On This Day - What happened 20 August

Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, took place on June 20, 451 AD, between a coalition - led by the Roman general Flavius Aetius and by the Visigothic king Theodoric I - against the Huns and their vassals - commanded by their king Attila.

A great imperial expedition under Leo Phocas and Romanos I Lekapenos ended with another crushing Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Achelous in 917, and the following year the Bulgarians were free to ravage northern Greece.

On 20 August 1191, Richard had more than 2,000 prisoners beheaded at the so-called massacre of Ayyadieh. Saladin subsequently ordered the execution of his Christian prisoners in retaliation.

Lothar Meyer was born in Varel, Germany (then part of the Duchy of Oldenburg). He was the son of Friedrich August Meyer, a physician, and Anna Biermann.

Sun Yat-sen successfully united the Revive China Society, Huaxinghui and Guangfuhui in the summer of 1905, thereby establishing the unified Tongmenghui (United League) in August 1905 in Tokyo.

The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the Big Blowup, the Big Burn, or the Devil's Broom fire) was a wildfire in the western United States that burned three million acres (4,700 sq mi; 12,100 km2) in North Idaho and Western Montana, with extensions into Eastern Washington and Southeast British Columbia, in the summer of 1910. It killed 87 people, mostly firefighters.

The Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Republic which the Dáil had instated on 20 August 1919.

In August 1940, the Red Army initiated the Hundred Regiments Campaign, in which 400,000 troops attacked the Japanese simultaneously in five provinces. It was a military success that resulted in the death of 20,000 Japanese, the disruption of railways and the loss of a coal mine.

On 20 August 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill addressed the Commons to outline the war situation. In the middle of this speech, he made a statement that created a famous nickname for the RAF fighter pilots involved in the battle: The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Milošević was born in Požarevac, four months after the Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and raised during the Axis occupation of World War II.

On 20 August; it allowed him to enter Paris as a liberator in the midst of the general euphoria. After the Germans had forcibly removed members of the Vichy government and taken them to Germany a few days earlier.

Soviet Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there, the offensive lasted 9 days after it started on 20 August 1944.

Soviets invaded Japanese-held Manchuria.

On 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the UN that "Korea is China's neighbor ... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question". Thus, through neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea.

The FLN adopted tactics similar to those of nationalist groups in Asia, and the French did not realize the seriousness of the challenge they faced until 1955, when the FLN moved into urbanized areas. "An important watershed in the War of Independence was the massacre of Pieds-Noirs civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville (now known as Skikda) in August 1955. Before this operation, FLN policy was to attack only military and government-related targets. The commander of the Constantine wilaya/region, however, decided a drastic escalation was needed. The killing by the FLN and its supporters of 123 people, including 71 French,S including old women and babies, shocked Jacques Soustelle into calling for more repressive measures against the rebels.

The completion and mixing of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August 1969 was the last occasion on which all four Beatles were together in the same studio.

Salt Lake City police placed Bundy on 24-hour surveillance, and Thompson flew to Seattle with two other detectives to interview Kloepfer. She told them that in the year prior to Bundy's move to Utah, she had discovered objects that she "couldn't understand" in her house and in Bundy's apartment. These items included crutches, a bag of plaster of Paris that he admitted stealing from a medical supply house, and a meat cleaver that was never used for cooking. Additional objects included surgical gloves, an Oriental knife in a wooden case that he kept in his glove compartment, and a sack full of women's clothing. Bundy was perpetually in debt, and Kloepfer suspected that he had stolen almost everything of significant value that he possessed. When she confronted him over a new TV and stereo, he warned her, "If you tell anyone, I'll break your fucking neck." She said Bundy became "very upset" whenever she considered cutting her hair, which was long and parted in the middle. She would sometimes awaken in the middle of the night to find him under the bed covers with a flashlight, examining her body. He kept a lug wrench, taped halfway up the handle, in the trunk of her car—another Volkswagen Beetle, which he often borrowed—"for protection". The detectives confirmed that Bundy had not been with Kloepfer on any of the nights during which the Pacific Northwest victims had vanished, nor on the day Ott and Naslund were abducted. Shortly thereafter, Kloepfer was interviewed by Seattle homicide detective Kathy McChesney, and learned of the existence of Stephanie Brooks and her brief engagement to Bundy around Christmas 1973.

At the age of 32, Cruyff signed a lucrative deal with the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League (NASL).

The Edmond post office shooting occurred in Edmond, Oklahoma, on August 20, 1986. During a deadly rampage that lasted less than fifteen minutes, postal worker Patrick Sherrill pursued and shot twenty co-workers, killing fourteen of them, before committing suicide. Sherrill's attack inspired the American phrase "going postal".

By 20 August 1988, peace with Iran was restored. UN peacekeepers belonging to the UNIIMOG mission took the field, remaining on the Iran–Iraq border until 1991.

By the time the ceasefire with Iran was signed in August 1988, Iraq was heavily debt-ridden and tensions within society were rising.

Faced with growing separatism, Gorbachev sought to restructure the Soviet Union into a less centralized state. On August 20, 1991, the Russian SFSR was scheduled to sign a New Union Treaty that would have converted the Soviet Union into a federation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy and military. It was strongly supported by the Central Asian republics, which needed the economic advantages of a common market to prosper.

Putin claims that he resigned with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel on 20 August 1991

Estonia had officially restored its independence during the coup in the dark hours of August 20, 1991, at 11:03 pm Tallinn time, many Estonian volunteers surrounded the Tallinn TV Tower in an attempt to prepare to cut off the communication channels after the Soviet troops seized it and refused to be intimidated by the Soviet troops. When Edgar Savisaar confronted the Soviet troops for ten minutes, they finally retreated from the TV tower after a failed resistance against the Estonians.

The IMF approved on 20 August 1997, another bailout package of $2.9 billion.

On August 20, 2012, Apple's rising stock price increased the company's market capitalization to a world-record $624 billion.

The bid was rejected on August 20, 2014, by the Family Dollar board, which said it would proceed with the deal with Dollar Tree.

Uber raises $100 million in private equity from the Tata Opportunities Fund, a fund of the Tata Group in India, with the goal of using the money to help it double down on its India operations.

The Dutch statesman, Cornelis de Witt, was lynched at the age of 49.

The Catholic priest and astronomer, Christian Mayer, was born in Modice, Moravia.

A French soldier and diplomat, Charles-Franois de Broglie was born in Paris.