Today in History: Last Anzac and British Troops Leave Çanakkale

December 20 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) according to the Gregorian calendar. The number of days left until the end of the year is 11.

Railways

• 20 December 1881 The regulation known as the Muharram Decree was used to combine all Ottoman debts, while the bonds of the Rumeli Railways were separated. According to this; The interest payments on the bonus bonds were temporarily suspended. But the raffles continued. The nominal value of the bonds was reduced by 45,09 and reduced to 180,36.
• 20 December 1921 Anatolian-Baghdad and Afyon-Usak Railways and Baghdad Construction Company Directorate General Directorate was moved from Ankara to Eskisehir and then from Ankara to Konya.
• 20 December 1949 Erzurum-Hasankale (42 km) line is opened.
• 20 December 2016 The Eurasia Tunnel, which connects the continents of Europe and Asia, is opened.

Events

• 1522 – Conquest of Rhodes: Suleiman the Magnificent accepted the surrender of the Knights of Rhodes and allowed them to evacuate the island. The Knights later settled in Malta.
• 1915 – The last Anzac and British troops leave Çanakkale.
• 1924 – NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler, imprisoned in Germany, is released on parole.
• 1924 – Kırkkilise's name was changed to Kırklareli.
• 1938 – The first electronic television system was patented.
• 1939 – The law regarding Turkey's participation in the International Wine Board in Paris was passed.
• 1942 – 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Erbaa-Niksar.
• 1945 – Sedat Simavi was appointed as the President of the Istanbul Press Association.
• 1945 – A midwife who was tried for alleged abortion was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
• 1947 – The appropriation of President İsmet İnönü's yachts was removed from the budget.
• 1951 – The EBR1 nuclear reactor in Arco (Idaho, USA) produces its first electricity.
• After the 1955-1954 elections, some deputies who left the DP founded the Freedom Party.
• 1961 – Direction magazine started to be published weekly under the management of Doğan Avcıoğlu.
• 1963 – The Berlin Wall opens for the first time to West Berliners so they can visit their relatives in the East for a day.
• 1964 – The opening of the Istanbul Ali Sami Yen Stadium was the scene of a disaster. Before the start of the Turkey-Bulgaria national match, the iron bars of one of the open stands were shattered as a result of the stampede: 83 people were injured.
• 1969 – Yıldız State Academy of Engineering and Architecture was closed. 7 people, including a police officer, were arrested for murdering student Battal Mehmetoğlu.
• 1970 – Doormen marched to be covered by Social Insurance.
• 1970 – Shots were fired on workers in Poland. Workers were protesting the rise in food prices. After the incident, Communist Party leader Władysław Gomułka resigned and was replaced by Edward Gierek.
• 1971 – Yahya Khan resigned in Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became President.
• 1971 - Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange is released.
• 1972 – Journalist Turhan Dilligil was sentenced to 21 months and 5 days in prison.
• 1973 - Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, was killed in his car. The Basque Homeland and Freedom organization, whose short name is ETA, claimed responsibility for the assassination.
• 1984 – Police Organization was established in Northern Cyprus.
• 1985 – For the first time in Turkey, a woman gave birth to 8 children in a litter; Of the eight, 5 boys and 3 girls, 7 survived for one day and 1 for four days.
• 1987 – The Filipino cruise ship Dona Paz collided with the Vector tanker off Mindoro Island; Two explosions occurred and more than 3 people were killed.
• 1989 – Manuel Noriega, Panama's military dictator, is overthrown by American Troops.
• 1995 – NATO forces begin deploying in Bosnia.
• 1995 – An American passenger plane crashes into a mountain 50 km north of Cali (Colombia): 160 people are killed.
• 1996 – NeXT merged with Apple Computer, paving the way for the birth of Mac OS X.
• 1999 - NASA launched the ACRIMSat satellite into space to study the Sun's energy radiation.
• 2002 – The Middle East Four, comprising the United States, Russia, the EU and the UN, calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.
• 2016 – 42 people died in a firework explosion at the San Pablito market in Tultepec, Mexico.

