Today In History
November 20 in History
Your birthday shares the stage with stories that shaped the world.
Nuremberg Trials Begin: Nazi Leaders Face Justice
Allied forces convened military tribunals in Nuremberg to prosecute 23 top Nazi leaders, establishing a legal precedent that individuals bear responsibility for state-sponsored atrocities. This process dismantled the myth of "just following orders" by holding figures like Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess accountable before an international court, fundamentally redefining modern international law.
Famous Birthdays
Joe Biden Born: America's Future 46th President
Joe Biden served thirty-six years in the United States Senate and eight years as Vice President before winning the 2020 presidential election at age 77, the oldest person ever inaugurated as President. His career spanned from the Vietnam era to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his administration oversaw the largest infrastructure investment in American history.
John R. Bolton
He once called the United Nations building in New York a candidate for losing ten floors — and then became America's Ambassador to it. Bold. Bolton served as the 25th U.S. Ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006, appointed by recess appointment after Congress stalled. His confirmation fight was brutal. But he shaped real policy, pressing hard on Iran's nuclear program and North Korea. He later served as National Security Advisor. His 2020 memoir, *The Room Where It Happened*, sold over a million copies — written by someone Washington repeatedly couldn't contain.
Davey Havok
He turned down a UC Davis sociology degree to front a punk band from Ukiah, California. Smart call. AFI spent years grinding tiny venues before "Miss Murder" hit MTV in 2006, pulling 3 million YouTube views when that actually meant something. But Havok never stopped stacking projects — Blaqk Audio went full synth-pop, Son of Sam went horror punk. Vegan since the '90s, straight-edge his whole career. And somehow, the kid who chose screaming over sociology wrote some of the most emotionally precise lyrics in American punk.
Maximinus II
Maximinus II ascended to the imperial throne during the final, violent throes of the Tetrarchy, briefly ruling the East as Caesar and then Augustus. His aggressive persecution of Christians and subsequent military defeat by Licinius ended his reign, clearing the path for Constantine the Great to consolidate power and unify the Roman Empire under a single ruler.
Wilfrid Laurier
He became Canada's first French-Canadian Prime Minister — but the wilder fact is he almost became a lawyer in the American South. Laurier settled in Quebec instead, and that decision built modern Canada. He served fifteen uninterrupted years, longer than any PM before or since. And he did it by refusing to let English and French Canada tear each other apart, threading every crisis without giving either side everything they wanted. He left behind the immigrant West — four new provinces, two million settlers, a country finally coast to coast.
Selma Lagerlöf
She was rejected from teaching jobs before she won the Nobel Prize. Selma Lagerlöf, born in Värmland, Sweden, wrote *The Wonderful Adventures of Nils* as a commissioned geography textbook for schoolchildren. A geography textbook. It became one of the most beloved Swedish novels ever written, still taught across Scandinavia today. In 1909, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. And in 1940, she used her gold medal to help a Jewish friend escape Nazi Germany. The medal worked.
François de Noailles
François de Noailles carried the weight of a storied aristocratic lineage into the twentieth century. As the father of Hélie de Noailles, he helped preserve the influence of one of France’s most prominent noble houses through the modern era. His life bridged the gap between traditional dynastic duty and the rapidly shifting social landscape of post-war Europe.
Nadine Gordimer
She kept writing through bans. South Africa's apartheid government prohibited three of her novels — not for violence or obscenity, but because her fiction made white readers uncomfortable with their own complicity. Gordimer didn't flinch. Born in Springs, a small gold-mining town east of Johannesburg, she published her first story at fifteen. The Nobel committee called her work essential to literature in 1991. But the real legacy? She helped draft South Africa's post-apartheid constitution. A novelist. Writing the founding law of a nation.
Duane Allman
He recorded Derek and the Dominos' "Layla" as a guest — Eric Clapton's idea, not a band decision. Just a phone call, a session, a slide guitar that rewrote what rock emotion could sound like. Duane Allman wasn't even credited on the original pressing. He died at 24, a motorcycle crash in Macon, Georgia. But those six minutes exist. That wail on the outro didn't come from grief alone — it came from a kid who learned slide guitar by listening to blues records obsessively in a small Alabama town.
Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh redefined the sound of classic rock by blending gritty, blues-based guitar riffs with a sharp, self-deprecating wit. His tenure with the Eagles and the James Gang introduced a signature slide-guitar style that became a staple of American radio, influencing generations of musicians to prioritize melodic precision alongside raw, high-energy performance.
Nirmal Selvamony
Nirmal Selvamony pioneered the study of thinnai—the traditional Tamil porch—as a site for democratic discourse and ecological philosophy. By integrating indigenous cultural practices with modern environmental theory, he shifted the focus of ecocriticism toward the lived experiences of rural communities, fundamentally expanding how scholars analyze the relationship between human society and the natural landscape.
Ming-Na Wen
Ming-Na Wen redefined Asian-American representation in Hollywood by voicing the title character in Disney’s Mulan and starring as Melinda May in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Her career broke barriers for actors of color in action-heavy roles, proving that diverse leads could anchor massive global franchises. She remains a powerhouse in both animation and live-action science fiction.
Historical Events
Francisco I. Madero issued the Plan de San Luis Potosí to denounce President Porfirio Díaz and call for an armed uprising that immediately ignited the Mexican Revolution. This bold declaration shattered decades of Díaz's dictatorship, triggering a decade-long civil war that ultimately dismantled the old regime and reshaped Mexico's political landscape.
