On This Day: Wednesday July 20, 2005 This is the 201st day of the year, with 164 days remaining in 2005.
Fact of the Day: Special Olympics
The first International Special Olympics Competition was held in 1968 at Soldier Field in Chicago. The Special Olympics is an international program of sports training and competition for mentally challenged individuals. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the founder of the organization.
Holidays Feast day of St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Elias of Jerusalem, St. Ansegisus, St. Aurelius of Carthage, St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Wulmar, St. Gregory Lopez, St. Wilgefortis or Liberata, and St. Joseph Barsabas the Just.
Colombia: Independence Day.
Japan: Marine Day.
Events 1810 - Colombia declared its independence from Spain.
1861 - The Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, Virginia.
1871 - British Columbia entered Confederation as a Canadian province.
1881 - Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops.
1917 - The draft lottery in World War I went into operation.
1940 - "Billboard" magazine published its first "Top Ten Singles" record chart.
1942 - The first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps began basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
1944 - An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb failed as the explosion at Hitler's Rastenburg headquarters only wounded the Nazi leader.
1968 - During a BBC radio interview, actress Jane Asher announced that her engagement to Beatle Paul McCartney was off; he was not the first to find out.
1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon.
1976 - America's Viking I robot spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars.
Births 1304 - Petrarch, Italian poet.
1591 - Anne Hutchinson, religious liberal, one of the founders of Rhode Island.
1919 - Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand-born explorer, first to climb Mt. Everest.
Deaths 1937 - Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor of the wireless telegraph.
1951 - King Abdullah of Jordan, assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist.
1973 - Bruce Lee, American "Chinese Western" actor.
