1867            Jun 20, Pres. Andrew Johnson announced the purchase of Alaska.

1923            Jun 20, Pres. Harding set out on a 7,500-mile “Voyage of Understanding” through the northwest. The 57-year-old Harding, who suffered from heart disease, was so shaken by breaking reports of corruption in his administration that he went on a cross-country speaking tour to strengthen his position.

1967        Jun 20, Boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted in Houston of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted. He was soon sentenced to five years in prison but was released on appeal. His conviction was overturned three years later by the US Supreme Court.

1972             Jun 20, President Richard Nixon named General Creigton Abrams as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces.

1989             Jun 20, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev greeted the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was visiting Moscow.

1999             Jun 20, Pres. Clinton met with Pres. Yeltsin in Germany and they agreed to rekindle efforts to reduce their nuclear arsenals.

2003             Jun 20, Gov. Davis announced that car license fees would triple as of Oct. 1 and Finance Director Steve Peace said California was now operating off of borrowed money.

2005             Jun 20, Charles D. Keeling (b.1928), American atmospheric chemist, died in Montana. His monitoring of the pure air at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and the South Pole, begun in 1958, provided CO2 readings that climbed steadily and became known as the Keeling Curve.

2006             Jun 20, In Gaza City Mohammed Roka (5), Samia el-Sharif (5), and Bilal Al-hassi (16) were killed by an Israeli missile that hit a group of children, but didn’t kill the militants in the targeted car. After the air attack went awry, Israel defended its pursuit of militants, but said it would “continue to take every precaution to keep civilians out of harm’s way.”

2008        Jun 20, South Korea’s embattled President Lee Myung-Bak Friday replaced seven top aides to give his government a fresh start after weeks of mass protests against a US beef import deal.

2010        Jun 20, Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo asked a state prosecutor to investigate whether Interior Minister Desire Tagro has been skimming state funds. Gbagbo specifically mentioned payments made by Dutch oil-trading company Trafigura to victims of a 2006 toxic waste spill in Abidjan.

2011        Jun 20, Chinese President Hu Jintao made a rare visit to Ukraine to sign a strategic partnership declaration as Beijing seeks to revive ties with the ex-Soviet state after years of neglect. Hu Jintao oversaw the signing of business deals worth $3.5 billion.

2013        Jun 20, Rami Hamdallah, the new Palestinian prime minister, submitted his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas, after two weeks on the job, because of a conflict over authority.

2014        Jun 20, Israeli soldiers killed Mohammed Dudin (15), a Palestinian boy, in clashes during West Bank raids. 3 other Palestinians were seriously wounded by army gunfire during raids in four towns and refugee camps, as a search for three Israeli teens feared abducted in the territory entered its second week.