| YEAR | DAY | EVENT |
| 325 | May 20 | An ecumenical council was inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea, Asia Minor. The Church Council of Nicaea (aka Iznik) in Asia Minor condemned the teaching of Arius, a Christian priest at Alexandria (d.336), who held that Christ was not divine in the same sense as God the Father. The council fixed Orthodox Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox unless the date falls on the 1st day of Passover, in which case it moves to the next Sunday. |
| 526 | May 20 | An earthquake killed 250,000 in Antioch, Turkey. This was the capital of Syria from 300-64BCE. |
| 1303 | May 20 | France returned Gascony to England’s Edward I. |
| 1310 | May 20 | Shoes began to be made for both right and left feet. |
| 1347 | May 20 | Cola di Rienzo took the title of tribune in Rome. |
| 1364 | May 20 | Sir Henry Percy (d.1403), [Harry Hotspur], British soldier, politician, and rebel leader, was born. |
| 1444 | May 20 | Bernardinus van Siena (63), Italian saint, died. |
| 1498 | May 20 | Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut (Kozhikkode) in Kerala, India. |
| 1501 | May 20 | Portuguese explorer Joao da Nova Castelia (1460-1509) discovered the Ascension Islands on Ascension Day. |
| 1509 | May 20 | Catharina Sforza (45), “La Sforza del Destino”, Italian duchess of Forli, died. |
| 1520 | May 20 | Hernando Cortes defeated Spanish troops sent to punish him in Mexico. |
| 1521 | May 20 | Ignatius Loyola was seriously wounded by a cannon ball. |
| 1537 | May 20 | Hieronymus Fabricius Ab, physician (De Formato Foetu), was born in Aquapend, Italy. |
| 1547 | May 20 | Melchior Bischoff, composer, was born. |
| 1571 | May 20 | Venice, Spain & Pope Pius formed an anti-Turkish Saint League. |
| 1631 | May 20 | A German army under earl Johann Tilly conquered Magdeburg. |
| 1639 | May 20 | Dorchester, Mass., formed the 1st school funded by local taxes. |
| 1648 | May 20 | In Poland King Ladislas IV died at age 55. His Jesuit brother (39) took rule as John Casimir II. |
| 1663 | May 20 | William Bradford, printer, was born. |
| 1674 | May 20 | John Sobieski became Poland’s first King. |
| 1690 | May 20 | England passed the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II. |
| 1704 | May 20 | Elias Neau formed a school for slaves in NY. |
| 1743 | May 20 | [Francois D] Toussaint L’Ouverture, Haitian leader, was born on the Breda plantation in Santo Domingo. |
| 1750 | May 20 | Stephen Girard, rescued U.S. bonds during War of 1812, actor, was born. |
| 1759 | May 20 | William Thornton, architect of the U.S. Capitol, actor, was born. |
| 1768 | May 20 | Dolley Madison, first lady of President James Madison, was born. She was famous as a Washington hostess while her husband was secretary of state and president. |
| 1772 | May 20 | William Congreve (d.1828), English officer (design fire rocket), was born. |
| 1774 | May 20 | The British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts closed the port of Boston. [see Mar 28] |
| 1775 | May 20 | North Carolina became the first colony to declare its independence. Citizens of Mecklenburg County, NC, declared independence from Britain. |
| 1784 | May 20 | Peace of Versailles ended the war between France, England, and Holland |
| 1795 | May 20 | Ignac Martinovics, Hungarian physicist, revolutionary, was beheaded. |
| 1799 | May 20 | Honore de Balzac, French novelist, was born in Tours, France. He is considered the founder of the realistic school and wrote “The Human Comedy” and “Lost Illusions.” |
| 1818 | May 20 | William George Fargo, one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Co., actor, was born. |
| 1825 | May 20 | Charles X became King of France. |
| 1830 | May 20 | The 1st railroad timetable was published in the newspaper Baltimore American. |
| 1834 | May 20 | The Marquis de Lafayette (78), US Revolutionary War hero (Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier), died in Paris, France. He was the 1st foreigner to address Congress. In 2002 Congress moved to make him an honorary US citizen. In 1983 Olivier Bernier authored “Lafayette, Hero of Two Worlds.” In 200 Harlow Giles Unger authored “Lafayette.” |
| 1847 | May 20 | Mary Lamb, writer, died. |
| 1851 | May 20 | Emile Berliner, inventor of the flat phonograph record, was born in Germany. |
| 1856 | May 20 | Henri E. Cross (d.1910), French painter, was born. His real surname was Delacroix but was changed in 1881. |
| 1859 | May 20 | A force of Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy. |
| 1861 | May 20 | US marshals appropriated the previous year’s telegraph dispatches, to reveal pro-secessionist evidence. |
| 1864 | May 20 | Battle at Ware Bottom Church, Virginia, killed or injured 1,400. |
| 1867 | May 20 | British parliament rejected John Stuart Mill’s law on women suffrage. |
| 1868 | May 20 | The Republican National Convention met in Chicago and nominated Grant. |
| 1873 | May 20 | Levi Strauss of San Francisco and Jacob Davis of Reno, Nevada, received a patent for miners’ work pants that included rivets to reinforce the pockets. |
| 1874 | May 20 | Levi Strauss began marketing blue jeans with copper rivets at $13.50 per doz. |
| 1882 | May 20 | The St. Gotthard-railroad tunnel opened between Switzerland & Italy. |
| 1883 | May 20 | Faisal ibn Husayn (d.1933), the 3rd son of the grand sherif of Mecca, was born in Mecca. He later became 1st king of Syria (1920) and Iraq (1921). |
| 1889 | May 20 | Felix Arndt, composer, was born. |
| 1890 | May 20 | Beniamino Gigli, tenor (Enzo-La Gioconda), was born in Italy. |
| 1892 | May 20 | George Sampson patented a clothes dryer. |
| 1895 | May 20 | The 1st commercial movie performance was at 153 Broadway in NYC. |
| 1896 | May 20 | Clara Josephine Wieck Schumann (76), composer, died. |
| 1899 | May 20 | John M. Harlan, the 91st Supreme Court justice (1955-71), was born in Chicago. |
| 1902 | May 20 | The United States ended its three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba was established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma. Theodore Roosevelt had criticized the government’s sluggish withdrawal of disease-stricken US troops from Cuba. |
| 1908 | May 20 | Jimmy Stewart, actor, was born in Indiana, Pa. He is best remembered for his roles in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” |
| 1912 | May 20 | Joseph Proce, 3rd victim of NYC’s Zodiac killer, was born. |
| 1913 | May 20 | William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., was born. |
| 1915 | May 20 | Moshe Dayan, Israeli general, minister of Defense, was born. |
| 1917 | May 20 | Turkish government authorized Jews to return to Tel Aviv and Jaffa. |
| 1918 | May 20 | The 1st electrically propelled warship (New Mexico). |
| 1919 | May 20 | Volcano Keluit on Java erupted killing 550. |
| 1926 | May 20 | Thomas Edison said Americans prefer silent movies over talkies. |
| 1927 | May 20 | Saudi Arabia became independent of Great Britain with the Treaty of Jedda. |
| 1930 | May 20 | University of California dedicated $1,500 to research on the prevention and cure of athlete’s foot. |
| 1932 | May 20 | Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart set down in Northern Ireland after 13 ½ hours instead of her intended destination, France. |
| 1933 | May 20 | Danny Aiello, actor (Moonstruck, Do the Right Thing), was born in NYC. |
| 1939 | May 20 | Regular trans-Atlantic air mail service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Marseilles, France. |
| 1940 | May 20 | Igor Sikorsky unveiled his helicopter invention. |
| 1941 | May 20 | Germany invaded Crete by air. |
| 1942 | May 20 | Glenn Miller and His Orchestra recorded “(I’ve Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo” at Victor Studios in Hollywood. |
| 1943 | May 20 | French, British and US held a victory parade in Tunis, Tunisia. |
| 1944 | May 20 | US Communist Party dissolved. |
| 1948 | May 20 | Israel made the 1st use of its Air Force and claimed its 1st war victory with the defeat of the Syrian army. |
| 1951 | May 20 | During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara, flying an F-28 Saberjet, became the first jet air ace in history. |
| 1954 | May 20 | Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek became president of Nationalist China. |
| 1955 | May 20 | Argentine parliament accepted the separation of church & state. |
| 1956 | May 20 | The US dropped a thermonuclear bomb from a plane onto Bikini Atoll. |
| 1959 | May 20 | Japanese-Americans regained their citizenship. |
| 1961 | May 20 | A white mob attacked a busload of “Freedom Riders” in Montgomery, Ala., prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order. |
| 1963 | May 20 | A fire in New Jersey burned out of control and killed 7 people. Nearly 1,000 were left homeless as the fire moved 9 miles in 6 hours on what was called Black Saturday. |
| 1967 | May 20 | BBC disc jockey Kenny Everett gave the official preview of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the radio show Where It’s At, broadcast on the BBC Light Program. He was unable to play the final track “A Day in the Life,” which the BBC had banned a day earlier due to drug references. |
| 1968 | May 20 | The US Supreme Court (United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 391 U.S. 244) ruled for the breakup of United Shoe Machinery Company in Mass. |
| 1969 | May 20 | In Connecticut Warren Kimbro (d.2009 at 74), a member of the Black Panthers, fatally shot Alex Rackley (19), another member of the Black Panthers, who was believed to be an FBI informant. The shooting was ordered by George Sams, a local Black Panther leader. Prosecutors later alleged that Bobby Seale had ordered the murder. |
| 1970 | May 20 | Some 100,000 people demonstrated in New York’s Wall Street district in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia. |
| 1971 | May 20 | The US Congress cancelled the supersonic SST airplane program. |
| 1973 | May 20 | In the 25th Emmy Awards the winners included The Waltons, All in the Family & Mary Tyler Moore. |
| 1974 | May 20 | Judge John Sirica ordered President Nixon to turn over tapes and records of 64 White House conversations regarding Watergate. |
| 1975 | May 20 | The European Economic Community adopted a trade agreement with Israel. |
| 1978 | May 20 | The Tokyo International Airport at Narita opened on a 2,632 acre site on Chiba Peninsula. The opening was 8 years after it was built due to opposition by local farmers and univ. students. |