Allied forces convened military tribunals in Nuremberg to prosecute 23 top Nazi leaders, establishing a legal precedent that individuals bear responsibility for state-sponsored atrocities. This process dismantled the myth of "just following orders" by holding figures like Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess accountable before an international court, fundamentally redefining modern international law.
President John F. Kennedy lifts the naval quarantine on Cuba after the Soviet Union agrees to dismantle its nuclear missiles stationed on the island. This de-escalation halts the immediate threat of nuclear war and forces both superpowers to establish a direct communication hotline to prevent future crises from spiraling out of control.
Anwar Sadat steps onto Israeli soil as the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, meeting Prime Minister Menachem Begin and addressing the Knesset to demand a permanent peace settlement. This bold move directly shattered decades of diplomatic isolation between Egypt and Israel, setting the stage for the Camp David Accords and the 1979 peace treaty that ended their state of war.
An 8,500-strong Swedish army under eighteen-year-old King Charles XII crushed a Russian siege force nearly four times its size at Narva in a blinding snowstorm. The stunning victory established Charles as Europe's most formidable young commander, though Tsar Peter the Great used the humiliation to rebuild the Russian military into the force that would eventually destroy Swedish dominance.
A soldier, not a senator. Diocletian climbed from humble Dalmatian origins — possibly born a slave's son — to command Rome's entire imperial machine in 284 AD. His troops proclaimed him emperor after the mysterious death of Numerian, and he didn't just accept power — he restructured it completely. He split the empire into four co-ruled zones, the Tetrarchy, buying Rome another century. But here's the twist: the man who saved Rome also built the architecture that would eventually let it fracture for good.
The deal Emperor Suzong struck was brutal: let the Huihe soldiers loot Luoyang for three days after victory. Three days. A city of hundreds of thousands, handed over to allies as payment. The Huihe didn't just help recapture Luoyang — they burned it. Tang forces stood by and watched. The An Shi Rebellion, already eight years running, had nearly shattered China's golden age. But winning Luoyang this way meant the rescue and the destruction arrived together.
John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orleans, agreed to a truce brokered by the Duke of Berry to end their violent rivalry for control of the French crown. Three days later, Burgundy's agents assassinated Orleans on a Paris street, igniting the Armagnac-Burgundian civil war that would devastate France for a generation.
John the Fearless and Louis of Valois signed a truce on November 20, 1407, only for Burgundy's men to murder the Duke of Orléans three days later. This betrayal ignited a decade-long civil war between Burgundian and Armagnac factions that devastated France during the Hundred Years' War.
Venice's daring mountain siege engines forced the Duke of Milan to sue for peace, ending years of costly conflict. The Treaty of Cremona secured Venetian dominance in northern Italy and proved that innovative military engineering could dictate diplomatic outcomes on a continental scale.
They cut off his head and displayed it publicly — proof, the Portuguese insisted, that Zumbi wasn't immortal. He'd spent decades leading Quilombo dos Palmares, a self-governing fugitive settlement of 30,000 formerly enslaved people deep in Brazil's interior. Domingos Jorge Velho's forces finally caught him November 20, 1695. But killing Zumbi didn't kill what he'd built. Brazil now observes November 20th as Black Consciousness Day. The man they executed to prove he was mortal became the face of an entire movement.
Fort Lee fell in under an hour. Lord Cornwallis landed 5,000 troops at the Palisades on November 20th, scrambling up the cliffs before Washington's men even knew they'd arrived. The garrison fled so fast they left 300 cannons, 1,000 barrels of flour, and their tents still standing. Washington didn't fight — he ran. Across New Jersey, mile by desperate mile. But that retreat? It gave Thomas Paine just enough time to write *The American Crisis* — the pages that kept the whole thing alive.
A whale fought back. Not just any whale — an 80-ton sperm whale rammed the Essex *twice*, deliberately, 2,000 miles from the nearest coastline. First mate Owen Chase watched the ship sink in minutes. The crew survived in three tiny whaleboats, then spent 90 days at sea making increasingly desperate choices. Only eight men lived. Herman Melville read Chase's firsthand account and couldn't let it go. But here's the reframe: the hunters became the story. The whale won.
French forces under Lieutenant Francis Garnier stormed and seized Hanoi from Vietnamese defenders, shattering local resistance and pushing the Nguyen dynasty into a defensive posture. This aggressive expansion directly triggered the Sino-French War a decade later as China moved to protect its tributary relationship with Vietnam.
Eight men didn't come home. The Blanch mine explosion tore through Brooke County's coal seams in a single violent instant, killing 8 and wounding 10 more — men who'd descended into the earth that morning like any other shift. Brooke County sat in West Virginia's northern panhandle, a tight strip of Appalachian industry pressed between Ohio and Pennsylvania. But here's what stings: no investigation made national news. No legislation followed. These 18 miners were simply absorbed into an era when explosions happened so often, they barely registered.
Fun Facts
Zodiac Sign
Scorpio
Oct 23 -- Nov 21
Water sign. Resourceful, powerful, and passionate.
Birthstone
Topaz
Golden / Blue
Symbolizes friendship, generosity, and joy.
Next Birthday
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days until November 20
Quote of the Day
“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say, why not?”
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