History of the Day for:
March 20
- 1413: England's King Henry the Fourth died; he was succeeded by Henry the Fifth.
- 1727: Physicist, mathematician and astronomer Sir Isaac Newton died in London.
- 1815: Napoleon arrived back in Paris from Elba to reclaim power at the start of "The Hundred Days" before defeat at Waterloo.
- 1816: The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed its right to review state court decisions.
- 1828: Norwegian poet and playwright Henrik Ibsen ("A Doll's House") was born.
- 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was first published in book form.
- 1865: A plan by John Wilkes Booth to abduct President Abraham Lincoln was foiled when Lincoln changed plans and failed to appear at the Soldier's Home near Washington, D.C.
- 1896: The U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua to protect U.S. citizens in the wake of a revolution.
- 1914: The first international figure skating championship was held in New Haven, Conn.
- 1933: The first concentration camp was opened in Germany, at Dachau.
- 1942: World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return"
- 1948: "Gentleman's Agreement" won the Academy Award for best picture of 1947, as well as best director (Elia Kazan); Ronald Colman won best actor for "A Double Life," and Loretta Young won best actress for "The Farmer's Daughter."
- 1969: John Lennon married Yoko Ono at the Rock of Gibraltar.
- 1976: Patricia Hearst, after an eight-week trial, was found guilty of armed robbery in April 1974 in the United States.
- 1985: Libby Riddles of Teller, Alaska, became the first woman to win the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race.
- 1987: The Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of some AIDS patients.
- 1995: Twelve people were killed and nearly 5,000 others were sickened when packages containing the poisonous nerve gas sarin was released on five Tokyo subway trains.
- 1996: British government said for the first time that mad cow disease could probably be transmitted to humans.
- 1999: Legoland California, the only Legoland outside of Europe, opens in Carlsbad, California.
- 2000: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, a former Black Panther once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured after murdering Georgia sheriff's deputy Ricky Kinchen and critically wounding Deputy Aldranon English.
- 2003: 2003 invasion of Iraq: In the early hours of the morning, the United States and three other countries begin military operations in Iraq.
- 2004: Stephen Harper wins the leadership of the newly created Conservative Party of Canada, becoming the party's first leader.
- 2005: A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits Fukuoka, Japan, its first major quake in over 100 years. One person is killed, hundreds are injured and evacuated.
- 2006: Cyclone Larry makes landfall in eastern Australia, destroying most of the country's banana crop.
- 2006: Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Deby.