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HomePage 7: Historical Events In August - 20
Friday, 20 February 2026
1975 Viking 1 launched toward orbit around Mars, soft landing 
1976 Phyllis Konstam, actress (Murder, Skin Game), dies at 69.
1977 NASA launches Voyager 2 towards Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
1978 Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al Airline bus in London.
1978 Ivan Jirko, composer, dies at 51.
1980 Reinhold Messner of Italy is inaugural to solo ascent Mt Everest.
1980 UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jersualem is its capital.
1980 Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, dies at 91
1982 Mexican Treasury Secretary Jesus Silva Herzog tells foreign bankers that Mexico cannot repay her $60 billion foreign debt, the inaugural Third World country to default
1982 Ulla Jacobsson, Swedish actress (Zulu), dies of bone cancer at 53.
1983 Kerwin Duinmeijer, Antillean boy, murdered by racist at 15
1985 Israel ships 96 TOWs to Iran on behalf of the US
1985 Harchand Singh Longowai, Sikh leader, shot by Sikh extremists.
1986 Mail carrier Patrick Sherrill, Edmond Ok, shot 14 fellow workers dead
1986 Donn Bennett, TV host (The Big Idea), dies at 76
1987 The Canadian federal government slaps a total ban on smoking in public service offices, starting Jan. 1, 1988. Smoking by government employees at all public service counters ends immediately, well maybe not quite??.
1988 In the Nepal-India border region a 6.6 quake killed 721, 6553 injured and 64470 buildings damaged in eastern Nepal.
1989 In Ethiopia a 6.3 earthquake killed 2, injured 2 and damage and rockslides caused in the Galafi-Yoboki area
1990 George Steinbrenner steps down as NY Yankee owner.
1990 Iraq moves Western hostages to military installations (human shields)
1990 Marc Turfkruijer, Flemish movie journalist/writer, dies.
1991 Betty Bowden, British dancer/actress (Vote for Nigel), dies at 86
1992 Ivan Nikolayevich Anikeyev, cosmonaut, dies at 59
1993 Bernard Delfgaauw, philosopher (Johnson murderer!), dies at 80.
1994 Aleksander Petrovic, film Director, dies at 65.
1995 Hugo Pratt, graphic artist, dies at 68.
1996 George Brian Snape, businessman/rugby league entrepreneur, dies at 81
1997 Hudson Bay Railway, owned by Omnitrax of Denver, Colorado, takes over operation of former CN lines to Flin Flon, Lyn Lake and Churchill.
2011 Arab Spring and the Libyan civil war: In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan rebels take control the nation's capital, effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi.
2012 20 people are killed in a riot in Caracas, Venezuela
2013 9 Islamist militants are killed by Russian police in North Caucasus
2018 Measles cases reach record high in Europe with 41000 infected inaugural six months of 2018 with 37 deaths according to WHO.
2018 In this year, Pope Francis releases letter to all Catholics condemning sexual abuse atrocities and clerical cover-ups "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them"
2018 Colorado man Christopher Lee Watts is charged with the murder of his wife and two daughters.
