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.

You can browse the full year calendar in case you need it.

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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

  • 325
    The First Council of Nicea – the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church is held.
  • 526
    An earthquake kills about 300,000 people in Syria and Antiochia.
  • 1521
    Battle of Pampeluna: Ignatius Loyola is seriously wounded.
  • 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
  • 1802
    By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution
  • 1840
    York Minster is badly damaged by fire
  • 1862
    U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.
  • 1875
    Signing of the Metre Convention by 17 nations leading to the establishment of the International System of Units.
  • 1883
    Krakatoa begins to erupt. The volcano’s final and most notable explosion occurs on August 26.
  • 1891
    History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 1990
    The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
  • 2002
    The independence of East Timor is recognized by Portugal, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and 3 years of provisional UN administration (Portugal itself is the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976).

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