more events on June 20
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1999
NATO declares an official end to its bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.
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1972
President Richard Nixon names General Creighton Abrams as Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
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1967
Boxing champion Muhammad Ali is convicted of refusing induction into the American armed services.
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1964
General William Westmoreland succeeds General Paul Harkins as head of the U.S. forces in Vietnam.
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1963
The United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a hot line between Washington and Moscow.
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1955
The AFL and CIO agree to combine names for a merged group.
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1946
Andre Watts, pianist.
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1941
The U.S. Army Air Force is established, replacing the Army Air Corps.
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1928
Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front party in France.
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1924
Audie Murphy, American soldier during World War II, author and actor.
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Chet Atkins, guitarist.
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1923
France announces it will seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying her war debts.
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1920
Race riots in Chicago, Illinois leave two dead and many wounded.
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1910
Josephine Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Jordanstown, Wildwood).
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Chester Arthur Burnett, blues singer.
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Mexican President Porfirio Diaz proclaims martial law and arrests hundreds.
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1909
Errol Flynn, film actor (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood).
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1907
Lillian Hellman, playwright (The Little Foxes, Toys in the Attic).
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1901
Charlotte M. Manye of South Africa becomes the first native African to graduate from an American University.
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1899
Jean Moulin, French Resistance fighter during World War II.
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1898
On the way to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, the U.S. Navy seizes the island of Guam.
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1887
Kurt Schwitters, German artist.
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1863
President Abraham Lincoln admits West Virginia into the Union as the 35th state.
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1858
Charles Chesnutt, African-American novelist.
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1837
18-year-old Victoria is crowned Queen of England.
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1819
The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours–the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic.
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1793
Eli Whitney applies for a cotton gin patent.
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1756
Nearly 150 British soldiers are imprisoned in the ‘Black Hole’ cell of Calcutta. Most die.
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1723
Adam Ferguson, Scottish historian and philosopher (Principals of Moral and Political Science).
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1397
The Union of Kalmar unites Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch.
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451
Roman and barbarian warriors halt Attila‘s army at the Catalaunian Plains in eastern France.