May 20: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1498 - Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.
2. 1570 - Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.
3. 1609 - Shakespeare's sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.
4. 1875 - Signing of the Metre Convention by 17 nations leading to the establishment of the International System of Units.
5. 1883 - Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.
6. 1902 - Cuba gains independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma becomes the country's first President.
7. 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.
8. 1949 - In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor to the National Security Agency, is established.
9. 1956 - In Operation Redwing (shot Cherokee), the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
10. 1983 - First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.
11. Famous Birthdays: William Thornton (Virgin Islander-American architect, designed the United States Capitol), Simon Fraser (American-Canadian explorer), William Fargo (American businessman and politician, co-founded Wells Fargo and American Express), Emile Berliner (German-American inventor, invented the Gramophone record), Edward B. Lewis (American geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: May 19

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: May 21

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.