May 20

May 20 is the 140th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (141st in leap years). There are 225 days remaining.

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Events

• 325 – The First Council of Nicaea is held; the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church.
• 526 – An Earthquake kills about 300,000 people in Syria and Antiochia.
• 1293 – King Sancho IV of Castile creates the Study of General Schools of Alcala.
• 1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship The Mathew looking for a route to the west (other documents give a May 2 date).
• 1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.
• 1521 – Battle of Pampeluna.
• 1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues the first modern atlas.
• 1690 – England passes the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of Catholic James II.
• 1845 – HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sail from the River Thames in England, beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage. All hands are lost.
• 1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state.
• 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Ware Bottom Church – In the Virginia Bermuda Hundred Campaign, 10,000 troops fight in this Confederate victory.
• 1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a US patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
• 1882 – The Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy is formed.
• 1891 – History of cinema: First public display of Thomas Alva Edison's prototype kinetoscope (shown at Edison's Laboratory for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs).
• 1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.
• 1916 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting ("Boy with Baby Carriage").
• 1916 – The town of Codell, Kansas is struck by a tornado.
• 1917 – The town of Codell, Kansas is struck by a tornado.
• 1918 – For the third consecutive year on this date, the town of Codell, Kansas is struck by a tornado.
• 1920 – Montreal Quebec station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.
• 1927 – By the Treaty of Jedda, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• 1927 – At 7:52 A.M Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, touching down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 10:22 P.M. the next day).
• 1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.
• 1940 – Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.
• 1941 – World War II: Battle of Crete – German troops invade Crete.
• 1949 – In the United States of America, the AFSA (the predecessor of the NSA) is established.
• 1954 – Chiang Kai-shek is selected for another term as President of the Republic of China by the National Assembly
• 1965 – A Pakistani Airlines Boeing 720-B crashes on landing at Cairo airport, killing 121 people.
• 1971 – Soul singer Marvin Gaye releases the influential album What's Going On
• 1980 – Referendum in Quebec where the population rejects by a vote of 60% the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada.
• 1985 – Radio Marti, part of the Voice of America service, begins broadcasting to Cuba.
• 1990 – The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
• 1992 – Amy Fisher, the so-called Long Island Lolita, is arrested for shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco on the front porch of her Massapequa, New York home.
• 1993 – The television sitcom, Cheers ends an 11-year run on NBC.
• 1996 – Gay rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of homosexuals.
• 2002 – Restoration of independence for East Timor from Indonesian rule.

Births

• 1470 – Pietro Bembo, Italian cardinal (d. 1547)
• 1726 – Francis Cotes, English painter (d. 1770)
• 1737 – William Petty Fitzmaurice, British statesman (d. 1805)
• 1759 – William Thornton, architect of the United States Capitol (d. 1828)
• 1768 – Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (d. 1849)
• 1772 – Sir William Congreve, English inventor (d. 1828)
• 1799 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist (d. 1850)
• 1806 – John Stuart Mill, English philosopher (d. 1873)
• 1830 – Hector Malot, writer (d. 1907)
• 1838 – Jules Méline, French statesman (d. 1925)
• 1851 – Emil Berliner, telephone and recording pioneer (d. 1929)
• 1860 – Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1917)
• 1882 – Sigrid Undset, Norwegian author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1949)
• 1883 – King Faisal I of Iraq (d. 1933)
• 1894 – Adela Rogers St. Johns, author (d. 1988)
• 1895 – R. J. (Reginald Joseph) Mitchell, British aircraft designer, developer of the Spitfire (d. 1937)
• 1901 – Max Euwe, Dutch world chess champion (d. 1981)
• 1903 – Barbara Hepworth, British sculptor (d. 1975)
• 1905 – Gerrit Achterberg, poet
• 1906 – Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 1989)
• 1908 – Jimmy Stewart, American actor (d. 1997)
• 1911 – Annie M. G. Schmidt, children's book writer
• 1911  – Gardner Fox, writer (d. 1986)
• 1913 – William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard (d. 2001)
• 1915 – Moshe Dayan, Israeli general (d. 1981)
• 1916 – Corneliu Coposu, Romanian politician (d. 1995)
• 1916  – Trebisonda Valla, Italian athlete
• 1919 – George Gobel, comedian (d. 1991)
• 1920 – Betty Driver, big band singer and actress
• 1921 – Wolfgang Borchert, German writer (d. 1947)
• 1921  – Hal Newhouser, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1998)
• 1926 – Bob Sweikert, American racing driver, (d. 1956)
• 1927 – Bud Grant, American football coach
• 1930 – James McEachin, actor
• 1931 – Ken Boyer, baseball player (d. 1982)
• 1935 – Marinella, Greek singer
• 1936 – Anthony Zerbe, actor
• 1940 – Stan Mikita, Slovak-born Canadian Hockey Hall of Famer
• 1940  – Sadaharu Oh, Japanese baseball star
• 1942 – David Proval, actor
• 1944 – Joe Cocker, British singer
• 1944  – Boudewijn de Groot, Dutch singer
• 1944  – Dietrich Mateschitz, Austrian businessman and founder of Red Bull
• 1946 – Cher, actress and singer
• 1947 – Greg Dyke, former BBC Director
• 1952 – Roger Milla, Cameroonian footballer
• 1955 – Zbigniew Preisner, Polish film composer
• 1956 – Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Norwegian author
• 1958 – Ron Reagan, dancer, talk show host, son of Ronald Reagan
• 1958  – Jane Wiedlin, American singer (The Go-Go's)
• 1959 – Bronson Pinchot, American actor
• 1959  – Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Hawaiian singer
• 1960 – John Billingsley, American actor
• 1960  – Tony Goldwyn, American actor
• 1962 – Mike Jeffries, American soccer coach
• 1966 – Mindy Cohn, American actress
• 1968 – Timothy Olyphant, American actor
• 1970 – Louis Theroux, British television presenter
• 1971 – Tony Stewart, American racecar driver
• 1972 – Tina Hobley, British actress
• 1972 – Busta Rhymes, rap music singer
• 1976 – Ramón Hernández, Major League Baseball player
• 1977 – Miriam Parrish, American actress
• 1981 – Lindsay Taylor, American basketball player

Deaths

• 685 – Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria (b. 645)
• 1277 – Pope John XXI
• 1506 – Christopher Columbus, explorer (b. 1451)
• 1550 – Ashikaga Yoshiharu, Ashikaga shogun (b. 1510)
• 1622 – Osman II, sultan of Turkey and emperor of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1604)
• 1793 – Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist (b. 1720)
• 1841 – Joseph Blanco White, British theologian (b. 1775)
• 1873 – Sir George-Étienne Cartier, French-Canadian statesman (b. 1814)
• 1896 – Clara Schumann, composer (b. 1819)
• 1917 – Philipp von Ferrary, stamp collector (b. 1850)
• 1956 – Max Beerbohm, theater critic (b. 1872)
• 1971 – Waldo Williams, poet (b. 1904)
• 1989 – Gilda Radner, comedian, actress (b. 1946)
• 1996 – Jon Pertwee, actor (Doctor Who) (b. 1919)
• 2000 – Jean Pierre Rampal, French flutist (b. 1922)
• 2001 – Renato Carosone, Italian musician and singer
• 2002 – Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist (b. 1941)

Holidays and observances

• Cameroon National Day
• East Timor National Day

Misc

Eliza Doolittle Day from My Fair Lady

External links

• BBC: On This Day

May 19 – May 21 – April 20 – June 20 — listing of all days