TODAY IN HISTORY – 20th Aug, 2026 – ORBITS NEWS
By Valentine Uchechukwu Ndukwu.
When William Faulkner said that the past is never dead. It’s not even past, he was ultimately trying to send the message out that the past continues to influence the present and future, shaping our experiences and perspectives.
This is a leading factor on why today in history keeps fleshing out historical events for our reading pleasure.
Scroll down and behold what we have today on our timeline
On this day in 1858, Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace’s same theory.
Still on this day in 1920, the first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), began operations in Detroit.
Again on this day in 1960, Senegal separated from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.
Today in history has it that in 1962, the NS Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarked on its maiden voyage.
Exactly on this day in 1988, the world witnessed the “Black Saturday” of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park.
Again on this day in 1989, the pleasure boat Marchioness sank on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people were killed.
It was on this day in 1997 that the Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people were killed and 15 kidnapped.
In 1998, on this day, U.S. embassy bombings were recorded: The United States launches cruise missile attacked against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Today is World Mosquito Day. For the records, this day is observed annually on 20 August, is a commemoration of British doctor Sir Ronald Ross’s discovery in 1897 that female anopheline mosquitoes transmit malaria between humans, thus confirming the mosquito-malaria theory, an idea that had been building in recent years through the work of various contributors such as Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran and Patrick Manson.
Check back tomorrow for yet another round of today in history
