April 20

1775 – Following the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts militias block land access to Boston, limiting British resupply and reinforcements to only come from the sea.

1789 – George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration.

1836 – Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.

1861 – Colonel Robert E. Lee, commander of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment,  resigns his commission in the United States Army to avoid, as he saw it, the dishonor of disobeying official orders to engage his troops against Virginia.

1898 – President McKinley signs a joint resolution to Congress for a declaration of war against Spain.

1914 – 19 men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War.

1945 – On his 56th birthday, Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface from the Führerbunker  in Berlin, to award Iron Crosses to soldiers of the Hitler Youth.

1961 – The invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba by U.S. backed Cuban exiles fails.

1972 – The lunar module Orion, of Apollo 16, commanded by John Young and copiloted by Charles Duke, lands on the moon in the Descartes Highlands.

1998 – Air France Flight 422, a Boeing 727, crashes after taking off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, killing all 53 people on board.

1999 – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shoot and kill 13 people and wound 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

2007 – William Phillips barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, shooting and killing a hostage before committing suicide.

2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

2021 – Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all charges in the murder of George Floyd by the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota.