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

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 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 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 beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage. All hands are lost.
• 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.
• 1873 - Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a US patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
• 1882 - The 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 - Treaty of Jedda: 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 (he will touch 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 America the AFSA (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, Egypt, 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 - 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.
• 1993 - The television sitcom, Cheers ends an 11-year run on NBC (the show debuted on September 30, 1982).
• 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.

Births

• 1470 - Pietro Bembo, Italian cardinal (d. 1547)
• 1726 - Francis Cotes, English painter (d. 1770)
• 1737 - William Petty Fitzmaurice, later 2nd Earl of Shelburn & 1st Marquess of Landsdowne, British statesman (d. 1805)
• 1759 - William Thornton, original architect of the United States Capitol (d. 1828)
• 1768 - Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (d. 1849)
• 1772 - Sir William Congreve, inventor (d. 1828)
• 1799 - Honoré de Balzac, novelist (d. 1850)
• 1806 - John Stuart Mill, 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)
• 1882 - Sigrid Undset, author and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1928 (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, world chess champion (d. 1981)
• 1903 - Barbara Hepworth, sculptor (d. 1975)
• 1905 - Gerrit Achterberg, poet
• 1906 - Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, senior cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (d. 1989)
• 1908 - Jimmy Stewart, 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, general (d. 1981)
• 1916 - Corneliu Coposu, Romanian politician (d. 1995)
• 1916 - Trebisonda Valla, athlete
• 1919 - George Gobel, comedian (d. 1991)
• 1920 - Betty Driver, big band singer and actress
• 1921 - Wolfgang Borchert, lyricist, narrator and dramatist (d. 1947)
• 1921 - Hal Newhouser, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1998)
• 1927 - Bud Grant, Canadian and American football coach
• 1930 - James McEachin, actor
• 1931 - Ken Boyer, baseball player (d. 1981)
• 1935 - Marinella, Greek singer
• 1936 - Anthony Zerbe, actor
• 1940 - Stan Mikita, Hockey Hall of Famer
• 1940 - Sadaharu Oh, baseball star
• 1942 - David Proval, actor
• 1944 - Joe Cocker, singer
• 1944 - Boudewijn de Groot, singer
• 1944 - Dietrich Mateschitz, Austrian businessman and founder of Red Bull
• 1946 - Cher, singer
• 1952 - Roger Milla, Cameroonian football star
• 1955 - Zbigniew Preisner, film composer
• 1956 - Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Norwegian author
• 1958 - Ron Reagan, dancer, talk show host, son of former President Ronald Reagan
• 1958 - Jane Wiedlin, singer
• 1959 - Bronson Pinchot, actor
• 1959 - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Hawaiian singer
• 1960 - John Billingsley, actor (Star Trek: Enterprise)
• 1960 - Tony Goldwyn, actor
• 1962 - Mike Jeffries, American soccer coach
• 1965 - Luis Alberto Cardozo, Humanities idol
• 1966 - Mindy Cohn, actress
• 1968 - Timothy Olyphant, actor
• 1971 - Tony Stewart, motor racing driver
• 1972 - Busta Rhymes, rap music singer
• 1976 - Ramón Hernández, Major League Baseball All-Star

Deaths

• 685 - Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria (b. 645)
• 1254 - King Conrad IV of Germany (b. 1228)
• 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 Gould, paleontologist (b. 1941)

Holidays and observances

• Cameroon National Day
• East Timor National Day

Misc

Eliza Doolittle Day from My Fair Lady

May 19 - May 21 - April 20 - June 20 -- listing of all days