On this day in war, Aug. 20: • 1940, during World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force before the House of Commons, saying, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." • 1953, the Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb. • 1955, hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria. • 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive. • 1988, a cease-fire in the war between Iraq and Iran went into effect. • 1988, Eight British soldiers were killed by an Irish Republican Army land mine that destroyed a military bus near Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 15:15:27 +0000