GMT 10/20/2017 TGIF

Lead Story
1947 Congress investigates Reds in Hollywood (we should do again)

American Revolution
1774 Congress creates the Continental Association

Automotive
1965 Last Volvo PV rolls off the assembly line

Civil War
1819 Union General Daniel Sickles is born

Cold War
1947 The Red Scare comes to Hollywood

Crime
1990 2 Live Crew members are acquitted of obscenity charges

Disaster
1944 Natural gas explosions rock Cleveland

General Interest
1827 Battle of Navarino
1935 Mao’s Long March concludes
1944 MacArthur returns
1973 Sydney Opera House opens
2011 Libyan Dictator Moammar Gadhafi is Killed

Hollywood
1994 Burt Lancaster dies

Literary
1853 French poet Arthur Rimbaud is born

Music
1977 Three members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a Mississippi plane crash

Old West
1803 U.S. Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase

Presidential
1962 Kennedy press secretary misleads press

Sports
1968 Fosbury flops to an Olympic record

Vietnam War
1964 Relations between South Vietnam, the United States, and Cambodia deteriorate
1973 Watergate special prosecutor dismissed

World War I
1918 Turks send British officer to negotiate armistice terms

World War II
1944 U.S. forces land at Leyte Island in the Philippines


480 BC Greeks defeat the Persians in a naval battle at Salamis.

1587 In France, Huguenot Henri de Navarre routs Duke de Joyeuse's larger Catholic force at Coutras.

1709 Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy take Mons in the Netherlands.

1714 George I of England crowned.

1805 Austrian general Karl Mac surrenders to Napoleon's army at the battle of Ulm.

1818 The United States and Britain establish the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada and the United States.

1870 The Summer Palace in Beijing, China, is burnt to the ground by a Franco-British expeditionary force.

1903 The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, rules in favor of the United States. The deciding vote is Britain's, which embitters Canada. The United States gains ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.

1904 Bolivia and Chile sign a treaty ending the War of the Pacific. The treaty recognizes Chile's possession of the coast, but provides for construction of a railway to link La Paz, Bolivia, to Arica, on the coast.

1924 Baseball's first 'colored World Series' is held in Kansas City, Mo.

1938 Czechoslovakia, complying with Nazi policy, outlaws the Communist Party and begins persecuting Jews.

1941German troops reach the approaches to Moscow.

1944 U.S. troops land on Leyte in the Philippines, keeping General MacArthur's pledge "I shall return."

1945 Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon form the Arab League to present a unified front against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

1947 The House Un-American Activities Committee opens public hearings on alleged communist infiltration in Hollywood. Among those denounced as having un-American tendencies are: Katherine Hepburn, Charles Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson. Among those called to testify is Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan, who denies that leftists ever controlled the Guild and refuses to label anyone a communist.

1968 Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis.

1973 Arab oil-producing nations ban oil exports to the United States, following the outbreak of Arab-Israeli war.

1977

Charter plane crashes in Mississippi, killing three members of popular Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, along with their assistant road manager, the pilot and co-pilot.

1991Oakland Hills firestorm destroys nearly 3,500 homes and apartments and kills 25 people.

2011

In the Libyan civil war, rebels capture deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte, killing him soon afterward.

Born on October 20

1948 Tom Petty, singer, songwriter, musician; lead singer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and a founder of the Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch bands; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2002.