20 November in Indian and World History is celebrated, observed, and remembered for various reasons. 20 November is the birth anniversary of Babita Phogat.
20 November is also observed as the death anniversary of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Shyam Bahadur Verma, Nirmala Thakur, and Priyaranjan Dasmunsi.
Birth Anniversary
20 November in Indian history is celebrated as the birth anniversary of the following personalities:
Babita Phogat, an Indian female freestyle wrestler who won a silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. She won a bronze medal at the 2012 World Wrestling Championships and gold medals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Babita Phogat is the sister of Commonwealth Games winner Geeta Phogat. She was born on 20 November 1989 in Bhiwani district, Haryana.
Read More: 19 November in Indian and World History
Death Anniversary
20 November in Indian history is observed as the death anniversary of the following personalities:
Faiz Ahmad Faiz (13 February 1911 – 20 November 1984), a famous poet, known for his revolutionary compositions, due to the combination of Rasik Bhava (Inquilabi and Romantic). Faiz, who lived in the army, prison, and exile, wrote many nazms, ghazals and strengthened the compositions of the modern progressive era in Urdu poetry. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize. His poem ‘Zinda-Nama’, written during the prison, was liked very much. He died on 20 November 1984 in Lahore.
Shyam Bahadur Verma (10 April 1932 – 20 November 2009), a versatile genius, a scholar of many subjects, thinker, and poet. He had provided many dictionaries to Hindi literature. Books were visible in each of his rooms from floor to ceiling. Shyam Bahadur Verma made a deep study of various languages and many branches of knowledge science. In 1953, he traveled alone to Tibet by crossing the Himalayas on foot. For his complete literary services, the Hindi Academy, Delhi had awarded him the ‘Sahityakar Samman’ in the year 1997-98. Verma died on 20 November 2009 in New Delhi.
Nirmala Thakur (1942 – 20 November 2014), a famous Indian poet. His poems were continuously published in leading newspapers and magazines of the country. She had a love marriage with famous story writer Dudhnath Singh. In the year 2005 Nirmala Thakur’s poetry collection ‘Kai Roop-Kai Rang’ and in 2014 ‘Laughing Girl’ was published by ‘Radhakrishna Prakashan’. He died on 20 November 2014 in Jhunsi, Allahabad.
Priyaranjan Dasmunsi (13 November 1945 – 20 November 2017), a senior Congress leader and former All India Football Federation President. He was a Member of Parliament in the 14th Lok Sabha of India. He was an MP from Raiganj Lok Sabha constituency of West Bengal. Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi was the former Information and Broadcasting Minister of India. Dasmunsi died on 20 November 2017.
Read More: 17 November in Indian and World History
Notable events on 20 November in Indian and World history
20 November 1815 – Russia, Prussia, Austria, and England allied to maintain peace in Europe.
20 November 1829 – Jews were expelled from the Nikolaev and Sevastopol regions of Russia.
20 November 1858 – Selma Lagerlof a Swedish author, and Nobel Prize Laureate, was born.
20 November 1866 – Howard University was established in Washington, USA.
20 November 1886 – Karl Ritter von Frisch, a German-Austrian ethologist, and Nobel Prize Laureate, was born.
20 November 1917 – Ukraine was declared a republic on this day.
20 November 1917 – Establishment of Bose Research Institute in Calcutta (now Kolkata).
20 November 1923 – Nadine Gordimer, a South African writer, and Nobel Prize Laureate, was born.
20 November 1942 – British forces recaptured the Libyan capital Benghazi.
20 November 1945 – More than twenty Nazi officers were tried for war crimes in Germany.
20 November 1945 – Japan’s complete surrender to America and the end of World War II.
20 November 1949 – The number of Jews in Israel increased to one million.
20 November 1955 – Polly Umrigar scored India’s first double century in a Test match against New Zealand.
20 November 1967 – Casimir Funk – known as the father of vitamins– died.
20 November 1968 – The US conducted a nuclear test in Nevada.
20 November 1981 – The constitution was adopted in the African country of Burundi.
20 November 1981 – Bhaskar satellite was launched on this day.
20 November 1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released on this day.
20 November 1994 – A peace treaty was concluded in Lusaka to end the 19-year conflict between the Angolan government and the UNITA rebels.
20 November 1995 – Diana, Princess of Wales, spoke candidly on BBC television about her separation from the Prince of Wales and her extramarital affairs.
20 November 1997 – The American space shuttle ‘Colombia’ was successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
20 November 1998 – The first module of the International Space Station Zarya was released.
20 November 2007 – the Election Commission of Pakistan announced the schedule of elections for the national and provincial assemblies.
20 November 2016 – PV Sindhu won her first Super Series title by defeating Sun Yu of China in the final of the China Open Super Series.