This Day in History

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May 20

526 – An earthquake kills about 250,000 people in what is now Syria and Antiochia.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.

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.

1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state.

The State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.

1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

1899 – The first traffic ticket in the US: New York City taxi driver Jacob German was arrested for speeding while driving 12 miles per hour on Lexington Street.

1916 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting (Boy with Baby Carriage).

1920 – Montreal radio station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.

1927 – Treaty of Jeddah: 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.

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 – The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam ends.

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

2013 – An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.

Births

1768 – Dolley Madison; 1799 – Honoré de Balzac; 1818 – William Fargo (co-founded Wells Fargo & AmEx); 1908 – James Stewart; 1913 – William Redington Hewlett (co-founded Hewlett-Packard); 1915 – Moshe Dayan; 1919 – George Gobel; 1925 – Alexei Tupolev (designed the Tu-144); 1936 – Anthony Zerbe; 1942 – Carlos Hathcock; 1944 – Joe Cocker; 1946 – Cher; 1946 – Dave Despain; 1958 – Ron Reagan, Jane Wiedlin; 1959 – Bronson Pinchot; 1960 – Tony Goldwyn; 1966 – Mindy Cohn ('Natalie' on "The Facts of Life", voice of 'Velma' on "Scooby Doo"); 1968 – Timothy Olyphant (Sheriff Bullock in "Deadwood"); 1971 – Tony Stewart; 1972 – Busta Rhymes

Deaths

1506 – Christopher Columbus; 1989 – Gilda Radner; 1996 – Jon Pertwee (Dr. Who); 2009 – Lucy Gordon; 2011 – Randy Savage; 2012 – Robin Gibb, Ken Lyons, Eugene Polley (invented the TV remote control); 2013 – Ray Manzarek