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
- 526 –An earthquake kills about 300,000 people in Syria and Antiochia.
- 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.
- 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.
- 1802 –By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution
- 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.
- 1882 –The Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy is formed.
- 1884 –Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo becomes the king of the Zulu Nation.
- 1891 –History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope.
- 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.
- 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 elected to be the first President of the Republic of China.
- 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.
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