Births

• 1494 – Oronce Finé, French mathematician and cartographer (d. 1555)
• 1537 – III. Johan was king of Sweden from 1568 until his death in 1592 (d. 1592)
• 1717 – Charles Gravier, Count of Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (d. 1878)
• 1840 – Kazimierz Alchimowicz, Polish romantic painter (d. 1916)
• 1841 – Ferdinand Buisson, French politician (d. 1932)
• 1873 – Mehmet Âkif Ersoy, Turkish poet, writer and thinker (d. 1936)
• 1890 – Jaroslav Heyrovski, Czech chemist (d. 1967)
• 1894 – Robert Menzies, Australian lawyer and politician (d. 1978)
• 1898 – Konstantinos Dovas, Greek soldier and politician (d. 1973)
• 1898 – Irene Dunne, American actress (d. 1990)
• 1899 – Şerif İçli, Turkish composer and oud player (d. 1956)
• 1902 – George, fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary (d. 1942)
• 1904 – Yevgeniya Ginzburg, Russian writer (d. 1977)
• 1910 Helene Mayer, German fencer (d. 1953)
• 1915 – Aziz Nesin, Turkish writer and poet (d. 1995)
• 1917 – David Bohm, US physicist (d. 1992)
• 1917 – Audrey Totter, American actress (d. 2013)
• 1921 – George Roy Hill, American director (d. 2002)
• 1924 – Charlie Callas, American comedian and actor (d. 2011)
• 1926 – Geoffrey Howe, British politician (d. 2015)
• 1927 – Kim Young-sam, South Korean politician and democratic activist (d. 2015)
• 1932 – John Hillerman, American actor (d. 2017)
• 1939 – Kathryn Joosten, American actress (d. 2012)
• 1942 – Bob Hayes, American athlete (d. 2002)
• 1942 – Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank from 2003 to 2011
• 1946 – Uri Geller, Israeli entertainer
• 1947 – Gigliola Cinquetti, Italian singer, presenter and journalist
• 1948 – Onno Tunç, Armenian-born Turkish musician and composer (d. 1996)
• 1948 – Abdulrazak Gurnah, Tanzanian writer and Nobel Prize winner for Literature
• 1948 - Alan Parsons, English sound engineer, musician and record producer
• 1948 – Mitsuko Uchida, Japanese pianist
• 1949 – Soumaïla Cisse, Malian politician (d. 2020)
• 1952 – Jenny Agutter is an English film and TV actress.
• 1954 – Sandra Cisneros, American writer
• 1955 – Martin Schulz, German politician
• 1955 – Binali Yıldırım, Turkish politician, former Minister of Transport of Turkey, 3rd Chairman of the AK Party and Prime Minister of Turkey
• 1956 – Mohammed Veled Abdulaziz, Mauritanian soldier and politician
• 1956 – Blanche Baker, American actress and filmmaker
• 1956 – Anita Ward, American singer and musician
• 1957 – Anna Vissi, Greek singer
• 1959 – Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a Polish politician
• 1960 – Kim Ki-duk, South Korean director, screenwriter, and producer
• 1965 – Alpaslan Dikmen, Turkish photojournalist, founder of Galatasaray supporter group UltrAslan (d. 2008)
• 1966 – Ahmet Yenilmez, Turkish theater actor, actor, poet and writer
• 1968 – Joe Cornish, English comedian and filmmaker
• 1968 – Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu, Turkish laboratory and politician
• 1968 - Karl Wendlinger, Austrian former Formula 1 driver
• 1969 - Alain de Botton, English writer
• 1972 – Anders Odden is a Norwegian musician
• 1972 – Anja Rücker, German athlete
• 1975 – Bartosz Bosacki, Polish football player
• 1977 – Kerem Kabadayı, Turkish writer, drummer and founding member of the Turkish rock band Mor ve Ötesi
• 1978 – Geremi Njitap, Cameroonian football player
• 1980 – Israel Castro, Mexican football player
• 1980 – Ashley Cole, English football player
• 1980 – Martin Demichelis, Argentine football player
• 1983 – Gia Allemand, American television star and model (d. 2013)
• 1983 – Jonah Hill, American actress
• 1990 – JoJo, American pop and R&B singer, songwriter, and actress
• 1991 – Fabian Schär, Swiss football player
• 1991 – Jorginho is an Italian national football player.
• 1992 – Ksenia Makarova, Russian figure skater
• 1997 – Suzuka Nakamoto, Japanese singer and model
• 1998 – Kylian Mbappé, French football player

