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20th August

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1940: Trotsky assassinated in Mexico


Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer, Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day. Trotsky played a leading role in the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power, conquering most of Petrograd before Lenin’s triumphant return in November. Appointed Lenin’s secretary of foreign affairs, he negotiated with the Germans for an end to Russian involvement in the First World War. In 1918, he became war commissioner and set about building up the Red Army, which succeeded in defeating anti-communist opposition in the Russian Civil War. In the early 1920s, Trotsky seemed the heir apparent of Lenin, but he lost out in the struggle of succession after Lenin fell ill in 1922. An ideological split led new Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to first expel Trotsky from the Communist Party, then the country and finally culminated in his assassination.

1998

The U.S. launches missile attacks on terrorist camps in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons factory in Sudan in retaliation for the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

1995

358 are killed in one of India’s worst railway accidents when two trains both heading for Delhi collide at Firozobad, approximately 120 miles from the capital.

1992

Englishman Paul Ride is sentenced to seven years in jail by a court in Iraq for allegedly illegally entering the country.

1992

In Britain, the Daily Mirror newspaper publishes pictures of a topless Duchess of York swimming with Texan businessman John Bryan in the south of France.

1991

Estonia regains independence from the Soviet Union.

1989

In London, the pleasure cruiser Marchioness is hit by a dredger, the Bowbelle, on the River Thames, 51 people attending a party on the boat are killed.

1982

During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon.

1978

In England, terrorists form The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine kill two staff from the Israeli airline El Al in London.

1977

NASA launches the unmanned spacecraft Voyager 2 which flies past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

1975

NASA launches the spacecraft Viking I in a mission to Mars.

1970

England football captain Bobby Moore is cleared of stealing an emerald bracelet in Colombia.

1960

The Mali Federation breaks up into Senegal and Mali respectively.

1944

The Second World War: 60 British soldiers fight their way east from Rennes toward Orleans, through German-occupied forest, forcing the Germans to retreat and aiding the French Resistance in its struggle for liberation.

917 AD

Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria invades Thrace and drives the Byzantines out at the Battle of Anchialus.

636 AD

A Muslim Army defeats the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Yarmouk.

1965

American film actor Charlie Sheen.

1944

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - son of future Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Assassinated May 21, 1991.

1940

English actress Pauline Collins.

1924

American singer Jim Reeves.

1873

Finnish-born architect Eliel Saarinen.

1833

Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States (1889-1893).

1818

English novelist Emily Bronte.

1997

American physicist Norris Bradbury - leader of the team which assembled the components for the world's first atomic bomb explosion.

1940

Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by a Spanish Communist who attacks him with an ice axe in Mexico City. Trotsky dies the following day.

1912

Founder and 'General' of the Salvation Army, William Booth.