This day in history - May 20

[seamusTX]

1498 - Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama arrived in India after sailing around Africa. It was the first such trip recorded in history.

1521 - Spanish soldier Ignatius Loyola was wounded by a cannon ball. During his recuperation, he discovered faith and went on to found the Jesuit order.

1775 - Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, declared its independence from Britain.

1861 - North Carolina seceded from the Union, the last state to do so.

The capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia.

1874 - Levi Strauss's company first sold dungarees with copper rivets.

1902 - The United States ended its military occupation of Cuba, which then became an independent republic.

1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off on the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 - Amelia Earhart took to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She flew a shorter distance than Lindbergh because of bad weather, but she made it to Ireland.

1939 - Pan American Airways began scheduled trans-Atlantic flights.

Probably these three events on the same date were not accidental coincidences.

1940 - Igor Sikorsky unveiled his first practical helicopter, the VS-300.

Other helicopters had flown earlier, and some of them even landed in one piece (this is the hard part with aircraft), but Sikorsky's set the pattern for most helicopters built later.

1969 - U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Hamburger Hill in Vietnam.

- Jim