History of the Day for:
May 20
- 1506: Christopher Columbus died in poverty in Spain at 54.
- 1830: H. D. Hyde patented the fountain pen.
- 1861: North Carolina became the 11th and last state to secede from the Union; The Confederate capital moved from Montgomery, Ala., to Richmond, Va.
- 1902: The U.S. ended its occupation of Cuba.
- 1916: The Saturday Evening Post was issued with the first Norman Rockwell painting on its cover.
- 1927: Charles Lindbergh, in his "Spirit of St. Louis," took off from New York on his solo flight to France.
- 1932: Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland, headed for Ireland, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
- 1939: "The Yankee Clipper" began the first regular transatlantic airmail service across the North Atlantic.
- 1961: A white mob attacked a bus of "Freedom Riders" in Alabama, causing the government to send in U.S. marshals.
- 1969: U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured "Hamburger Hill."
- 1991: The American Red Cross announced measures aimed at screening blood more carefully for the AIDS virus.
- 1993: An estimated 93 million people tuned in to NBC for the final original episode of "Cheers."
- 1997: The Senate approved legislation to ban certain late-term abortions, but fell three votes shy of the total needed to override President Clinton's threatened veto.
- 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).