Today in History: Apollo 16 Landed on the Moon

April 20 is the 110th day of the year (111th in leap years) according to the Gregorian calendar. The number of days left until the end of the year is 255.

Railways

• 20 April 1911 The Kadem-i Sharif-Damascus line was built and the beginning of the Hejaz Railway was brought to the center of Damascus.

Events

• 1792 - The administration of the First French Republic declared war on the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy. The French Revolutionary Wars began.
• 1841 - The first detective novel, Murder in the Street of the Morgue, is published.
• 1862 - The first pasteurization experiment was carried out by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard.
• 1902 - Marie Curie and Pierre Curie succeed in refining radioactive radium chloride in their laboratory in Paris.
• 1924 – The 1924 Constitution came into effect in Turkey.
• 1924 – Bilecik became a province.
• 1926 - Western Electric and Warner Bros. companies introduced the Vitaphone device, which made it possible to add sound to the movie.
• 1933 – With the destruction of the Turkish cemetery in Razgrad, Bulgaria by a group of Bulgarians, the Razgrad Events began in Istanbul.
• 1940 - The first electron microscope is introduced in Philadelphia.
• 1942 – İzmir Trade Newspaper was founded.
• 1967 – A passenger plane belonging to the Swiss Britannia company crashes in Toronto: 126 people are killed.
• 1968 – South African Airways Boeing 707 passenger plane crashes during takeoff from Windhoek city: 122 people are killed.
• 1970 – United States President Richard Nixon announces that another 150 United States force will be withdrawn from Vietnam.
• 1972 - Apollo 16 landed on the Moon.
• 1975 – The car of Turkey's Beirut Press Advisor is blown up by ASALA militants.
• 1978 – The Red Brigades announced that they would kill former Prime Minister of Italy, Aldo Moro, whom they kidnapped on March 16, if their imprisoned friends were not released.
• 1978 – A South Korean Airways Boeing 707 passenger plane is forced to land on a frozen lake near Murmansk by Soviet warplanes. Two passengers died and 107 survived.
• 1981 – Left-wing militants Ramazan Yukarıgöz, who killed the jeweler's son Hasan Kahveci and police officer Mustafa Kılıç, opened fire on the security forces and the public, and scanned the police car, on 17/18 January 1981, in the jewelry store robbery they attempted to find money for the communist organization they belonged to, Ömer Yazgan, Erdoğan Yazgan and Mehmet Kambur were sentenced to death.
• 1983 – 12th execution of the 44 September Coup: Şener Yiğit, who wanted to rape the daughter of the Austrian Ambassador who came to Fethiye on holiday in 1978 and killed his mother and daughter who opposed it, was executed.
• 1983 – The 12th execution of the September 45 Coup: Cafer Aksu (Altuntaş), who killed a person working in the field with a gun on April 2, 1977, after a blood feud, shot another person on the run with a shotgun from afar and injured him, then went to him and killed him with a gun. was executed.
• The pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who left the Soviet Union in 1986 – 1925 and did not return, gave a concert again in the Soviet Union 61 years later.
• 1994 – Radio-Television Supreme Council was established in Turkey.
• 1998 – A Boeing 727-200 passenger plane belonging to Air France company crashed into the Cerro El Cable mountains after taking off from Bogota (Colombia): 53 people were killed.
• 1996 – The third largest entertainment center in the world and the first in Europe, Tatilya was opened in Istanbul.
• 1999 – Columbine High School massacre: High school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13, injured 24, and then committed suicide.
• 2005 – Turgut Özakman's book, Those Crazy Turks, which tells the Turkish War of Independence in a fictional setting, was published.
• 2006 - Han Myeong-sook is inaugurated as South Korea's first female Prime Minister.

