TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

1741 - Danish navigator Vitus Jonas Bering arrived in Alaska.

1794 - Henry Hacking leads one of the earliest expeditions to cross the Blue Mountains.

1836 - Colonel William Light arrives in South Australia to survey a site for the first settlement.

1857 - 121 people die when the ship, the Dunbar, runs aground at The Gap, Sydney.

1860 - Australian explorers Burke and Wills commence their expedition to cross the continent from south to north.

1882 - Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture debuted in Moscow.

1908 - The first successful Australian transcontinental motor car journey is completed.

1914 - German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.

1918 - The British opened its Western Front offensive during World War I.

1940 - France fell to the Germans during World War II.

1953 - It was announced by the Soviet Union that they had detonated a hydrogen bomb.

1955 - In Morocco and Algeria hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting.

1968 - The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalisation.

1997 - Britain began voluntary evacuation of its Caribbean island of Montserrat due to the volcanic activity of the Soufriere Hills.

1998 - The UN Security Council extended trade sanctions against Iraq for blocking arms inspections. Birthdays

Bernardo O’Higgins 1778 Benjamin Harrison 1833 Edgar Guest 1881

H.P. Lovecraft 1890 Walter Bernstein 1919 Jacqueline Susann 1921 Author

Justin Tubb 1935

Rajiv Ghandi (Rajiv Ratna Gandhi) 1944 - Seventh Prime Minister of India

Jimmy Pankow (James Carter “Jimmy” Pankow) 1947 Musician (Chicago)

Robert Plant 1948 - Musician (Led Zeppelin)

James Marsters 1962 - Actor Demi Lovato 1992 - Actress, singer