THIS DAY IN HISTORY

[IceWizard]

U.S. Marines deployed to Lebanon







1982
August 20



During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut
to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. It was the beginning of a problem-plagued
mission that would stretch into 17 months and leave 262 U.S. servicemen dead.

In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon, with Palestinian and leftist Muslim guerrillas battling
militias of the Christian Phalange Party, the Maronite Christian community, and other groups.
During the next few years, Syrian, Israeli, and United Nations interventions failed to resolve the
factional fighting, and in August 1982 a multinational force arrived to oversee the Palestinian
withdrawal from Lebanon.

The Marines left Lebanese territory on September 10 but returned on September 29 following the
massacre of Palestinian refugees by a Christian militia. The next day, the first U.S. Marine to die
during the mission was killed while defusing a bomb. On April 18, 1983, the U.S. embassy in Beirut
was devastated by a car bomb, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. Then, on October 23,
Lebanese terrorists evaded security measures and drove a truck packed with explosives into the
U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. Fifty-eight French soldiers were
killed almost simultaneously in a separate suicide terrorist attack. On February 7, 1984, President
Ronald Reagan announced the end of U.S. participation in the peacekeeping force.




ALSO ON THIS DAY



SPORTS
1945
17-year-old becomes youngest
to hit MLB home run

On August 20, 1945, 11 days after the atomic
bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, Brooklyn Dodgers
utility player Tommy Brown homers to drive in
his team's only run in an 11-1 loss to the Pittsburgh
Pirates. It seems insignificant, aside from the fact
that, at 17 years old, Brown remains ...
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Slavery in Jamestown
SLAVERY
1619
First enslaved Africans arrive in Jamestown,
setting the stage for slavery in North America

On August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped
by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia
and are then bought by English colonists. The arrival of
the enslaved Africans in the New World marks a
beginning of two and a half centuries of slavery in North ...
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MEXICO
1940
Russian revolutionary Leon 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. Born in ...
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SPACE EXPLORATION
1975
Viking 1 launched to Mars

Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is
launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission
to Mars. On June 19, 1976, the spacecraft entered
into orbit around Mars and devoted the next month
to imaging the Martian surface with the purpose of
finding an appropriate landing ...
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COLD WAR
1968
Soviets invade Czechoslovakia

On the night of August 20, 1968, approximately
200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade
Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring”—a brief
period of liberalization in the communist country.
Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public
demonstrations and other ...
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INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1911
First around-the-world telegram sent,
66 years before Voyager II launch

On August 20, 1911, a dispatcher in the New York
Times office sends the first telegram around the
world via commercial service. Exactly 66 years later,
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) sends a different kind of message–a
phonograph record containing ...
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VIETNAM WAR
1954
United States decides to support
Ngo Dinh Diem

President Eisenhower approves a National Security
Council paper titled “Review of U.S. Policy in the
Far East.” This paper supported Secretary of State Dulles’
view that the United States should support Vietnamese
prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem, while encouraging
him to broaden ...
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SPORTS
1920
Professional football is born

On August 20, 1920, seven men, including legendary
all-around athlete and football star Jim Thorpe, meet
to organize a professional football league at the Jordan
and Hupmobile Auto Showroom in Canton, Ohio.
The meeting led to the creation of the
American Professional Football ...
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U.S. PRESIDENTS
1833
Benjamin Harrison is born

Future President Benjamin Harrison is born in
North Bend, Ohio on August 20, 1833. Politics
had long been the Harrison family business. At
the time of his birth, Harrison’s father was
serving Ohio in the United States House of
Representatives, while his grandfather,
William Henry ...
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WESTWARD EXPANSION
1804
Corps of Discovery suffers its only death

Sergeant Charles Floyd dies three months into
the voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark,
becoming the only member of the Corps of
Discovery to die during the journey. Lewis and
Clark left St. Louis the previous May, heading
up the Missouri River with a party of 35 men, ...
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ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1918
“Valley of the Dolls” author Jacqueline Susann born

On August 20, 1918, Jacqueline Susann, the author
of Valley of the Dolls, the 1966 mega-hit novel
about the showbiz lives of three women
(reportedly modeled in part after Judy Garland,
Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly), is born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Like her characters in ...
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CRIME
1989
The Menendez brothers murder their parents

Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their parents,
Jose and Kitty, to death in the den of the family’s
Beverly Hills, California, home. They then drove up
to Mulholland Drive, where they dumped their
shotguns before continuing to a local movie theater
to buy tickets as an alibi. When ...
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CIVIL WAR
1862
Horace Greeley’s
“The Prayer of Twenty Millions” is published

New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley publishes
a passionate editorial calling on President Abraham
Lincoln to declare emancipation for all enslaved
people in Union-held territory. Greeley’s blistering
words voiced the impatience of many Northern
abolitionists; but unbeknownst ...
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UNITED STATES
1794
Battle of Fallen Timbers

On August 20, 1794, General “Mad Anthony” Wayne
proves that the fragile young republic can counter
a military threat when he puts down Shawnee
Chief Blue Jacket’s confederacy near present-day
Toledo, Ohio, with the newly created 3,000-man
strong Legion of the United States at the ...
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