What Happened On
Photo Credit: Eduard Marmet
Photo Credit: Eduard Marmet
Pilot Crashes Plane on a Bet
October 20, 1986
The pilot of a Soviet passenger jet flight Aeroflot Flight 6502 bets his co-pilot he can land the plane with the cockpit windows closed, thus requiring an instrument-only approach. The jet touched down at a speed of 150 knots (280 km/h, 174 mph) flipping upside down. Seventy people died from the accident. The co-pilot died of cardiac arrest en route to hospital. The pilot was prosecuted and served six years in prison.
Lynyrd Skynyrd (1977)
Lynyrd Skynyrd (1977)
Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash
October 20, 1977
Six people die, including three members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, when their chartered plane runs out of fuel and crashes in Mississippi. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines (Steve's older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray were killed on impact. Twenty people survived the crash.
The fuel gauge in the plane was known to malfunction and the pilots had neglected to manually check the tanks before taking off.
Drummer Artimus Pyle survived the crash and went looking for help and found a farmhouse. When the farmer saw a bloody Pyle coming towards him, he fired a warning shot that hit Pyle in the shoulder. After Pyle explained he was coming from a plane crash, the farmer helped him inside and sent for help.
Just three months earlier, the band Aerosmith had considered using the same plane for touring, but rejected it because, while inspecting the plane, they saw the pilots drinking Jack Daniels and felt both the plane and its crew were not up to standards.
This was going to be Lynyrd Skynyrd's last flight on the plane, as they felt the 30-year-old plane was too old and were planning on upgrading after that flight.
Watergate - Saturday Night Massacre
October 20, 1973
U.S. President Richard Nixon orders U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson resigns in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. Solicitor General of the United States Robert Bork is then sworn in as acting attorney general and fires Cox.
Cox had issued a subpoena to Nixon, asking for copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office. Nixon refused.
The firing of Cox was seen as a gross abuse of presidential power, leading to calls for Nixon's impeachment.
Mississippi Burning
October 20, 1967
Seven people are convicted for the murder of three civil rights workers (two white, one black) in 1964. The sheriff who was charged in the crimes was acquitted. The three civil rights workers had been working to register African American voters in Mississippi. When they were returning from talking to a Mississippi church that had been burned, they were pulled over for speeding and escorted to jail. While in jail, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) organized a group, including law enforcement officers, that followed them when they were released. They were then abducted, tortured, and killed. When the state of Mississippi refused to prosecute, the federal courts stepped in. Seven of the 18 people charged were convicted, including the Deputy Sheriff, and received sentences ranging from three to ten years; none served more than six years.
These were the first convictions ever in Mississippi for the killing of a civil rights worker.
In 2005, preacher and KKK organizer, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of recruiting the mob that committed these crimes. Killen was convicted 41 years after the crime and received 60 years prison time, dying in prison 13 years later. He had been prosectued in the original trial, but the jury deadlocked. It was later learned that the jury deadlocked, because one of the jurors refused to convict a preacher.
The film Mississippi Burning (1988) is loosely based on these murders and ensuing FBI investigation.
Bigfoot
October 20, 1967
The legendary creature is reportedly filmed by hunters Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin, creating what is known as the "Patterson footage."
World War II - I Shall Return
October 20, 1944
General Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise of "I shall return" by returning to the Philippines.
Lt. Harris, his plane, and crash site
Lt. Harris, his plane, and crash site
First Life Saved by a Parachute
October 20, 1922
Lt. Harold R. Harris of the U.S. Army. While banking his airplane into a right turn, the control stick began to vibrate violently, the airplane's wings tore apart, and the craft began diving uncontrollably. Harris jumped from the cockpit at approximately 2,500 feet (762 meters). After free-falling about 2,000 feet (610 meters), he deployed his parachute and landed with only minor cuts and bruises. Harris' plane crashed several blocks away and was completely demolished.
Shortly thereafter, two reporters suggested that a club should be formed for people who jumped from a disabled aircraft with a parachute, with Harris becoming the first member of the "Caterpillar Club".
Early U.S. automobile
Early U.S. automobile
First U.S. Automobile Insurance
October 20, 1897
Gilbert L. Loomis of Dayton, Ohio buys an insurance policy from Travelers Insurance Company for a car he built himself, although it was written as a horse and carriage policy. His policy was purchased for $7.50 and carried $1,000 in liability coverage.
The first automobile insurance that was written as "Automobile Insurance" was issued the following year to Dr. Truman Martin.
St. Paul's Cathedral
October 20, 1708
The construction of Christopher Wren's building in London is completed.
Oakland Fire
October 20, 1991
Thousands of homes in Oakland Hills, California are destroyed by fire.
World's Worst Soccer Tragedy
October 20, 1982
340 fans are crushed to death in a staircase at a game in Moscow.
Angels in Chains
October 20, 1976
Part of Jill's right breast and nipple are shown on the Angels in Chains episode of the TV show Charlie's Angels.
Monster Mash
October 20, 1962
The Monster Mash, by Bobby "Boris" Pickett, becomes a graveyard smash when it reaches #1.
First Automated U.S. Post Office
October 20, 1960
Project Turnkey opens in Providence, Rhode Island. It was designed to handle 2,000,000 pieces of mail a day.
Peter Pan
October 20, 1954
The musical Peter Pan opens on Broadway, starring Mary Martin as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook, earning Tony Awards for both stars. It was based on J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and his 1911 novelization of it, Peter and Wendy.
NBC did telecasts of the play in 1955, 1956, and 1960 with the same stars.
The House Un-American Activities Committee
October 20, 1947
The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigating Communist activity in the entertainment industry.
Baseball
October 20, 1910
First use of a cork-centered baseball in a World Series game.
Birthdays
Kamala Harris (Kamala Devi Harris)
Born October 20, 1964
American politician. 49th U.S. Vice President (2021‑), U.S. senator (2017-21, California), and California attorney general (2011-17). She is the first female U.S. vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well as the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president.
Dunn as Dr. Loveless
Dunn as Dr. Loveless
Michael Dunn (Gary Neil Miller)
Born October 20, 1934 d. 1973
American dwarf (3 ft. 10 in. - 117 cm) actor. He was reported to have an IQ of 178. Film: Ship of Fools (1964). TV: The Wild Wild West (1965-68, the evil Dr. Loveless), and Star Trek episode Plato's Stepchildren (1968, the court jester).
He died of medical issues related to his dwarfism.
Note: The episode Plato's Stepchildren also included the infamous Star Trek Kiss.
Bela Lugosi (Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó)
Born October 20, 1882 d. 1956
Hungarian-born American horror actor. Film: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943, Ygor), and Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959, called "the worst movie ever made"). He was buried wearing his Dracula costume.
St. Paul's Cathedral
St. Paul's Cathedral
Sir Christopher Wren
Born October 20, 1632 d. 1723
English architect. Designed and built St. Paul's Cathedral in London (1675-1710) and designed the towers of Westminster Abbey (1713).
Snoop Dogg (Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.)
Born October 20, 1971
American rap singer. He has sold over 35 million albums worldwide. He was reportedly a member of the Rollin' 20 Crips gang in the Eastside area of Long Beach as a teenager. He was arrested as the driver in a drive-by shooting (1993). His bodyguard shot a man to death from the passenger window.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty
Born October 20, 1950 d. 2017
American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He sold more than 80 million records worldwide. Music: Refugee (1980) and You Got Lucky (1982).
Jerry Orbach
Born October 20, 1935 d. 2004
American Tony-winning actor. Film: Dirty Dancing (1987, Baby's father), Beauty and the Beast (1991, voice of Lumiere the candelabra). TV: Law & Order (Det. Lennie Briscoe, 1991-2004).
William Christopher
Born October 20, 1932 d. 2016
American actor. TV: M*A*S*H (1972-83, Father Mulcahy) and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (1965-68, Private Lester Hummel).
June Blair (Margaret June Blair)
Born October 20, 1932 d. 2022
American actress. TV: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1961-66, Dave's wife in both the show and in real life, 1961-75). She was Playboy's Playmate of the Month for the January 1957 issue.
Mickey Mantle
Born October 20, 1931 d. 1995
American Baseball Hall-of-Famer, "The Commerce Comet." With 536 career home runs, he led the American League four times, and is a three-time MVP (1956-57, 1962).
Dr. Joyce Brothers (Joyce Diane Bauer)
Born October 20, 1927 d. 2013
American psychologist, newspaper columnist, radio and TV host. She was the first woman to win the top prize on the TV show The $64,000 Question (1955).
Art Buchwald
Born October 20, 1925 d. 2007
American Pulitzer-winning newspaper columnist. The book Fatal Subtraction: The Inside Story of Buchwald v. Paramount (1992) was about his lawsuit against Paramount for stealing his script treatment used in the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America (1988).
John Anderson
Born October 20, 1922 d. 1992
American actor. TV: Wyatt Earp (Virgil Earp).
Grandpa Jones (Louis Marshall Jones)
Born October 20, 1913 d. 1998
American Country Music Hall of Famer (1978). TV: Hee Haw ("Hey Grandpa, what's for supper?")
Will Rogers Jr. (William Vann Rogers)
Born October 20, 1911 d. 1993
American actor, son of the famous humorist Will Rogers. U.S. Representative (California 1943-44. He resigned to enlist in the army for WWII). Film: The Story of Will Rogers (1952, in which he played his real-life father).
Arlene Francis (Arlene Francis Kazanjian)
Born October 20, 1907 d. 2001
American radio talk-show host, actress. TV: What's My Line (panelist 1950-67).
Hugo Zacchini
Born October 20, 1898 d. 1975
Italian-born circus performer, the Human Cannonball for the Ringling Brothers Circus. He was shot 75 feet into the air traveling a distance of 200 feet.
Sir James Chadwick
Born October 20, 1891 d. 1974
English Nobel-winning physicist. He discovered the neutron (1932), for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
Jomo Kenyatta
Born October 20, 1891 d. 1978
Kenyan statesman. He was Prime Minister of Kenya (1963-64) and the first president of Kenya (1964-78). Kenyatta played a important role in the transformation of Kenya from a British colony into an independent republic. He also played an African chief in the British film Sanders of the River (1934).
Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand Joseph Morton)
Born October 20, 1890 d. 1941
American jazz musician. The first great composer in jazz.
John Dewey
Born October 20, 1859 d. 1952
American philosopher, education reformer. He promoted the idea of learning by doing.
James Robert Mann
Born October 20, 1856 d. 1922
American politician. U.S. Representative (1897-1922, Illinois). He authored the Mann Act (1910), also known as the White Slave Act. It prohibited the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. The law was used to prosecute singer Chuck Berry and boxer Jack Johnson.
Austin Flint
Born October 20, 1812 d. 1886
American physician, pioneer in heart research. He co-founded Buffalo Medical College.
Deaths
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the film From Here to Eternity
Burt Lancaster
Died October 20, 1994 b. 1913
American Oscar-winning actor. Film: From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960, Oscar), and The Leopard (1963). He started his career as a circus performer.
Herbert Clark Hoover
Died October 20, 1964 b. 1874
American politician. 31st U.S. President (1929-33), U.S. Secretary of Commerce (1921-28). He was the first U.S. president who was a Quaker and the first U.S. president born west of the Mississippi.
Helen Keller (age 8) with tutor Anne Sullivan (right)
Helen Keller (age 8) with tutor Anne Sullivan (right)
The Miracle Worker
Anne Sullivan
Died October 20, 1936 b. 1866
American educator. "The Miracle Worker." In 1887, she became Helen Keller's teacher and companion. Anne herself was partially blind as a child, becoming completely blind in 1935.
Founder of Chiropractic - Which He Learned From a Ghost
Daniel David Palmer
Died October 20, 1913 b. 1845
Canadian-born American magnetic healer. Founder of chiropractic treatment (c1895). Palmer claimed to have "received chiropractic from the other world" via a deceased physician named Dr. Jim Atkinson. He believed that the human body had natural healing power transmitted through the nervous system and that if any one organ was affected by an illness, it was merely not receiving its normal "nerve supply" which he dubbed a "spinal misalignment", or subluxation.
Charles Dudley Warner
Died October 20, 1900 b. 1829
American newspaperman. Famous for the quote, "While everybody talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it."
Randi using slight of hand to perform "psychic surgery"
Photo Credit: Open Media Ltd
Randi using slight of hand to perform "psychic surgery"Photo Credit: Open Media Ltd
The Amazing Randi
James Randi (Randall James Hamilton Zwinge)
Died October 20, 2020 b. 1928
Canadian-American stage magician, skeptic, pseudoscience debunker. His One Million Dollar Challenge offered a $1,000,000 prize (USD) to anyone who was able to demonstrate any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties.
