NOVEMBER 20TH
1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).
1902 - Henri Desgrange and fellow journalist Géo Lefèvre dream up the idea of the Tour de France over lunch at the Café de Madrid in Paris.
1910 - Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero denounces President Porfirio DÃaz, declares himself president, and calls for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico.
1947 - The Princess Elizabeth marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in London.
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union's agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
1998 - A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
2003 - Michael Jackson is arrested by police on charges of child molestation. AHHAHAAH
BIRTHS
Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General