Aug.
TODAY IN HISTORY
20
Today is Wednesday, Aug. 20, the 232nd day of 2025. There are 133 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Aug. 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization movement.
Also on this date:
• In 1858, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was first published, in the “Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society.”
• In 1862, the New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free enslaved people and end the South’s rebellion.
• In 1866, President Andrew Johnson declared the official end of the Civil War.
• In 1882, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow.
• In 1910, a series of wildfires swept through parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington, killing at least 85 people and burning some 3 million acres.
• In 1920, the American Professional Football Conference was established by representatives of four professional football teams; two years later, with 18 teams, it would be renamed the National Football League.
• In 1940, exiled Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky was attacked in Coyoacan, Mexico by assassin Ramon Mercader. (Trotsky died the next day.)
• In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Economic Opportunity Act, a nearly $1 billion anti-poverty measure.
• In 1986, postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill went on a deadly rampage at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, shooting 14 fellow workers to death before killing himself.
• In 1989, 51 people died when the pleasure boat Marchioness sank in the River Thames in London after being struck by a dredger.
• In 2012, after 80 years in existence, Georgia’s Augusta National golf club (home to the Masters Tournament) invited former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become its first female members; both accepted.
• In 2023, Tropical Storm Hilary struck Baja California, killing three and causing $15 million in damage.
Today’s Birthdays:
Boxing promoter Don King is 94. Former U.S. Senator and diplomat George Mitchell is 92. Former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is 90. Broadcast journalist Connie Chung is 79. Rock singer Robert Plant is 77. Country singer Rudy Gatlin is 73. Singer-songwriter John Hiatt is 73. Actor-director Peter Horton is 72. TV weather presenter Al Roker is 71. Actor Joan Allen is 69. Movie director David O. Russell is 67. Rapper KRS-One (Boogie Down Productions) is 60. Actor Colin Cunningham is 58. Actor Billy Gardell is 56. Rock singer Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) is 55. Actor Ke Huy Quan is 54. Baseball Hall of Famer Todd Helton is 52. Actor Amy Adams is 51. Actor Misha Collins (TV: “Supernatural”) is 51. Actor Ben Barnes is 44. Actor Andrew Garfield is 42.
