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Gang violence kill scores in womens' prison, the Black Hole of Calcutta, and US buys Alaska, the headline acts of yesteryear
Freed Nelson Mandela acknowledges the applause on his first visit to the United Nations in New York in 1990. Mandela urged the U.N . to maintain sanctions against South Africa until apartheid is abolished.
On this day in history, June 20
1248 The University of Oxford, the second oldest university in the western world after the University of Bologna, receives its royal charter. They are predated by institutions from the Islamic Golden Age – the University of Al Quaraouiyine, in Fez, Morocco (circa 857–859), and Cairo's Al-Azhar University, founded in 970 or 972.
1631 The Irish village of Baltimore is sacked by pirates from Algeria.
1756 A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta after the Siraj ud-Daulah Nawab of Bengal takes Calcutta from the British. Most of the soldiers die.
1867 US buys Alaska from Russia for $7.2m.
1877 Alexander Graham Bell installs world's first commercial telephone service.
1895 The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is opened.
1921 At the Imperial Conference in London, Srinivasa Sastri argues for full citizenship rights to Indians in South Africa and other colonies.
1940 Italy tries invading France and fails.
1944 A German V-2 rocket soars 176 km – it's the first man-made object in outer space.
1963 The Soviet Union and US agree to set up the 'red telephone' link between them.
1987 New Zealand beat France 29-9 in final of first Rugby World Cup, in Auckland.
1990 Nelson Mandela and wife, Winnie, are given a ticker-tape parade in New York city as they begin an eight-city fund-raising tour.
1991 The German Bundestag votes to move the seat of government from Bonn to Berlin.
2018 Algeria turns off its internet to stop students cheating during exams.
2020 Highest temperature recorded in the Arctic circle, 38C in Verkhoyansk, Siberia.
2020 A dust cloud from the Sahara desert in North Africa reaches the Caribbean, largest for half a century.
2023 At least 41 women are killed in violence by rival gangs at a prison in Tamara, Honduras.
2023 The site of Julius Caesar's assassination in Rome, the Largo Argentina square, dating back to third century BC, opens to the public for the first time.
2024 The oldest shipwreck ever (3 300 years old) is found in the Mediterranean.
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