February 20 birthdays & history

Famous people born on February 20

• 1988Rihanna, Barbadian singer, songwriter, businesswoman, and actress
• 1967Kurt Cobain, American musician
• 1951Gordon Brown, Scottish politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 1927Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, director, and diplomat
• 1844Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist and philosopher
• 2003Olivia Rodrigo, American actress and singer
• 1945George Smoot, American astrophysicist and cosmologist, shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics
• 1925Robert Altman, American director and screenwriter
• 1949Ivana Trump, Czech-American socialite and model
• 1990Ciro Immobile, Italian footballer

What happened on February 20

• 1685The French colonization of Texas began with the landing of colonists led by Robert de La Salle near Matagorda Bay.
• 1816The Barber of Seville, an opera buffa composed by Gioachino Rossini, premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome to jeers from the audience.
• 1824William Buckland formally announces the name Megalosaurus, the first scientifically validly named non-avian dinosaur species.
• 1872The Metropolitan Museum of Art , today the largest art museum in the United States with a collection of more than two million works, opened in New York.
• 1877Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
• 1901The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.
• 1909Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro.
• 1943The Saturday Evening Post published the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms, among the most widely distributed paintings ever produced, in support of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms.
• 1962The Project Mercury stamp, designed by Charles R. Chickering, was released to commemorate the successful space flight of Colonel John Glenn.
• 1970Wat Phra Dhammakaya, one of the largest Buddhist temples in Thailand, was founded in Pathum Thani.
• 1992Appearing on the talk show Larry King Live, U.S. industrialist Ross Perot announced that he would begin a presidential campaign if "ordinary people" wanted him to run for office.
• 1998At the age of 15, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the then-youngest winner of an Olympic gold medal in the history of the Winter Olympic Games.

Also observed on February 20

• Day of Heavenly Hundred Heroes (Ukraine)
• World Day of Social Justice