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Today in History: August 20, Soviets invade Czechoslovakia

inquirer.com · 3h · first reportShare

Today is Thursday, Aug. 20, the 232nd day of 2026. There are 133 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization movement. Also on this date: In 1858, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was first published in the “Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society.” In 1862, the New York Tribune published an open letter by editor Horace Greeley calling on President Abraham Lincoln to take more aggressive measures to free enslaved people and end the South’s rebellion. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson declared the official end of the Civil War. In 1882, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” had its premiere in Moscow. In 1910, a series of wildfires swept through parts of Idaho, Montana and Washington, killing at least 85 people and burning more than 4,600 square miles. In 1920, the American Professional Football Conference was established by representatives of four profe