Births

• 702 – Cafer-i Sadik, Shiite imam who gave his name to the Islamic jurisprudence sect Jafari (d. 765)
• 1761 – Shah Sultan, III. Mustafa's daughter (d. 1803)
• 1808 – III. Napoleon, French politician and World War II. Imperial Emperor (d. 1873)
• 1840 – Odilon Redon, French painter (d. 1916)
• 1889 – Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, German politician and Führer of Nazi Germany (d. 1945)
• 1893 – Harold Lloyd, American comedian (d. 1971)
• 1893 – James Bedford, American scientist (d. 1967)
• 1893 – Joan Miro, Catalan surrealist painter (d. 1983)
• 1910 – Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, Turkish politician and bureaucrat (d. 1961)
• 1916 – Nesibe Zeynalova, Azerbaijani actress (d. 2004)
• 1923 – Oktay Akbal, Turkish journalist and writer (d. 2015)
• 1923 – Tito Puente, Puerto Rican-American Latin jazz musician (d. 2000)
• 1927 – Omar Aggad, Saudi Arabian philanthropist and businessman of Palestinian descent (d. 2018)
• 1929 – Domenico Corcione, Italian soldier and politician (d. 2020)
• 1929 – Ringaudas Songaila, Lithuanian communist politician, veterinarian who held various positions in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (d. 2019)
• 1937 – Yılmaz Onay, Turkish writer, director and translator (d. 2018)
• 1943 – Abdullah Kiğılı, Turkish businessman and founder of Kiğılı clothing stores
• 1943 Edie Sedgwick, American actress (d. 1971)
• 1949 – Jessica Lange, American actress and winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
• 1949 – Mahmut Cevher, Turkish actor
• 1950 – Alexander Lebed, Russian soldier and politician (d. 2002)
• 1951 – Luther Vandross, American singer, songwriter, and record producer (d. 2005)
• 1951 – Haluk İmga, Turkish bureaucrat and politician
• 1958 – Galip Tekin, Turkish comics (d. 2017)
• 1964 – Andy Serkis, English actor
• 1967 – Mike Portnoy, American drummer
• 1971 – Hilal Özdemir, Turkish musician and Turkish Folk Music artist
• 1972 – Carmen Electra, American model, actress, and singer
• 1972 – Željko Joksimović, Serbian singer and composer
• 1975 – Esra Dalfidan, Turkish-German jazz singer
• 1975 – Michael Render, stage name Killer Mike, American hip hop artist and actor
• 1976 – Aldo Bobadilla, Paraguayan football player
• 1976 – Ali Atay, Turkish actor and musician
• 1979 – Beduk, Turkish musician
• 1980 – Jasmin Wagner, German female singer, actress and TV presenter
• 1983 – Miranda Kerr, Australian model
• 1984 – Bárbara Lennie Holguín, Spanish actress
• 1987 – Chun Woo-hee, South Korean actress
• 1987 – Anna Rossinelli, Swiss singer-songwriter
• 1989 - Carlos Valdes, American actor, musician, and singer
• 1990 – Lu Han, Chinese singer and actor
• Petrus Boumal, Cameroonian national football player
• Takuma Arano, Japanese football player
• 1997 – Alexander Zverev Jr., German tennis player

