site.btaToday's Observances: February 20

The world:

- World Day of Social Justice. 

On this date in Bulgarian history: 

1881: The members of the first Holy Synod after Bulgaria's Liberation from Ottoman rule in 1878 are elected. 

1927: The Workers' Party is established as the legal representative of the illegal Bulgarian Communist Party. In 1938 the two merge into the Bulgarian Workers' Party. 

1950: The United States breaks diplomatic relations with Bulgaria for the second time, to be re-established at legation level in 1959, and upgraded to embassy level in 1966.

2003: President Georgi Purvanov decrees that the Order of the Balkan Range, First Class - the highest Bulgarian honour - be conferred on NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson.