Discover what happened on May 20 in history, along with notable events that shaped fashion, aviation, and television history.
What Happened on May 20 in History?
Important events on this day include the patenting of blue jeans, Charles Lindbergh beginning his historic Atlantic flight, and the final episode of Cheers airing on NBC.
MAY 20 – TODAY IN HISTORY:
1774 – Britain’s Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the American colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior
1830 – The fountain pen was patented by H.D. Hyde.
1861 – North Carolina became the eleventh state to secede from the Union.
1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1875 – The International Bureau of Weights and Measures was established.
1891 – Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope was first shown to the public.
1899 – Taxi driver Jacob German of New York, NY, became the first driver to be arrested for speeding. The posted speed limit was 12 miles per hour.
1905 – Louis Chevrolet (who designed the Chevy for General Motors in 1911) won his first race on a cinder track in Morris Park, NY.
1916 – A Norman Rockwell painting appeared on the cover of “The Saturday Evening Post” for the first time. The painting was “Boy with a Baby Carriage”.
1916 – A small town in Kansas called Codell was struck by a tornado. The same town was also hit by a tornado in 1917 and 1918 all on the exact same date.
1926 – Congress passed the Air Commerce Act. The act gave the Department of Commerce the right to license pilots and planes.
1927 – Malcolm “Mac” Wood, took his wife Mable on her first dune ride in a Model A Ford after a 3-day downpour had packed down the sand on the Silver Lake sand dunes in Michigan. A few years later he had developed the first of his famous “dune scooters” by converting a Ford Model A into a four-seat dune buggy. He charged 25 cents for rides.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, NY, to cross the Atlantic non-stop for Paris aboard his airplane the “Spirit of St. Louis.” He touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris the next day. The trip took 33 1/2 hours.
1930 – The first airplane was catapulted from a dirigible.
1932 – Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. She landed in Ireland the next day to become the first woman to achieve the feat.
1939 – The first telecast over telephone wires was sent from Madison Square Garden to the NBC-TV studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The event was a bicycle race.
1939 – The first regular air-passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean began with the take-off of the “Yankee Clipper” from Port Washington, NY.
1942 – The song “I’ve Got A Gal in Kalamazoo” was recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.
1969 – Peter Cetera, of the band Chicago, was beaten up by four men at a Chicago Cubs-Dodgers baseball game. The men objected to the length of his hair. Cetera underwent four hours of emergency surgery.
1978 – Mavis Hutchinson, at age 53, became the first woman to run across America. It took Hutchinson 69 days to run the 3,000 miles.
1980 – The submarine Nautilus was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
1982 – The final episode of TV’s “Barney Miller” aired on ABC-TV.
1985 – The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 1300 mark for the first time. The Dow closed at 1304.88.
1985 – Radio Marti, part of the Voice of America service, began broadcasting to Cuba.
1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope sent back its first photographs.
1993 – The final episode of TV’s “Cheers” aired on NBC. Approximately 42.4 million households were watching.
1996 – After six seasons, the final episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”, starring Will Smith, aired on NBC.
2003 – A cow in British Columbia, Canada was diagnosed with mad cow disease. As a result, the U.S. banned imports of Canadian beef, cattle and animal feed.
2007 – The Lundberg survey set a new high for gasoline prices in the United States at $3.18 per gallon.
2009 – Kris Allen was declared the winner of the eighth season of TV’s “American Idol”. Adam Lambert finished in second place.
2010 – Five paintings worth 100 million Euro were stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
2015 – David Letterman hosted “The Late Show with David Lettermen” for the final time.
2022 – More than 40 people were injured and one person was killed after a tornado ripped through Gaylord, Michigan in the afternoon.
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS ON MAY 20:
Constance Towers – 93 years old (1933) – Actress and singer
Anthony Zerbe – 90 years old (1936) – Actor
John Strasberg – 85 years old (1941) – Actor and teacher
Cher – 80 years old (1946) – Singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
Thomas Akers – 75 years old (1951) – Colonel, engineer, and astronaut
Mike Crapo – 75 years old (1951) – Lawyer and politician
David Paterson – 72 years old (1954) – Lawyer and politician, 55th Governor of New York
Steve George – 71 years old (1955) – Keyboard player and songwriter
Douglas Preston – 70 years old (1956) – Journalist and author
Ron Reagan – 68 years old (1958) – Journalist and radio host
Jane Wiedlin – 68 years old (1958) – Singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress
Susan Cowsill – 67 years old (1959) – Singer-songwriter
Tony Goldwyn – 66 years old (1960) – Actor and director
David Wells – 63 years old (1963) – Baseball player and sportscaster
Ted Allen – 61 years old (1965) – Television host and author
Dan Abrams – 60 years old (1966) – Journalist and author
Timothy Olyphant – 58 years old (1968) – Actor and producer
Road Dogg – 57 years old (1969) – Wrestler, producer, and soldier
Terrell Brandon – 56 years old (1970) – Basketball player
Tony Stewart – 55 years old (1971) – Race car driver
Busta Rhymes – 54 years old (1972) – Rapper, producer, and actor
Allison Amend – 52 years old (1974) – Novelist and short story writer
Ramón Hernández – 50 years old (1976) – Venezuelan-American baseball player
Matt Czuchry – 49 years old (1977) – Actor
Angela Goethals – 49 years old (1977) – Actress
Jayson Werth – 47 years old (1979) – Baseball player
Austin Kearns – 46 years old (1980) – Baseball player
Kassim Osgood – 46 years old (1980) – Football player
Rachel Platten – 45 years old (1981) – Singer and songwriter
Lindsay Taylor – 45 years old (1981) – Basketball player
Patrick Ewing Jr. – 42 years old (1984) – Basketball player
Keith Grennan – 42 years old (1984) – Football player
Julian Wright – 39 years old (1987) – Basketball player
Caroline Zhang – 33 years old (1993) – Figure skater
Doug the Pug – 14 years old (2012) – Celebrity dog
DAYS OF THE YEAR FOR MAY 20:
No events found for this date.
For additional information check out websites like: www.on-this-day.com, www.born-today.com, www.famousbirthdays.com, www.daysoftheyear.com, and www.nationaldaycalendar.com.
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