THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― DECEMBER 20

December 20 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 11 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Friday or Saturday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Monday or Wednesday (56).

MUDD DAY  

1626 – Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Prince of Transylvania Gabor Bethlen sign the Peace of Pressburg (Bratislava).

1783 – On this day in 1783, Virginia cedes the vast territory it had previously claimed by right of colonial charter to the federal government of the United States. The Ohio Valley territory, which covered the area north of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and south of the Great Lakes and Canada, had been contested by Pennsylvania, New York,Massachusetts and Connecticut.


1803 – The French flag is lowered in New Orleans to mark formal transfer of the Louisiana Purchase from France to US for $27M.

1836 – On this day in 1836, President Andrew Jackson presents Congress with a treaty he negotiated with the Ioway, Sacs, Sioux, Fox, Otoe and Omaha tribes of the Missouri territory. 

1860 – South Carolina secedes from the Union. For decades prior, South Carolina political leaders had promoted regional passions with threats of nullification and secession in the name of states rights and protection of slave interests.

1893 – The first state anti-lynching statute is approved, in Georgia.

1914 – After minor skirmishes, the First Battle of Champagne begins in earnest, marking the first major Allied attack against the Germans since the initiation of trench warfare on the Western Front in WWII.

1941 – On this day, in one of his first acts as the new commander in chief of the German army, Adolf Hitler informs General Franz Halder that there will be no retreating from the Russian front near Moscow. "The will to hold out must be brought home to every unit!"

1957 – On this day in 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennessee mansion, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

1960 – WWII Auschwitz I concentration camp commandant Richard Bear is arrested in the German Federal Republic.

1963 – More than two years after the Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany to prevent its citizens from fleeing its communist regime, nearly 4,000 West Berliners are allowed to cross into East Berlin to visit relatives. Under an agreement reached between East and West Berlin, over 170,000 passes were eventually issued to West Berlin citizens, each pass allowing a one-day visit to communist East Berlin.

1978 – H. R. "Bob" Haldeman, Nixon's White House chief of staff, is released from jail after serving time for his part in the Watergate conspiracy.

1986 – On this day in 1986, three black men are attacked by a group of white teenagers yelling racial slurs in Howard Beach, a predominately white, middle-class, Italian-American neighborhood in Queens, New York.

1987 – A passenger ferry collides with an oil tanker near Manila in the Philippines, leaving 4,000 people dead. The ferry, the Dona Paz, was severely overcrowded, carrying more than twice its stated capacity, and nearly everyone on board was killed.

1989 – The United States invades Panama in an attempt to overthrow military dictator Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges and was accused of suppressing democracy in Panama and endangering U.S. nationals. Noriega's Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) were promptly crushed, forcing the dictator to seek asylum with the Vatican anuncio in Panama City, where he surrendered on January 3, 1990.

1995 – American Airlines Flight 965 crashes in Columbia, 159 die, 5 survive.

2007 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom, surpassing Queen Victoria, who lived for 81 years, 7 months and 29 days.


TODAY'S BIRTHS

1868 – Harvey Samuel Firestone, American businessman, founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company (d. 1938)

1890 – Jaroslav Heyrovský, Czech chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)

1901 – Robert J. Van de Graaff, American physicist and academic, invented the Van de Graaff generator (d. 1967)

1914 – Harry F. Byrd, Jr., American lieutenant, publisher, and politician (d. 2013)

1951 – Marta Russell, American author and disability rights activist (d. 2013)

From Wikipedia and Goolge, ex where noted.