- May 20, 1293 Earthquake strikes Kamakura Japan, 30,000 killed
- May 20, 1310 Shoes were made for both right and left feet
- May 20, 1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calcutta India
- 1506 Christopher Columbus died in poverty in Spain.
- May 20, 1799 Honore de Balzac, France, novelist, Pere Goriot, Human Comedy
- 1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
- May 20, 1892 Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy and Austria forms
- 1902 The United States ended its occupation of Cuba. Tomás Estrada Palma becomes the first President of Cuba.
- May 20, 1902 Cuba gains independence from Spain **
- 1927 Charles Lindbergh took off for Paris from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, N.Y., aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1932 Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland for Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1939 Regular trans-Atlantic air service began as a Pan American Airways plane took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Europe. 1969 U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Apbia Mountain, referred to as Hamburger Hill by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
- 1970 Some 100,000 people demonstrated in New York’s Wall Street district in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.
- May 20, 1985 U.S. began broadcasts to Cuba on Radio Marti
- May 20, 1989 China declares martial law in Beijing
- 1990 – The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
- May 20, 1990 Hubble Space Telescope sends 1st photograph’s from space
- May 20, 1991 Soviet parliament approves law allowing citizens to travel abroad
- 1993 An estimated 93 million people tuned in for the final first-run episode of ”Cheers” on NBC.
- 1994 May 20, 1994 Miss India (Sushmita Sen) selected Miss Universe
- 1996 The Supreme Court struck down a Colorado measure banning laws that protect homosexuals from discrimination. The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of homosexuals.
- 2002 East Timor became an independent nation.
- 2003 The United States banned beef imports from Canada after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in Canada’s cattle country.
- 1979: I was born