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

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1789 - New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
2. 1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick is in part inspired by this story).
3. 1940 - World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers.
4. 1945 - Nuremberg Trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at thePalace of Justice at Nuremberg.
5. 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
6. 1974 - The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.
7. 1985 - Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
8. 1998 - The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
9. 2001 - In Washington, D.C., U.S. President George W. Bush dedicates theUnited States Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building, honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday.
10. 2008 - After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.
11. Famous Birthdays: Otto von Guericke (German physicist), Victor D'Hondt (Belgian mathematician), Edwin Hubble (American astronomer), James Collip (Canadian biochemist, co-discovered of insulin ), Joe Biden (American politician, 47th Vice President of the United States)

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

Click Here for Yesterday in History: November 19

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: November 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.