On This Day for February 20 - John Glenn's orbit of Earth, Rihanna is featured, and more

Created: 2020-02-20 11:02 Updated: 2020-02-20 11:02 Notebook: On this Day in History

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February 20

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

1988

Rihanna

FEATURED EVENT

1962

John Glenn's orbit of Earth

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2005: American journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson —who created the genre known as gonzo journalism, a highly personal style of reporting that made him a counterculture icon—died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. [ Read about Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and eight other countercultural books .]

Ansel Adams: Half Dome, Apple Orchard, Yosemite

1902: Ansel Adams, the most important landscape photographer of the 20th century, was born in San Francisco. [ Watch John Szarkowski discuss the work of Adams .]

1872: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opened to the public, and it later became one of the foremost museums in the world. [ Watch a video about the museum .]

The Mir space station in orbit, at an early stage of assembly in the late 1980s. From left to right are the Mir core module (launched in 1986), the Kvant astrophysics module (1987), and a docked Soyuz TM craft.

1986: The Soviet Union launched the core module of the space station Mir. [ Take our astronomy and space quiz .]

1976: The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization held its final exercise in Manila (and formally ended on June 30, 1977).

Parícutin volcano erupting, western Michoacán state, Mexico.

1943: The volcano Paricutín in Michoacán state, Mexico, erupted, eventually burying two villages. [ Watch footage of Paricutín's volcanic eruption .]

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1967

Kurt Cobain
American musician

1984

Trevor Noah
South African comedian

1927

Sidney Poitier
Bahamanian-American actor

1963

Charles Barkley
American basketball player

1966

Cindy Crawford
American fashion model