Today is Saturday, May 20, the 140th day of 2017. There are 225 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.
On this date:
In 1506, explorer Christopher Columbus died in Spain.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.
In 1902, the United States ended a three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba was established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma.
In 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. (Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart set down in Northern Ireland instead of her intended destination, France.)
In 1941, during World War II, the Office of Civilian Defense was established.
In 1942, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra recorded "(I've Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo" at Victor Studios in Hollywood.
In 1956, the United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
In 1957, Frank Sinatra recorded the song "Witchcraft" by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh at Capitol Records in Hollywood.
In 1961, a white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.
In 1970, some 100,000 people demonstrated in New York's Wall Street district in support of U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.
In 1989, actress-comedian Gilda Radner died in Los Angeles at age 42.
In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Romer v. Evans, struck down, 6-3, a Colorado measure banning laws that protected homosexuals from discrimination.
