August 20
- 1153 CEChristian · died
Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot and a leading figure in the Cistercian reform, died at Clairvaux Abbey after forty years of monastic life.
- 1799 CEHindu · born
James Prinsep, the scholar who deciphered the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts of the Ashokan inscriptions, was born on 20 August 1799.
- 1828 CEHindu · founded
Ram Mohan Roy convened the first assembly of the Brahmo Sabha, the reform movement that became the Brahmo Samaj, in Calcutta on 20 August 1828.
- 1875 CEJewish · born
The Hebrew poet and translator Saul Tchernichovsky, celebrated for his nature verse and renderings of Homer into Hebrew, was born in Mykhailivka.
- 1912 CEBuddhist · born
Philip Kapleau, founder of the Rochester Zen Center and author of The Three Pillars of Zen, was born in New Haven, Connecticut.
- 1914 CEChristian · died
Pius X, who reformed church music and canon law, died in Rome in the opening weeks of the First World War.
- 1919 CEMesopotamian · died
L. W. King, the British Museum Assyriologist known for his translation of the Code of Hammurabi, died in London on this day.
- 2014 CEHindu · died
B.K.S. Iyengar, founder of Iyengar Yoga and author of Light on Yoga, died in Pune on 20 August 2014.