July 20
© 1997, 1998 by Paul A. Schons
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" of exophthalmic goitre.
July 20, 1897
Birth of Tadeus Reichstein in Poland. Reichstein was educated and worked in Switzerland. He won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for his work with hormones of the adrenal cortex.
July 20, 1920
Birth of Gottfried von Haberler in Vienna, Austria. Haberler was an economist, educated at the University of Vienna, a specialist in international trade. He then taught in Vienna and later accepted a professorship at Harvard. His The Theory of International Trade is regarded as a classic in the field.
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 is 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
Birth of Gerd Binnig in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1986 for work on the scanning tunneling microscope.
July 20, 1995
Death of Helmut Gernsheim in Munich, Germany. Gernsheim was one of the initiators of photography as a serious form of art worthy of study and as an academic discipline. After his study of art history at the University of Munich, he immigrated to England and spent much of his professional career in London. His book, which documented photography as a serious art form, was The History of Photography from the Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura in the Eleventh Century up to 1914 (1955).
July 20, 2002
A 250 kilogram American bomb from world war two is found in Berlin during a construction project. Hundreds of residents had to be evacuated for several hours during the defusing of the bomb.
July 20, 2004
In a memorial service for those who attempted the assassination of Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944, Federal President, Horst Köhler placed a wreath at the location where conspirator Claus von Stauffenberg was executed. Chancellor Schröder in his address urged all citizens to be active in the defense of freedom and tolerance.