On October 20, ...

... 1988, the government of Britain proposed new legislation that permitting judge and jury to infer guilt from a suspect's invocation of the right to silence. The new law "caused a great deal of controversy and was seen by human rights activists as an erosion of a fundamental principle of English law that a person is innocent until proven guilty."
... 1949, Eugenie Moore Anderson (right) was appointed Ambassador to Denmark by President Harry S. Truman, making her the 1st American woman to hold the rank of Ambassador. Born 40 years earlier in Adair, Iowa, she moved to Minnesota in 1929 to attend Carleton College. In 1944, she helped create the latter state's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Anderson presented her credentials on December 22, 1949, and served until January 19, 1953. From 1962 to 1964 she served as minister to Bulgaria, the 1st woman to represent the United States in a country allied with the Soviet Union.
... 1957 (50 years ago today), U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Cal.) was born in Los Angeles.