May
20
Independence
Day
Cuba : May 20 1902
Timor Leste : May 20 2002
Events
May
20
325 – The First Council of Nicea – the first
Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church
is held.
491 – Empress Ariadne marries Anastasius I.
The widowed Augusta is able to choose her
successor for the Byzantine throne, after
Zeno (late emperor) dies of dysentery.
526 – An earthquake kills about 300,000 people
in Syria and Antiochia.
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.
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.
1293 – King Sancho IV of Castile creates the
Study of General Schools of Alcalá.
1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol,
England, on his ship Matthew 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.
1521 – Battle of Pampeluna: Ignatius Loyola
is seriously wounded.
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.
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
1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French
troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony,
Germany, against the combined armies of Russia
and Prussia. The battle ends the next day
with a French victory.
1840 – York Minster is badly damaged by fire
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.
1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive
a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1875 – Signing of the Metre Convention by
17 nations leading to the establishment of
the International System of Units.
1882 – The Triple Alliance between Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Italy is formed.
1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt. The volcano's
final and most notable explosion occurs on
August 26.
1884 – Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo becomes the king
of the Zulu Nation.
1891 – History of cinema: The first public
display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.
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.
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.
1927 – Treaty of Jedda: 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.
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.
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 is elected as the first
President of the Republic of China.
1949 – In the United States, the Armed Forces
Security Agency, the predecessor to the National
Security Agency, is established.
1956 – In Operation Redwing (shot Cherokee),
the first United States airborne hydrogen
bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific
Ocean.
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.
1980 – In a referendum in Quebec, the population
rejects by a 60% vote the proposal from its
government to move towards independence from
Canada.
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.
1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial
law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations,
setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square
massacre.
1990 – The first post-Communist presidential
and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
1996 – Gay rights: The Supreme Court of the
United States rules in Romer v. Evans against
a law that would have prevented any city,
town or county in the state of Colorado from
taking any legislative, executive, or judicial
action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians.
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).
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Abercius and Helena
Aurea of Ostia
Austregisilus
Baudilus
Bernardino of Siena
Ivo of Chartres
Lucifer of Cagliari
Sanctan
May 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of Remembrance (Cambodia)
Emancipation Day (Florida)
European Maritime Day (European Council)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence
of Cuba from the United States in 1902.
Independence Day, celebrates the independence
of East Timor from Indonesia in 2002.
Indonesian National Awakening (Indonesia)
National Day (Cameroon)
World Metrology Day
For details, contact Datacentre
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