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May 20 is the 140th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (141st in leap years). There are 225 days remaining.
- 325 - First Council of Nicaea - first "Ecumenical Council" of the Christian Church.
- 526 - Earthquake kills ~300,000 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 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 Calcutta, India.
- 1521 - Battle of Pampeluna[?]
- 1570 - Abraham Ortelius issues the first modern atlas (cartography).
- 1690 - England passes Act of Grace[?], forgiving followers of James II.
- 1845 - The HMS Erebus and Terror with 134 men under John Franklin[?] sail from the River Thames beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
- 1861 - American Civil War: 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 Bermuda Hundred[?] - In Virginia, 3,000 Confederates and l,200 Union troops are killed in this Union victory.
- 1874 - Levi Strauss[?] markets blue jeans with copper rivets
- 1882 - Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
- 1891 - Film history: 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").
- 1920 - Montreal Quebec station XWA broadcasts first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.
- 1927 - Treaty of Jedda[?]: Saudi Arabia becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
- 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 (he will touch down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 10:22 P.M. the next day).
- 1932 - Amelia Earhart takes off on the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot.
- 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 - The AFSA (predecessor of the NSA) is established.
- 1954 - Chiang Kai-shek becomes President of the Republic of China government in Taiwan.
- 1985 - Propaganda: Radio Marti[?] 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.
- 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 East Timor independence.
- 1470 - Pietro Bembo, Italian cardinal (+ 1547)
- 1737 - William Petty Fitzmaurice, British statesman (+ 1805)
- 1759 - William Thornton, original architect of the United States Capitol
- 1768 - Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (+ 1849)
- 1772 - Sir William Congreve, inventor (+ 1828)
- 1799 - Honoré de Balzac, novelist (+ 1850)
- 1806 - John Stuart Mill, philosopher (+ 1873)
- 1830 - Hector Malot[?], writer
- 1838 - Felix Jules Méline, French statesman (+ 1925)
- 1851 - Emil Berliner, telephone and recording pioneer
- 1882 - Sigrid Undset, author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1928 (+ 1949)
- 1883 - King Faisal I of Iraq (+ 1933)
- 1894 - Adela Rogers St. Johns[?], author (+ 1988)
- 1901 - Max Euwe, world chess champion
- 1903 - Barbara Hepworth, sculptor (+ 1975)
- 1905 - Gerrit Achterberg[?], poet
- 1906 - Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, senior cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (+ 1989)
- 1908 - Jimmy Stewart, actor (+ 1997)
- 1911 - Annie M. G. Schmidt[?], children's book[?] writer
- 1911 - Gardner Fox, writer (+ 1986)
- 1913 - William Hewlett, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard (+ 2001)
- 1915 - Moshe Dayan, general (+ 1981)
- 1919 - George Gobel, comedian (+ 1991)
- 1921 - Wolfgang Borchert[?], lyricist, narrator and dramatist (+ 1947)
- 1921 - Hal Newhouser, Baseball Hall of Famer (+ 1998)
- 1927 - Bud Grant[?], Canadian and American football coach
- 1931 - Ken Boyer[?], baseball player (+ 1981)
- 1933 - Danny Aiello[?], actor
- 1940 - Stan Mikita[?], Hockey Hall of Famer
- 1940 - Sadaharu Oh, baseball star
- 1944 - Joe Cocker, singer
- 1944 - Boudewijn de Groot[?], singer
- 1946 - Cher, singer
- 1955 - Zbigniew Preisner, film composer
- 1958 - Ron Reagan[?], dancer, talk show host, son of former President Ronald Reagan
- 1959 - Bronson Pinchot[?], actor
- 1972 - Busta Rhymes, rap music singer
- 1254 - King Conrad IV of Germany
- 1277 - Pope John XXI
- 1471 - King Henry VI of England
- 1506 - Christopher Columbus, explorer
- 1622 - Osman II, sultan of Turkey and emperor of the Ottoman Empire
- 1793 - Charles Bonnet, Swiss naturalist
- 1841 - Joseph Blanco White, British theologian
- 1873 - Georges-Etienne Cartier, French statesman
- 1896 - Clara Schumann, composer
- 1917 - Philipp von Ferrary, stamp collector
- 1956 - Max Beerbohm, theater critic
- 1989 - Gilda Radner, comedian, actress
- 1996 - Jon Pertwee, actor (Doctor Who)
- 2000 - Jean Pierre Rampal, flutist
- 2002 - Stephen Jay Gould, biologist
See Also:
May 19 - May 21 - April 20 - June 20 -- listing of all days
January, February, March, April, May, June, July,
August, September, October, November, December
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