On This Day: July 20

Updated July 19, 2012, 2:28 pm

On July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

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On July 20, 1920, Elliot Richardson, the American public official best known for his refusal to obey President Richard M. Nixon’s order to fire a special prosecutor, was born. Following his death on December 31, 1999, his obituary appeared in The Times.

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On This Date

By The Associated Press

1810	Colombia declared independence from Spain.
1861	The Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Va.
1871	British Columbia joined the confederation as a Canadian province.
1881	Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull surrendered to federal troops.
1917	The World War I draft lottery began.
1944	Adolf Hitler was only slightly wounded when a bomb planted by would-be assassins exploded at the German leader’s Rastenburg headquarters.
1944	President Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1976	America’s Viking 1 robot spacecraft landed on Mars.
1977	A flash flood hit Johnstown, Pa., killing 80 people and causing $350 million in damage.
1990	A federal appeals court set aside Oliver North’s Iran-Contra convictions.
1993	White House deputy counsel Vince Foster was found shot to death in a park near Washington, D.C., in an apparent suicide.
1999	After 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was recovered.
2007	The Senate Judiciary Committee voted almost totally along party lines, 13-6, to approve Elena Kagan to be the Supreme Court’s fourth female justice.

Current Birthdays

By The Associated Press

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., turns 76 years old today.

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Singer-dancer Julianne Hough (“Dancing with the Stars”) turns 24 years old today.

AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

1938	Diana Rigg, Actress (“The Avengers”), turns 74
1943	John Lodge, Rock musician (The Moody Blues), turns 69
1945	Kim Carnes, Rock singer, turns 67
1945	Larry Craig, Former U.S. senator, R-Idaho, turns 67
1947	Carlos Santana, Rock musician, turns 65
1969	Josh Holloway, Actor (“Lost”), turns 43
1973	Omar Epps, Actor (“House M.D.”), turns 39
1973	Peter Forsberg, Hockey player, turns 39
1975	Judy Greer, Actress, turns 37
1978	Charlie Korsmo, Actor, turns 34
1978	Elliott Yamin, Singer (“American Idol”), turns 34
1980	Gisele Bundchen, Model, turns 32
1988	Stephen Strasburg, Baseball player, turns 24

 

Historic Birthdays

Elliot Richardson 7/20/1920 – 12/31/1999 American politician; attorney general during the Watergate scandal (1973)Go to obituary »

69	Petrarch 7/20/1304 – 7/19/1374 Italian scholar and poet
48	Giuseppe La Farina 7/20/1815 – 9/5/1863 Italian writer and leader of the Risorgimento
60	Augustin Daly 7/20/1838 – 6/7/1899 American playwright and theatrical manager
90	Sir George Otto Trevelyan 7/20/1838 – 8/17/1928 English historian, statesman and biographer
87	Max Liebermann 7/20/1847 – 2/8/1935 German painter and etcher
70	Miron Cristea 7/20/1868 – 3/6/1939 Romanian; first patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church
59	Alberto Santos-Dumont 7/20/1873 – 7/23/1932 Brazilian aviation pioneer
56	George II 7/20/1890 – 4/1/1947 Greek king (1922-4; 1935-47)
79	Errett Lobban Cord 7/20/1894 – 1/2/1974 American automobile manufacturer