Events
May
20
325 – The First Council of Nicea – the first
Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church
is held.
491 – Empress Ariadne marries Anastasius
I. The widowed Augusta is able to choose
her successor for the Byzantine throne,
after Zeno (late emperor) dies of dysentery.
526 – An earthquake kills about 300,000
people in Syria and Antiochia.
685 – The Battle of Dun Nechtain is fought
between a Pictish army under King Bridei
III and the invading Northumbrians under
King Ecgfrith, who are decisively defeated.
1217 – The Second Battle of Lincoln is fought
near Lincoln, England, resulting in the
defeat of Prince Louis of France by William
Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
1293 – King Sancho IV of Castile creates
the Study of General Schools of Alcalá.
1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol,
England, on his ship Matthew 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: Ignatius Loyola
is seriously wounded.
1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern
atlas.
1609 – Shakespeare's sonnets are first published
in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher
Thomas Thorpe.
1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany
is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire
and most of its inhabitants massacred, in
one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty
Years' War.
1775 – Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence
signed in Charlotte, North Carolina
1802 – By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon
Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French
colonies, revoking its abolition in the
French Revolution
1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French
troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony,
Germany, against the combined armies of
Russia and Prussia. The battle ends the
next day with a French victory.
1840 – York Minster is badly damaged by
fire
1861 – American Civil War: The state of
Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which
will last until September 3 when Confederate
forces enter the state. Meanwhile, the State
of North Carolina secedes from the Union.
1862 – U.S. 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 U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper
rivets.
1875 – Signing of the Metre Convention by
17 nations leading to the establishment
of the International System of Units.
1882 – The Triple Alliance between Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Italy is formed.
1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt. The volcano's
final and most notable explosion occurs
on August 26.
1884 – Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo becomes the
king of the Zulu Nation.
1891 – History of cinema: The first public
display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.
1896 – The six ton chandelier of the Palais
Garnier falls on the crowd below resulting
in the death of one and the injury of many
others.
1902 – Cuba gains independence from the
United States. Tomás Estrada Palma becomes
the country's first President.
1908 – Budi Utomo organization is founded
in Dutch East Indies, beginning the Indonesian
National Awakening.
1916 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes
its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting
(Boy with Baby Carriage).
1920 – Montreal, Quebec radio station XWA
broadcasts the first regularly scheduled
radio programming in North America.
1927 – Treaty of Jedda: the United Kingdom
recognizes the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud
in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which
later merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia.
1927 – At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh takes
off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island,
New York, on the world's first solo non-stop
flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He touched
down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22
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
paratroops invade Crete.
1948 – Chiang Kai-shek is elected as the
first President of the Republic of China.
1949 – In the United States, the Armed Forces
Security Agency, the predecessor to the
National Security Agency, is established.
1956 – In Operation Redwing (shot Cherokee),
the first United States airborne hydrogen
bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the
Pacific Ocean.
1965 – PIA Flight 705, a Pakistan International
Airlines Boeing 720 – 040 B, crashes while
descending to land at Cairo International
Airport, killing 119 of the 125 passengers
and crew.
1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam
ends.
1980 – In a referendum in Quebec, the population
rejects by a 60% vote the proposal from
its government to move towards independence
from Canada.
1983 – First publications of the discovery
of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the
journal Science by Luc Montagnier.
1985 – Radio Martí, part of the Voice of
America service, begins broadcasting to
Cuba.
1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial
law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations,
setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square
massacre.
1990 – The first post-Communist presidential
and parliamentary elections are held in
Romania.
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 gays and lesbians.
2002 – The independence of East Timor is
recognized by Portugal, formally ending
23 years of Indonesian rule and 3 years
of provisional UN administration (Portugal
itself is the former colonizer of East Timor
until 1976).
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Abercius and Helena
Aurea of Ostia
Austregisilus
Baudilus
Bernardino of Siena
Ivo of Chartres
Lucifer of Cagliari
Sanctan
May 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of Remembrance (Cambodia)
Emancipation Day (Florida)
European Maritime Day (European Council)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence
of Cuba from the United States in 1902.
Independence Day, celebrates the independence
of East Timor from Indonesia in 2002.
Indonesian National Awakening (Indonesia)
National Day (Cameroon)
World Metrology Day
For details, contact Datacentre
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