He exposed fraudulent faith healers, including exposing televangelist Peter Popoff by showing Popoff used a hidden radio device to get information about audience members from his wife, while claiming the information came from God.
TV: James Randi - Secrets of the Psychics (2000). Writings: Flim-Flam! (1982) and The Truth About Uri Geller (1982).
Tabei in 1985
Photo Credit: Jaan Künnap
Tabei in 1985Photo Credit: Jaan Künnap
First Woman to Summit Mt. Everest
Junko Tabei
Died October 20, 2016 b. 1939
Japanese mountaineer. She was the first woman to summit Mt. Everest (1975) and the first woman to ascend all Seven Summits by climbing the highest peak on every continent (1992).
Oscar de la Renta (Óscar Arístides Renta Fiallo)
Died October 20, 2014 b. 1932
Dominican-born American fashion designer. He designed gowns worn by U.S. First Ladies Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama.
Photo Credit: Stevan Kragujević
Photo Credit: Stevan Kragujević
Muammar Gaddafi
Died October 20, 2011 b. 1942
Libyan revolutionary, political leader. Libyan Leader (1969-2011). While in the military, he founded a revolutionary cell which deposed the Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris in a 1969 coup. During the 2011 Arab Spring, protests against widespread corruption and unemployment broke out in eastern Libya, descending into civil war. NATO intervened militarily on the side of the anti-Gaddafist National Transitional Council (NTC) and the government was overthrown. Gaddafi retreated to Sirte, where he was captured and killed by NTC militants.
Bob Guccione (Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione)
Died October 20, 2010 b. 1930
American publisher. Founder of Penthouse (1965) and Omni (1978).
Max McGee
Died October 20, 2007 b. 1932
American football player. He scored the first Super Bowl touchdown (1967), playing for the Green Bay Packers, he caught an 18-yard pass and ran it in from the 19-yard line against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Jane Wyatt
Died October 20, 2006 b. 1910
American Emmy-winning actress. TV: Father Knows Best (1954-60, the mother) and Star Trek (1967, Spock's mother).
Robert Ray
Died October 20, 2000 b. 1978
American AIDS victim. He was one of three HIV infected hemophiliac brothers who won a federal court order allowing them in school after they were barred in 1986. Their family home was burned down a week after the court decision.
The three brothers contracted HIV from infusions of Factor 8 when they were less than 8 years old.
Joel McCrea
Died October 20, 1990 b. 1905
American western actor.
Mary Coyle Chase
Died October 20, 1981 b. 1906
American Pulitzer-winning playwright. Plays: Harvey (1944, about an oversized imaginary rabbit).
Hugo Zacchini
Died October 20, 1975 b. 1898
Italian-born circus performer, the Human Cannonball for the Ringling Brothers Circus. He was shot 75 feet into the air traveling a distance of 200 feet.
Norman Chandler
Died October 20, 1973 b. 1899
American newspaper publisher. As publisher of the Los Angeles Times (1945-60), he built it into the nation's second largest daily newspaper.
Harlow Shapley
Died October 20, 1972 b. 1885
American astronomer. He made the first accurate estimate of the size of the Milky Way galaxy (1918).
Harry Flood Byrd, Sr.
Died October 20, 1966 b. 1887
American politician, Virginia governor (1926-30), U.S. senator (Virginia, 1933-65). He received 15 electoral votes in the 1960 U.S. presidential election even though he wasn't a candidate. Strongly opposed to integration, his segregationist policies caused the closure of some public schools in Virginia (1959-64), creating a large number of black students who were denied their education in several Virginia counties. These students became known as the "lost generation." He was also known for his "pay-as-you-go" fiscal policy.
Eugene Victor Debs
Died October 20, 1926 b. 1855
American labor organizer. First president of the American Railway Union (1893) and founder of the Social Democrat Party of America (1897).
Sir Richard Francis Burton
Died October 20, 1890 b. 1821
English explorer. He discovered Lake Tanganyika and translated The Arabian Nights into English.
Lydia Maria Francis Child
Died October 20, 1880 b. 1802
American abolitionist. She published the National Anti-Slavery Standard (1840-44).
Urban III
Died October 20, 1187 b. ????
Italian-born religious leader, 172nd Pope (1185-87).