February 20: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1792 - The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.
2. 1872 - In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.
3. 1877 - Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its première performance at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
4. 1931 - The Congress of the United States approves the construction of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.
5. 1935 - Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.
6. 1943 - The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.
7. 1952 - Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.
8. 1962 - Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.
9. 1965 - Ranger 8 crashes into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
10. 2013 - The smallest Extrasolar planet, Kepler-37b is discovered.
11. Famous Birthdays: William Prescott (American colonel), Ludwig Boltzmann (Austrian physicist), Elizabeth Holloway Marston (American psychologist), Ansel Adams (American photographer), Robert Huber (German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: February 19

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: February 21

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.