Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

May 20

1992
Chicago bans the sale of spray paints: Citing them as "weapons of terror," their sale is banned in an effort to reduce graffiti.

1989
Tiananmen Square: China imposes martial law as more than a million pro-democracy demonstrators gather in Tiananmen Square. Two weeks later the People's Army would massacre several thousand demonstrators.

1985
John A. Walker is arrested with his brother and son for conspiring to sell secret Navy documents to the Soviet Union.

1970
The Beatles: The movie Let It Be premiers at the London Pavilion.

1932
First solo transatlantic flight by a woman: Amelia Earhart departs from Newfoundland, arriving in Ireland the following day.

1927
First solo transatlantic flight: Charles A. Lindbergh, in The Spirit of St. Louis, leaves New York. He landed in Paris the following day.

1895
First commercial showing of a motion picture on a screen, a four-minute boxing match shown in New York.

1861
Civil War: North Carolina becomes the 10th state to secede from the Union.

1639
First school maintained by community taxes in America is established in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

1966
Mindy Cohn, American actress. TV: The Facts of Life (Natalie).

1960
Susan Cowsill, American singer, member of the singing family The Cowsills. Music: The Rain The Park And Other Things (1967, #2). They were the basis for TV's The Partridge Family.

1959
Bronson Pinchot, American actor. TV: Perfect Strangers (Balki).

1958
Jane Wiedlin, American guitarist, with the Go-Go's. Music: We Got the Beat (1981) and Vacation (1982).

1956
Dean Butler, Canadian actor. TV: Little House on the Prairie (Laura's husband).

1946
Cher (Cherilyn LaPiere), American singer, Oscar-winning actress. Music: I Got You Babe (1965, #1, with Sonny Bono).

1944
Joe Cocker (John Robert Cocker), British singer. Music: With a Little Help From My Friends (1968, #1 UK), You Are So Beautiful (1974), and Up Where We Belong (1982, #1).

1929
David Hedison (Ara Heditsian), actor. Film: Live and Let Die (CIA agent Felix Leiter) and License to Kill (Felix Leiter).

1920     d. 1991
George Gobel, American Emmy-winning TV and Radio star.

1908
James Stewart, American Oscar-winning actor. Film: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and It's a Wonderful Life (1947, George Bailey).

1905
Charles Hatton, American sports writer. He coined the term "Triple Crown" (1930) to describe Gallant Fox who won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.

1851     d. 1929
Emile Berliner, American inventor, the microphone (1877), patented the first disc record player (1887), the flat disc phonograph record (1904), and the gramophone.

1818     d. 1881
William George Fargo, American businessman, co-founder of American Express (1850), co-founder of Wells, Fargo and Co. (1852), mayor of Buffalo, N.Y. (1862-66), and for whom Fargo, North Dakota is named.

1808     d. 1860
Thomas Dartmouth Rice, American entertainer, "father of American minstrelsy." In 1828 he began performing Jim Crow - a song he had learned from an elderly black in Kentucky - in blackface. His act became a hit in England (1836), making "Jim Crow" synonymous with blacks.

1759     d. 1828
Dr. William Thornton, British-born American architect, physician. He designed the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. (1793).

1750     d. 1831
Stephen Girard, French philanthropist, founder of Girard College at Philadelphia and for whom Girard, Ohio is named..

1663     d. 1752
William Bradford, American colonial printer, founder of the New York Gazette (1725), the first New York newspaper.

1989     b. 1904
Sir John Richard Hicks, British Nobel-winning economist. He won the 1972 Nobel Prize for demonstrating that economic equilibrium is achieved by the interaction of forces that cancel each other out.

1989     b. 1946
Gilda Radner, American Emmy-winning comedienne. TV: Saturday Night Live.

1834     b. 1757
Marquis de Lafayette, French general. He became the youngest major general ever in the U.S. army when he joined (1777) during the American Revolution.

1592     b. 1555
Sir Thomas Cavendish, English navigator, plunderer of Spanish cites and ships.

1506     b. 1451
Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer, discovered the Americas.

1277     b. circa 1215
John XXI, Portuguese-born religious leader, 187th Pope (1276-77). He died as a result of injuries received when part of the roof of the new wing he added to his palace collapsed while he sleeping

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