DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Monday, May 20, the 141st day of 2024. There are 225 days left in the year. On this date in:
1498: Explorer Vasco de Gama reached Calicut, India, becoming the first European to sail to India by a route around Africa, traveling from Lisbon, Portugal, south and around the Cape of Good Hope.
1609: William Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published in London.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which granted 160 acres of federal land to some U.S. citizens after they had worked that land for five years and paid a filing fee. Ten percent of the area of the United States – roughly 270 million acres – were claimed under the legislation.
1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for using metal rivets at strategic points to strengthen work pants.
1902: The Republic of Cuba declared its independence from the United States. The island had been a protectorate of the U.S. since the end of the Spanish-american War in 1898.
1916: The Saturday Evening Post published its first Norman Rockwell cover illustration.
1927: Aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, to begin his transatlantic flight to Paris. He landed the next day, becoming the first pilot to make the solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
1932: Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland, Canada, to begin her flight to Northern Ireland. When she landed the next day, she became the first female pilot to make a solo, nonstop transatlantic flight.
1956: The United States tested its first hydrogen bomb dropped from an aircraft over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
1961: Freedom Riders arriving in Montgomery, Alabama, were attacked by a white mob and beaten, some of them hospitalized. The violence spurred U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to send in hundreds of U.S. Marshals to keep the peace.
1969: During the Vietnam War, the Battle of Hamburger Hill came to an end. Debate over the hill’s strategic significance, or lack thereof, along with the more than 70 U.S. troops killed and hundreds injured to take the hill, led to controversy and contributed to a decline in public opinion about the war.
1983: The first research into what later became known as HIV – the underlying cause of Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) – was published in the journal Science.
– William Cain, USA TODAY Network
Today’s birthdays: Actor-singer Constance Towers turns 91. Actor Anthony Zerbe, 88. Singer-actor Cher, 78. Actor-comedian Dave Thomas, 76. Singer-musician Jane Wiedlin (The Go-gos), 66. Actor Tony Goldwyn, 64. TV hostauthor Ted Allen, 59. Actor Gina Ravera, 58. Actor Timothy Olyphant, 56. Rapper Busta Rhymes, 52. Actor Matt Czuchry, 47. Singer-actor Naturi Naughton (3LW), 40. Actor Jack Gleeson, 32.
– USA TODAY Network