Today is May 20. On this date in:
1506
Italian explorer Christopher Columbus died in Spain.
1521
Ignatius of Loyola was wounded by a cannonball while defending Pamplona against the French; during his convalescence he turned to religion, becoming a leader of the Counter-Reformation and the founder of the Jesuits.
1873
Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for men’s work pants made with copper rivets.
1899
Taxi driver Jacob German was pulled over and arrested by a police officer riding a bicycle for speeding down Manhattan’s Lexington Avenue in his electric car at 12 miles an hour at a time when the speed limit was 8 mph; it was the first recorded speeding arrest in U.S. history.
1927
Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.
1932
Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. (Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart set down in Northern Ireland instead of her intended destination, France.)
Our history:Female pilot competed with Amelia Earhart in Powel Crosley’s plane
1939
Regular trans-Atlantic mail service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, New York, bound for Marseille, France.
1948
Chiang Kai-shek was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
1959
Nearly 5,000 Japanese-Americans had their U.S. citizenships restored after choosing to renounce them during World War II.
1961
A white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.
1985
Radio Marti, operated by the U.S. government, began broadcasting; Cuba responded by attempting to jam its signal.
1990
The Hubble Space Telescope transmitted its first images to Earth.
1993
An estimated 93 million people tuned in for the final first-run episode of the sitcom “Cheers” on NBC.
1998
The government unveiled the design for the new $20 bill, featuring a larger and slightly off-center portrait of Andrew Jackson.
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