Behind History For November 20
1910 – Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí (a written political document), which starts the Mexican Revolution. Publicly declares to overthrow the government under Mexican President Porfirio Díaz.
1917 – World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins: British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions.
1936 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, was killed by a republican execution squad.
1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers (nations that fought in World War II against the Allies).
1943 – World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins: United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns.
1947 – The Princess Elizabeth marries Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London.
1959 – The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the restriction of people of the Caribbean nation.
1969 – Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. It was an important cause in the breakup of AT&T and Bell.
1974 – The first fatal crash of a Boeing 747 occurs when Lufthansa Flight 540 crashes while attempting to takeoff from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 59 out of the 157 people on board.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
1979 – Grand Mosque seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from Pakistani special forces to put down the uprising.
1980 – Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole.
1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
1989 – Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
1990 – Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union’s most prolific serial killers, is arrested; he eventually confesses to 56 killings.
1991 – An Azerbaijani MI-8 helicopter carrying 19 peacekeeping mission team with officials and journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend District of Azerbaijan.
1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage.
1993 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his “dealings” with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1993 – Macedonia’s deadliest aviation disaster occurs Avioimpex Flight 110, a Yakovlev Yak-42 crashes near Ohrid killing all 116 people on board.
1996 – A fire breaks out in an office building in Hong Kong, killing 41 people and injuring 81.
1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden “a man without a sin” in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 – Zarya – the first space station module component for the International Space Station was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
2015 – Following a hostage siege, at least 19 people are killed in Bamako, Mali.
2017 – The Georgia Dome in Atlanta is imploded.