Deaths

• 217 – Zephyrinus, pope (b. ?) circa 199-217
• 1355 – Stefan Dušan, Ruler of the Kingdom of Serbia from 1331 to 1355 (b. 1308)
• 1552 – Katharina von Bora, wife of Martin Luther, leader of the Reformation (b. 1499)
• 1590 – Ambroise Paré, French physician (known as the “father of modern surgery”) (b. 1510)
• 1722 – Kangxi, fourth emperor of China's Qing Dynasty (b. 1654)
• 1783 – Antonio Soler, Spanish Catalan Hieronymite monk, musician, and composer (b. 1729)
• 1849 – William Miller, American Baptist preacher (b. 1782)
• 1862 – Robert Knox, Scottish surgeon, anatomist, and zoologist (b. 1791)
• 1877 – Heinrich Ruhmkorff, German scientist, inventor (b. 1803)
• 1917 – Lucien Petit-Breton, French racing cyclist (b. 1882)
• 1921 – Julius Richard Petri, German bacteriologist, military physician, and surgeon (b. 1852)
• 1929 – Émile Loubet, President of France (b. 1838)
• 1936 – Elsa Einstein, second wife and cousin of Albert Einstein (b. 1876)
• 1937 – Erich Ludendorff, German general (b. 1865)
• 1939 – Hans Langsdorff, German naval officer (b. 1894)
• 1944 – Merna Kennedy, American actress (b. 1908)
• 1956 – Paul Bonatz, German architect (b. 1877)
• 1966 – Albert Göring, German businessman (b. 1895)
• 1968 – John Steinbeck, American author and Nobel Prize winner for Literature (b. 1902)
• 1968 – Max Brod, Jewish-German writer
• 1973 – Luis Carrero Blanco, Spanish politician (b. 1904)
• 1973 – Bobby Darin, American singer, songwriter, and actor (b. 1936)
• 1974 – Rajani Palme Dutt, British journalist (b. 1896)
• 1982 – Arthur Rubinstein, Polish-born American piano virtuoso (b. 1887)
• 1984 – Stanley Milgram, American social psychologist (b. 1933)
• 1984 – Dmitri Ustinov, Red Army commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union (b. 1908)
• 1989 – Laika Karabey, Turkish composer and tanburi (b. 1909)
• 1993 – Hulusi Kentmen, Turkish theater and film actress (b. 1912)
• 1993 – Nazife Güran, Turkish composer (b. 1921)
• 1994 – Dean Rusk, American politician and former Secretary of State (b. 1909).
• 1996 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer (b. 1934)
• 1998 – Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, English physiologist and biophysicist (b. 1914)
• 2001 – Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegalese poet and politician (b. 1906)
• 2007 – Savaş Dinçel, Turkish actor, cartoonist and film director (b. 1942)
• 2008 – Robert Mulligan, American screenwriter and filmmaker (b. 1925)
• 2009 – Brittany Murphy, American actress and voice actor (b. 1977)
• 2012 – Kamil Sönmez, Turkish folk music artist, film and theater actor (b. 1947)
• 2016 – Michèle Morgan, French film actress (b. 1920)
• 2017 – Annie Goetzinger, French illustrator and comics (b. 1951)
• 2018 – Klaus Hagerup, Norwegian writer, poet, translator, screenwriter, actor and director (b. 1946)
• 2018 – Donald Moffat, British-American actor (b. 1930)
• 2018 – Henning Palner, Danish actor (b. 1932)
• 2019 – Matti Ahde, Finnish politician (b. 1945)
• 2019 – Eduard Krieger, Austrian former international football player (b. 1946)
• 2020 – Samsuddin Ahmed, Bangladeshi politician (b. 1945)
• 2020 – Doug Anthony, Australian politician (b. 1929)
• 2020 – Nicette Bruno, Brazilian actress (b. 1933)
• 2020 – Inés Moreno, Argentine film and television actress (b. 1932)
• 2020 – Nasser Bin Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Kuwaiti Royal Family politician (b. 1948)
• 2020 – Fanny Waterman, English pianist and educator (b. 1920)
• 2020 – Dietrich Weise, Former German professional football player and manager (b. 1934)

Holidays and special occasions

• World Human Solidarity Day