ON THIS DAY OCTOBER 20
(SUBS/NEDS: FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY — NOT FOR BROADCAST/PUBLICATION)
HISTORIC, COMMEMORATIVE, AND INTERESTING EVENTS
1720 – Caribbean pirate Calico Jack is captured by the Royal Navy.
1827 – In the Battle of Navarino, a combined Turkish and Egyptian fleet is defeated by British, French and Russian naval forces in the last significant battle fought with wooden sailing ships.
1941 – World War II: Thousands of civilians in German-occupied Serbia are murdered in the Kragujevac massacre.
1944 – Liquefied natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland and then explodes, leveling 30 blocks and killing 130 people.
1952 – The governor of Kenya declares a state of emergency and begins arresting hundreds of suspected leaders of the Mau Mau uprising.
1961 – The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf-class submarine.
1962 – People’s Republic of China launches simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line, igniting the Sino-Indian War.
1968 – Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
1973 – The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.
1976 – The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River. Seventy-eight passengers and crew die, and only 18 people aboard the ferry survive.
1977 – Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd’s airplane crashes. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines perish in the crash.
1981 – Two police officers and an armored car guard are killed during an armed robbery carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground.
1982 – During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
1991 – A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people.
2011 – Libyan Civil War: Rebel forces capture Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and kill him shortly thereafter.
BIRTHS: Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai, Italian poet and playwright (1475), Aelbert Cuyp, Dutch painter (1620), Christopher Wren, English physicist, mathematician, and architect, designed St Paul’s Cathedral (1632), Stéphane Hessel, German-French activist and diplomat (1917), Ric Lee, English drummer (Ten Years After) (1945), Tom Petty, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (1950), Allan Donald, South African cricketer and coach (1966), Candice Swanepoel, South African supermodel and philanthropist (1988).
DEATHS: Antonio Coello, Spanish poet and playwright (1652), Richard Francis Burton, English-Italian geographer and explorer (1890), Gunnar Nilsson, Swedish race car driver (1978), Anthony Quayle, English actor and director (1989), Bob Guccione, American publisher, founded Penthouse magazine (2010), Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan colonel and politician, Prime Minister of Libya (2011),
– World Osteoporosis Day
– World Statistics Day
– African News Agency (ANA)