On This Day:
Tuesday May 20, 2014 This is the 140th day of the year, with 225 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: reptiles It was during the dinosaur age that reptiles really ruled, but most modern reptiles evolved more recently. Reptiles are cold-blooded vertebrates. They have dry skin covered with scales or shields, breathe with lungs, and reproduce by internal fertilization. Their name comes from Latin repto "to crawl."
Holidays Feast day of St. Bernardino of Siena, St. Ethelbert of East Anglia, St. Basilla, St. Austregisilus, St. Baudelius, and Saints Thalelaeus, Asterius, and Alexander.
Cameroon: National Holiday / Constitution Day.
United Nations: World Refugee Day.
Indonesia: National Day of Awakening.
Massachusetts: Lafayette Day.
North Carolina: Anniversary of Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 1775.
Events 1498 - Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach India via either the Atlantic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea when he arrived at Calicut, India.
1830 - H.D. Hyde of Reading, Pennsylvania, patented the fountain pen.
1861 - North Carolina voted to secede from the Union, the last state to do so.
1861 - The capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia.
1862 - President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act, a program designed to grant 250 million acres of public land to small farmers at low cost.
1874 - Levi Strauss began marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.
1916 - Norman Rockwell's first cover on "The Saturday Evening Post" appeared.
1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, on his historic solo flight to Paris, France.
1932 - Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland for Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1939 - Regular transatlantic air service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, New York, bound for Europe.
1941 - Germany captured the island of Crete in the first totally airborne invasion.
1961 - A white mob attacked a busload of "Freedom Riders" in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting the federal government to send in United States marshals to restore order.
1969 - U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Apbia Mountain, referred to as "Hamburger Hill."
1996 - The Supreme Court struck down a Colorado measure banning laws that protect homosexuals from discrimination.
2002 - East Timor became an independent nation.
Births 1444 - Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter.
1768 - Dolly Madison (Dorothea Dandridge Payne Todd), American First Lady, wife of James Madison.
1799 - Honoré de Balzac, French novelist.
1806 - John Stuart Mill, English philosopher, leader of the utilitarian movement, editor.
1818 - William George Fargo, American businessman, co-founded Wells, Fargo & Company.
1886 - John Jacob Astor, English journalist and chief proprietor of "The London Times" (1922-66).
1908 - Jimmy Stewart, American Academy Award-winning actor.
1915 - Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader.
1944 - Joe Cocker, British singer.
1946 - Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian), American singer, actress.
1949 - Dave Thomas, Canadian comedian and actor.
1971 - Tony Stewart, American race car driver.
Deaths 1506 - Italian explorer Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in poverty.
1989 - Comedian Gilda Radner, 42, of cancer.
2002 - Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist and author.
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