Events on June 20 45
Year 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.
Year 1631
The sack of Baltimore: The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.
Year 1685
Monmouth Rebellion: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth declares himself King of England at Bridgwater.
Year 1787
Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention to call the government the 'United States'.
Year 1819
The U.S. vessel SS Savannah 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.
Year 1877
Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Year 1895
The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is officially opened.
Year 1900
Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China.
Year 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.
Year 1921
Workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in the city of Chennai, India, begin a four-month strike.
Year 1941
The United States Army Air Corps is deprecated to being the American training and logistics section of what is known until 1947 as the United States Army Air Forces, just two days before Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.
Year 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.
Year 1943
World War II: The Royal Air Force launches Operation Bellicose, the first shuttle bombing raid of the war. Lancaster bombers damage the V-2 rocket production facilities at the Zeppelin Works while en route to an air base in Algeria.
Year 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".
Year 1944
Continuation War: The Soviet Union demands an unconditional surrender from Finland during the beginning of partially successful Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive. The Finnish government refuses.
Year 1944
The experimental MW 18014 V-2 rocket reaches an altitude of 176 km, becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space.
Year 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.
Year 1948
The Deutsche Mark is introduced in Western Allied-occupied Germany. The Communists respond by imposing the Berlin Blockade four days later.
Year 1956
A Venezuelan Super-Constellation crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Asbury Park, New Jersey, killing 74 people.
Year 1960
The Mali Federation gains independence from France (it later splits into Mali and Senegal).
Year 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 and Moscow.
Year 1972
Watergate scandal: An 18½-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.
Year 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.
Year 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".
Year 1979
ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier under the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The murder is caught on tape and sparks an international outcry against the regime.
Year 1982
The Argentine Corbeta Uruguay base on Southern Thule surrenders to Royal Marine commandos in the final action of the Falklands War.
Year 1990
The 7.4 Mw Manjil-Rudbar earthquake affects northern Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 35,000-50,000, and injuring 60,000-105,000.
Year 1994
The 1994 Imam Reza shrine bomb explosion in Iran leaves at least 25 dead and 70 to 300 injured.