On This Day - February 20th

On this day in the year 1280 of the common era (CE) the Japanese Imperial Court orders all temples and shrines to pray for victory in the impending second Mongol invasion…the Japanese were victorious in 1281 CE at the Battle of Kōan after the Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan send an armada of four thousand, four hundred ships, carrying one hundred and forty thousand troops to attack Kyushu, they were repelled by the Japanese samurai and finally destroyed by a devastating typhoon in their retreat…a storm famously labeled the kamikaze, meaning divine wind. Sixteen years later, the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan departs Mingzhou for Angkor, the chief city of the Khmer Empire; his logs are the first account made by a foreigner describing life in the city.

On this day in the year 1768 CE the first American chartered fire insurance company opens in Pennsylvania.

On this day in 1792 CE the United States Postal Service (U.S.P.S.) is created; the price of postage six to twelve depending on distance.

In 1798 CE French general Louis Alexandre Berthier forcibly removes pope Pius VI from Rome during the French occupation of the city, Pius VI dies while imprisoned in Valence, France.

In 1809 CE the United States Supreme Court rules that the power of the of the federal government is greater than any state in establishment of the supremacy clause; thirty years later the United States congress prohibits dueling in District of Columbia. Nienty-nine years after that, congress passes the Ratification Act of 1929 recognizing American Samoa as an unincorporated territory of the United States; four years later the United States House of Representatives completes congressional action to repeal Prohibition.

In 1816 CE, Gioachino Rossini's comic opera, the Barber of Seville, premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, Italy,

In 1824 CE the first description of a dinosaur is published in the Geological Society of London by William Buckland: Megalosaurus or Great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield, it is the beginning dinosaur-mania; seventy five years later the Futurist Manifesto is published in the French journal Le Figaro.

In 1856 CE the steam packet-ship John Rutledge, hits an iceberg and sinks with the loss of one hundred and twenty passengers and nineteen crew while en route from Liverpool, England to New York, New York; there is only one survivor…a movie has yet to be made of this disaster.

In 1865 CE the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) forms the first collegiate architectural school in the United States; eight years later the University of California opens its first Medical School at the San Francisco campus.

In 1869 CE Tennessee Governor W. C. Brownlow declares martial law in order to suppress the activities of the nascent Ku Klux Klan, driving the organization underground and turning it into a secret society of American terrorists and white supremacists; sixty-nine years later Adolf Hitler announces his support for Japan during the Sino-Japanese War. One year after that, the American pro-Nazi organization, the German American Bund hold a rally at Madison Square Garden attended by twenty thousand sympathizers.

In 1872 CE the hydraulic-electric elevator is patented by Cyrus Baldwin, while Silas Noble and J.P. Cooley patent a toothpick manufacturing machine, and Luther Crowell patents a machine that manufactures paper bags; five years later the first cantilever bridge in the United Ctates is completed in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

Also in 1872 CE the Metropolitan Museum of Art (M.O.M.A) opens in New York, New York; seventy two years later the Batman & Robin comic strip premieres in newspapers across the United States.

In 1952 CE Emmett Ashford is certified to be first African-American umpire in organized baseball; but has to wait until 1966 CE for his Major League debut; one year later the United States Court of Appeals rules that organized baseball is a sport and not a business, affirming the twenty-five-year-old Supreme Court ruling. Ten years after that, in 1963 CE, future Hall of Fame outfielder Willie Mays becomes the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball, signing a record one-hundred-thousand-dollar contract with the San Francisco Giants; thirty four years later, the same San Francisco Giants sign slugger and all-time leading home run hitter, Barry Bonds to a record thirty-million-dollar, two years contract.

In 1958 CE an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's, The Brothers Karamazov, starring Yul Brynner and featuring William Shatner's film debut, premieres at Radio City Music Hall, in New York, New York; one year later, guitarist Jimi Hendrix (age 16), plays his first gig in Seattle, Washington, in the basement of the Temple De Hirsch synagogue; he is fired from the band after the first set on account of his "wild" playing. Fifty-six years after that, Kristen Stewart becomes the first American actress to win a French César Award, winning Best Supporting Actress for Clouds of Sils Maria; nine years later, the Queen Bee, Beyoncé’ becomes the first African-American female artist to top Billboard's Hot Country Songs Chart, with her single Texas Hold ’Em.

In 1962 CE, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth aboard his vessel, Friendship 7; six years later the Chinese Academy of Space Technology is established in Beijing, Cina.

In 1975 CE a feud begins between the official Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army; the two groups assassinate a number of each other's volunteers until the feud ends in June; four years later , eleven so-called loyalists known as the "Shankill Butchers" named for their late-night kidnapping, torture and murder (by throat slashing) of random Catholic civilians in Belfast, are sentenced to life in prison for nineteen murders. Ten years after that an IRA bomb destroys a section of a British Army barracks in Ternhill, England.

In 1975 CE the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.

In 2005 CE, Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratifying the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin but with low turnout; eight years later Estonia becomes the first country to establish a national system of fast chargers for electric cars.