumper
- 1898 - Adrian Piotrovsky, Russian dramaturge
- 1899 - Alicja Kotowska, Polish nun
- 1900 - Florieda Batson, American Olympic hurdler
- 1900 - Helen Bradley, English painter
- 1900 - Chester Gould, American cartoonist and author, created ''Dick Tracy''