Events on November 20 40
Year 762
During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels.
Year 1407
A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed upon under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans would be assassinated three days later by Burgundy.
Year 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.
Year 1739
Start of the Battle of Porto Bello between British and Spanish forces during the War of Jenkins' Ear.
Year 1776
American Revolutionary War: British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey.
Year 1820
An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story.)
Year 1861
American Civil War: A secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.
Year 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.
Year 1917
World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins: British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back.
Year 1936
José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad.
Year 1940
World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
Year 1943
World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins: United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
Year 1945
Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
Year 1947
The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
Year 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.
Year 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
Year 1969
Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
Year 1969
Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971.
Year 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.
Year 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.
Year 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 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising.
Year 1980
Lake Peigneur 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.
Year 1989
Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
Year 1990
Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union's most prolific serial killers, is arrested; he eventually confesses to 56 killings.
Year 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.
Year 1992
In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
Year 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.
Year 1994
The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.)
Year 1996
A fire breaks out in an office building in Hong Kong, killing 41 people and injuring 81.
Year 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.
Year 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.