April 20 historic events
1657 Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet under heavy fire at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
1657 Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
Any religious freedoms obtained by Jews in New Amsterdam were accomplished despite the strong resistance of Governor Peter Stuyvesant, who was a noted anti-Semite.
1775 American Revolutionary War: the Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.
1812 Vice President George Clinton, a former New York governor, died at age 73.
He was the first Vice President to serve under two different presidents (Thomas Jefferson and James Madison), and the first to die in office. We had a Vice President Clinton almost 200 years before having a president with the same last name.
1861 American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
Despite leading the Confederate army, Lee himself was strongly opposed to slavery, as illustrated by this famous quote; “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil”.
1862 Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the first pasteurization tests.
1912 Opening day for baseball stadiums Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
1916 The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7-6 in 11 innings.
A visit to Wrigley is like a trip back in time. Same ballpark. Same two world championships.
1918 Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.
Canadian pilot Roy Brown is credited with shooting down Richthofen, but he was probably shot down by an Australian anti-aircraft gunner.
1972 The manned lunar module from Apollo 16 landed on the moon.
1978 Korean Air Flight 902 is shot down by Soviets.
This wasn’t really a shoot-down, since the damaged plane was able to keep flying and landed safely on a frozen lake. The shoot-down of KAL 007 a few years later was much more deadly, as all aboard that plane died. In both of the above cases, the Soviet pilots were ordered to shoot down the airliners, even though the pilots were reasonably sure that they were civilian planes.
1998 German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.
1999 Columbine High School massacre: Two students murder 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.