On this day: April 20

April 20: Ridván begins at sunset (Bahá'í Faith); Patriots' Day in Maine and Massachusetts (2015); 4/20 (cannabis culture)

• 1792 – After Foreign Minister Charles François Dumouriez presented the French Legislative Assembly with a long list of grievances against Austria, France declared war to begin the French Revolutionary Wars.
• 1818 – Four days after the Court of King's Bench in England upheld a murder suspect's right to trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
• 1914 – A fire and a gun battle between the Colorado National Guard and striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado, led to 17 deaths in the Ludlow Massacre.
• 1968 – Pierre Trudeau (pictured) succeeded Lester B. Pearson as Prime Minister of Canada.
• 2010 – An explosion on Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, caused the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.

More anniversaries: April 19 – April 20 – April 21

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