May 20

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

Contents

1 Events

2 Births

3 Deaths

4 Holidays and observances

5 Misc

6 External links

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 - Saudi Arabia becomes independent from 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, 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.