July 20, 1839
Birth of the pathologist, Julius Cohnheim, in Demmin, Prussia. He worked with the effects of tuberculosis on tissue.
July 20, 1847
Birth of the artist, Max Liebermann, in Berlin, Germany. He was a leader in the German impressionist period.
July 20, 1850
Birth of Georg Müller in Grimma, Germany. Müller was a psychologist at the University of Göttingen and made significant contributions to knowledge about sensations, memory, learning and color vision.
July 20, 1866
Death of Bernhard Riemann in Italy. Riemann’s work in mathematics led to innovations in theoretical physics and relativity theory. The Riemann surface is named in his honor as is Riemannian geometry. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Göttingen.
July 20, 1870
Death of Albrecht von Gräfe in Berlin, Germany. Gräfe was an eye surgeon, the founder of modern ophthalmology. He worked at the University of Berlin. He introduced iridectomy in 1857 for the relief of glaucoma, in 1867 developed a surgery for the removal of cataracts and in 1864 developed “Gräfe’s sign” which is associated with Graves-Basedow disease.
July 20, 1933
Concordat between Germany and the Vatican.
July 20, 1934
Birth of Uwe Johnson in Cammin, Germany. Johnson was a novelist who explored the problems of life in divided Germany after WWII.
July 20, 1944
Attempted assassination of Hitler by Claus von Staufenberg. Von Staufenberg was arrested and executed on the same day.
July 20, 1945
Death of Ludwig Beck in Berlin, Germany. Beck was Chief of the General Staff and opposed Hitler’s plan to occupy the Rhineland in 1936. He was a central figure in the plot against Hitler in 1944. After the failure he committed suicide.
July 20, 1947
July 20, 1995
July 20, 2002
A 250-kilogram American bomb from World War II is found in Berlin during a construction project. Hundreds of residents had to be evacuated for several hours during the defusing of the bomb.