May 20th
Today in America's Present Past
1506 | Christopher Columbus died.
1663 | Publisher William Bradford was born.
1750 | Entrepreneur Stephen Girard was born.
1759 | Architect William Thornton was born.
1768 | POTUS: First Lady Dolley Madison was born.
1774 | The British passed the second of the Intolerable Acts.
1818 | Entrepreneur William Fargo was born.
1834 | Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette died.
1862 | POTUS: Republican President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act.
1873 | Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis patent the blue jeans with copper rivets.
1899 | SCOTUS: Justice John Marshall Harlan II was born.
1908 | Actor James Stewart was born.
1913 | Entrepreneur Bill Hewlett was born.
1920 | Battle of Matewan, West Virginia.
1927 | At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off the Spirit of St Louis in the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.
1944 | Cold War: US Communist Party dissolves.
1946 | Entertainer Cher was born.
1985 | Cold War: FBI arrests John A Walker Jr, convicted of spying for the USSR.
1989 | Actress Gilda Radner died.
2011 | Wrestler Randy Savage died.