WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2026

526-Possible date of the Antioch earthquake in the Byzantine Empire (present-day Syria), which kills 200,000 people 1498-Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives in Calicut, India, becoming the first European to reach India by sea 1609-William Shakespeare's Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by publisher Thomas Thorpe 1862-U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American West (80 million acres by 1900) 1910-Funeral for Britain's King Edward VII is held in Westminster Abbey, attended by one of the largest assemblies of European royalty 1927-At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris aboard the Spirit of St. Louis in the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight 1927-Treaty of Jeddah is signed between the United Kingdom and Ibn Saud, recognizing the independence of the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, the forerunner of Saudi Arabia 1990-Hubble Space Telescope sends its first photographs from space

Original source: Korea Times