About October 20
October 20, 2025 is the 293rd day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 72 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Monday.
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Libra is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Opal is the modern birthstone for this month. Jasper is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 120 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
What Happened On October 20
- 1548 –The city of Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace) is founded by Alonso de Mendoza by appointment of the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.
- 1720 –Caribbean pirate Calico Jack is captured by the Royal Navy.
- 1803 –The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
- 1827 –Battle of Navarino – a combined Turkish and Egyptian armada is defeated by British, French, and Russian naval force in the port of Navarino in Pylos, Greece.
- 1910 –The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
- 1935 –The Long March ends.
- 1939 –Pope Pius XII publishes his first major encyclical entitled Summi Pontificatus.
- 1943 –The cargo vessel Sinfra is attacked by Allied aircraft at Suda Bay, Crete, and sunk. 2,098 Italian prisoners of war drown with it.
- 1944 –General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
- 1944 –Liquid natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
- 1947 –The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.
- 1951 –The “Johnny Bright Incident” occurs in Stillwater, Oklahoma
- 1961 –The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf class submarine.
- 1967 –A purported bigfoot is filmed by Patterson and Gimlin.
- 1970 –Siad Barre declares Somalia a socialist state.
- 1973 –“Saturday Night Massacre”: President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
- 1973 –The Sydney Opera House opens.
- 1976 –The ferry George Prince‘’is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan and Luling, Louisiana. Seventy-eight passengers and crew die and only 18 people aboard the ferry survive.
- 1982 –During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
- 1991 –The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3,469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.
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