Sunday · September 27, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
On this day › August 20

What happened on August 20 in American history

August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (the 233rd in leap years). Patriot Compass has published 7 stories from August 20 spanning 1920 to 2020. Among them: in 1920, Four pro football clubs meet in a Canton car showroom and agree to stop raiding each other's rosters; and in 1948, Washington expels the Soviet consul who wouldn't produce Oksana Kasenkina.

1920Member story · 1776 Club

Four pro football clubs meet in a Canton car showroom and agree to stop raiding each other's rosters

The Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, and Dayton Triangles lay the first plank of what becomes the NFL.
1948

Washington expels the Soviet consul who wouldn't produce Oksana Kasenkina

Eight days after she jumped from his consulate's third-floor window, Jacob Lomakin is handed his passport home.
1962Member story · 1776 Club

Nuclear-powered Savannah leaves Norfolk for her home port

A faulty gauge triggered a reactor shutdown before she even reached Georgia.
1975Member story · 1776 Club

NASA sends Viking 1 toward Mars

The probe will not reach the planet for another ten months.
1977Member story · 1776 Club

Voyager 2 lifts off from Cape Canaveral, bound for Jupiter and beyond

A Titan IIIE/Centaur carries the probe on a longer, looping path built to reach two planets no spacecraft had ever visited.
1998

Thirteen Tomahawks hit a Khartoum medicine factory; Washington says it made nerve gas

The strike came thirteen days after the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the target was a plant that made most of Sudan's antibiotics.
2020

Biden accepts the nomination alone in a Delaware ballroom, no crowd, no roar

A pandemic convention ends with the nominee speaking to a camera instead of a stadium.