May 20 Historical Events

The following events took place on May 20. The list is arranged in chronological order.

Found 60 events. Showing 31 - 60.

• 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.
• 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 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.
• 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
  The 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, the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
• 1964
  Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias.
• 1965
  PIA Flight 705, a Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 720-040B, crashes while descending to land at Cairo International Airport, killing 121 of the 127 passengers and crew.

• 1967
  The Popular Movement of the Revolution political party is established in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• 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.
• 1983
  Church Street bombing: A car bomb planted by Umkhonto we Sizwe explodes on Church Street in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, killing 19 people and injuring 217 others.
• 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
  Civil 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 three years of provisional UN administration (Portugal itself is the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976).
• 2006
  Dhaka wildcat strikes: A series of massive strikes begin, involving nearly 1.8 million garment workers in Bangladesh.
• 2010
  Everybody Draw Mohammed Day: A social media event is celebrated in response to the Muslim extremists’ reaction to images of Mohammed.
• 2012
  At least 27 people are killed and 50 others injured when a 6.0-magnitude earthquake strikes northern Italy.
• 2013
  An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.
• 2014
  More than 118 people are killed in two bombings in Jos, Nigeria.