history at a glance
TODAY is Sunday August 20 the 232nd day of the year. There are 133 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1940 – In Mexico City, Mexico exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded
with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day. 1940 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”. 1950 – Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North Korean divisions attempting to
cross the Nakdong River and assault the city of Taegu. 1955 – In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two
rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals. 1962 – The NS Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its
maiden voyage. 1968 – Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the
Prague Spring. 1975 – Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars. 1977 – Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft. 1988 – “Black Saturday” of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park 1988 – Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. 1988 – Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war. 1988 – The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by
an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone. 1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fiftyone people are killed. 1989 – The O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, the world’s longest guided busway, opens. 1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union’s parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. 1991 – Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of historical continuity of its pre-World War II statehood. 1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed
by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month. 1997 – Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped. 1998 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada
without the federal government’s approval. 1998 – US embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 2002 – A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering. 2006 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is
shot dead at his home in Tellippalai. 2007 – China Airlines Flight 120 caught fire and exploded after landing at Naha Airport in
Okinawa, Japan. 2008 – Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash. 2014 – Seventy-two people are killed in Japan’s Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides
caused by a month’s worth of rain that fell in one day.