May 20 birthdays & history

Famous people born on May 20

• 1799Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright
• 1806John Stuart Mill, English economist, civil servant, and philosopher
• 1946Cher, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
• 1882Sigrid Undset, Danish-Norwegian novelist, essayist, and translator, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1935José Mujica, Uruguayan guerrilla leader and politician, 40th President of Uruguay
• 1981Iker Casillas, Spanish footballer
• 1908James Stewart, American actor
• 1944Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter
• 1860Eduard Buchner, German chemist, zymologist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1901Max Euwe, Dutch chess player, mathematician, and author

What happened on May 20

• 325The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church, was formally opened by Constantine the Great.
• 794According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Æthelberht II of East Anglia was beheaded on the orders of Offa of Mercia.
• 1515Ulysses, who would be famously depicted in a posthumous woodcut, landed in Lisbon, becoming the first of his species to visit Europe in a thousand years.
• 1609Thomas Thorpe published the first copies of Shakespeare's sonnets, possibly without William Shakespeare's consent.
• 1714J. S. Bach led the first performance of his Pentecost cantata Erschallet, ihr Lieder at the chapel of Schloss Weimar.
• 1862U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, opening eighty-four million acres (340,000 km2) of public land to settlers.
• 1873Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
• 1875Representatives from seventeen countries signed the Metre Convention, which set up an institute for the purpose of coordinating international metrology and for coordinating the development of the metric system.
• 1927With the signing of the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of Ibn Saud over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia.
• 1947The first session of the National Diet opened in Tokyo, Japan.
• 1993"One for the Road", the series finale of American television sitcom Cheers, was watched by 42.4 million American households on its original airing.
• 1996In deciding Romer v. Evans, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a constitutional amendment in Colorado that prevented protected status under the law for homosexuals or bisexuals.

Also observed on May 20

• Day of Remembrance (Cambodia)
• Emancipation Day (Florida)
• European Maritime Day (European Council)
• Independence Restoration Day, celebrates the independence of East Timor from Indonesia in 2002.
• Josephine Baker Day (NAACP)
• National Awakening Day (Indonesia), and its related observances: Indonesian Doctor Day (Indonesia)