About May 20
May 20, 2025 is the 140th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 225 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Tuesday.
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Taurus is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Emerald is the modern birthstone for this month. Sapphire is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 273 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
What Happened On May 20
- 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.
- 1497 –John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship Ship 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.
- 1570 –Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues 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
- 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.
- 1883 –Krakatoa begins to erupt. The volcano’s final and most notable explosion occurs on August 26.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1941 –World War II: Battle of Crete – German paratroops invade Crete.
- 1949 –In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor to the National Security Agency, is established.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1990 –The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
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