Today is Tuesday, October 20, the 293rd day of 2009. There are 72 days left in the year.
1600 _ Battle of Sekigahara sets Tokugawa clan as Japan's rulers (shoguns)
1740 _ Maria Theresa became ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia
1813 _ German Kingdom of Westphalia abolished
1911 _ Roald Amundsen sets out on race to South Pole
1944 _ U.S. forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur return to the Philippines
1963 _ S. Africa begins trial of Nelson Mandela and eight others on conspiracy
1968 _ Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis
1973 _ OPEC oil embargo begins
1977 _ Three members of rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd die in charter plane crash
1990 _ Antiwar protest marches begin in 20 U.S. cities (U.S.-Iraq)