| 1980 | May 20 | In Canada a referendum of 59.5% of Quebec voters rejected separatism. |
| 1984 | May 20 | “On Your Toes” closed at the Virginia Theater in NYC after 505 performances. |
| 1985 | May 20 | US began broadcasts to Cuba on Radio Marti. |
| 1986 | May 20 | The Flintstones 25th Anniversary Celebration aired on CBS-TV. |
| 1987 | May 20 | Captain Glenn Brindel, commander of the US frigate Stark, broke his silence regarding the May 17 loss of 37 sailors in an Iraqi missile attack. Brindel said he was warned only seconds before missiles struck, and that he’d had no time to activate the ship’s defense system. |
| 1988 | May 20 | 30-year-old Laurie Dann walked into a Winnetka, Ill., elementary school classroom, where she shot to death 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin and wounded several other children. After wounding a young man at his home, Dann took her own life. |
| 1989 | May 20 | Comedian Gilda Radner died in Los Angeles at age 42. |
| 1990 | May 20 | The Hubble Space Telescope sent back its first photographs. |
| 1991 | May 20 | The movie “Barton Fink” won the top prizes at the 44th annual Cannes Film Festival. |
| 1992 | May 20 | Thailand’s much-revered monarch (King Bhumibol Adulyadej) called for an end to violent clashes between troops and pro-democracy protesters. |
| 1993 | May 20 | Max Klein (77), inventor of paint by numbers, died. |
| 1994 | May 20 | Tributes poured in following the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. President Clinton said of the former first lady: “She captivated our nation and the world with her intelligence, her elegance and her grace.” |
| 1995 | May 20 | Timber Country won the Preakness at Pimlico. |
| 1996 | May 20 | The song Blue composed by Bill Mack in 1963 for Patsy Cline was finally recorded by 14-year-old LeAnn Rimes. |
| 1997 | May 20 | The Senate approved legislation to ban certain late-term abortions, but fell three votes shy of the total needed to override President Clinton’s threatened veto. |
| 1998 | May 20 | Pres. Clinton vetoed a school voucher plan that would have provided tax funds for poor children in Washington D.C. to attend private or religious schools. |
| 1999 | May 20 | Robbie Knievel (37) jumped a 200-foot-wide chasm over the Grand Canyon with his motorcycle. His old world record was 223 feet. |
| 2000 | May 20 | “Red Bullet” won the Preakness Stakes, outpacing Kentucky Derby winner “Fusaichi Pegasus.” |
| 2001 | May 20 | President Bush, in an address to graduating Notre Dame students, urged a new generation of American voters to “revive the spirit of citizenship” and carry on the work of two Democratic presidents: Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty and welfare reforms under Bill Clinton. |
| 2002 | May 20 | FBI Chief Mueller said the US may soon be confronted with human bombs like those in the Mideast. |
| 2003 | May 20 | The TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” had its finale. Set in the fictional California town of Sunnydale, “Buffy” depicted high school as a literal Hell. The TV series began in 1997 based on a 1992 movie. |
| 2004 | May 20 | President Bush made a rare visit to Capitol Hill, where he sought to ease Republican lawmakers’ concerns over the Iraq campaign. |
| 2005 | May 20 | The US military condemned the publication of photographs showing an imprisoned Saddam Hussein naked except for his white underwear, and ordered an investigation of how the pictures were leaked to a British tabloid. |
| 2006 | May 20 | Federal agents searched the Capitol Hill office of Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana as part of a bribery investigation. |
| 2007 | May 20 | President Bush welcomed NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to his Crawford, Texas, ranch, to review strategy on a flurry of issues. |
| 2008 | May 20 | Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy (76) was diagnosed with a malignant bran tumor. |
| 2009 | May 20 | SF-based Craigslist sued South Carolina’s Attorney Gen’l. Henry McMaster to block him from filing criminal charges against the online classified site for abetting prostitution. |
| 2010 | May 20 | In Arkansas 2 police officers were shot dead after pulling over a van with Ohio plates on I-40. A short time later 2 suspects were killed in a separate shootout in a Wal-Mart parking lot in West Memphis. |
| 2011 | May 20 | President Barack Obama met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu warned Obama against chasing what he called a Middle East peace “based on illusions” as he lectured the US president amid a widening rift in US-Israeli ties. |
| 2012 | May 20 | In San Francisco the 101st annual Bay to Breakers run drew 40,000 registered entrants. Mamitu Daska of Ethiopia and Sammy Kitwara of Kenya were the top female and male runners. |
| 2013 | May 20 | Former general Thein Sein became the first Myanmar president to be welcomed to the White House in almost 47 years. |
| 2014 | May 20 | In Arizona the human-caused Slide Fire began around Oak Creek Canyon between Sedona and Flagstaff. By May 26 it covered 25 square miles. |
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