Deaths

• 1248 – Güyük Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, eldest son and successor of Ögeday, the great khan of the Mongols (b. 1206)
• 1284 – Hōjō Tokimune, eighth shikken of the Kamakura shogunate (b. 1251)
• 1314 – Pope Clement V; real name Bertrand de Goth, pope of the Roman Catholic Church (b. 1264)
• 1521 – Emperor Zhengde, 10th emperor of China's Ming Dynasty (b. 1491)
• 1707 – Johann Christoph Denner, German inventor and instrument maker (invented the clarinet) (b. 1655)
• 1750 – Jean Louis Petit, French surgeon and inventor of the screw tourniquet (b. 1674)
• 1769 – Pontiac, chief of the Otava natives (b. 1720)
• 1836 – Johann I, prince of Liechtenstein (b. 1760)
• 1887 – Muhammed Şerif Pasha, Turkish-Egyptian statesman (b. 1826)
• 1912 – Bram Stoker, Irish writer (b. 1847)
• 1918 – Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (b. 1850)
• 1927 – Enrique Simonet, Spanish painter (b. 1866)
• 1932 – Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician (b. 1858)
• 1939 – William Mitchell Ramsay, Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar (b. 1851)
• 1948 – Mitsumasa Yonai, 26th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1880)
• 1951 – Ivanoe Bonomi, Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1873)
• 1977 – Sepp Herberger, German football player and coach (b. 1897)
• 1990 – Şefik Bursalı, Turkish painter (b. 1903)
• 1991 – Don Siegel, American film director (b. 1912)
• 1992 – Benny Hill, English comedian, actor, and singer (b. 1924)
• 1993 – Cantinflas, Mexican comedian and actor (b. 1911)
• 1995 – Milovan Djilas, Yugoslav politician of Montenegrin descent (b. 1911)
• 1999 – Erol Akyavaş, Turkish painter (b. 1932)
• 1999 – Tekin Aral, Turkish cartoonist (b. 1941)
• 1999 – Richard Erwin Rood, American professional wrestler (b. 1958)
• 2002 – Pierre Rapsat, Belgian singer (b. 1948)
• 2003 – Daijiro Kato, Japanese professional motorcycle racer (b. 1976)
• 2006 – Kathleen Antonelli, Irish-American computer scientist (b. 1921)
• 2008 – Gazanfer Bilge, Turkish wrestler and World and Olympic champion (b. 1924)
• 2011 – Tim Hetherington, British-American journalist and photojournalist (b. 1970)
• 2012 – Ayten Alpman, Turkish singer (b. 1929)
• 2012 – Sadettin Bilgiç, Turkish politician (b. 1920)
• 2013 – Günseli Başar, Turkish model (b. 1932)
• 2013 – Yakup Tahincioğlu, Assyrian origin Turkish industrialist and businessman (b. 1933)
• 2014 – Mithat Bayrak, Turkish national wrestler (b. 1929)
• 2014 – Rubin Hurricane Carter, middleweight boxer nicknamed Hurricane (b. 1937)
• 2016 – Guy Hamilton, British film director and screenwriter (b. 1922)
• 2016 – Chyna, American professional wrestler (b. 1970)
• 2016 – Atilla Özdemiroğlu, Turkish composer, lyricist and musician (b. 1943)
• 2016 – Victoria Wood, English actress, comedian, singer, screenwriter, songwriter and director (b. 2016)
• 2017 – Marta Magdalena Abakanowicz, Polish weaver and sculptor (b. 1930)
• 2017 – Roberto Ferreiro, Argentine football player and manager (b.1935)
• 2017 – Cuba Gooding Sr., American singer and actor (b. 1944)
• 2017 – Germaine Mason, Jamaican-British high jumper (b. 1983)
• 2018 – Avicii, Swedish DJ, Music producer (b. 1989)
• 2018 – Roy Thomas Frank Bentley, English former football player and manager (b. 1924)
• 2018 – Pavel Šrut, Czech poet, translator and writer of children's stories (b. 1940)
• 2019 – Joe Armstrong, English computer engineer, scientist, and academic (b. 1950)
• 2019 – Jarosław Biernat, former Polish football player (b. 1960)
• 2019 – Luděk Bukač, Czech ice hockey player and coach (b. 1935)
• 2019 – Reggie Cobb, American Football player (b. 1968)
• 2019 – Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Iranian female painter and art collector (b. 1922)
• 2020 – Heherson Alvarez, Filipino politician (b. 1939)
• 2020 – Herman Glenn Carroll, American author (b. 1960)
• 2020 – Claude Evrard, French actor (b. 1933)
• 2020 – Tom Lester, American actor (b. 1938)
• 2020 – Tom Mulholland, Welsh football player (b. 1936)
• 2020 – Gabriel Retes, Mexican film director, writer, producer and actor (b. 1947)
• 2020 – Manjeet Singh Riyat, emergency care counselor in the UK (b. 1967/68)
• 2020 – Jiří Toman, Czech-born Swiss lawyer and professor (b. 1938)
• 2020 – Arsen Yegiazarian, Armenian chess player (b. 1970)
• 2021 – Idriss Déby, Chadian politician and soldier (b. 1952)