UPI Almanac for Friday, May 20, 2022

Today is Friday , May 20, the 140th day of 2022 with 225 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn and Venus. Evening star is Mercury.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include William Thornton, architect of the Capitol in Washington, in 1759; Dolley Madison, wife of the fourth U.S. president, James Madison, in 1768; French novelist Honore de Balzac in 1799; English philosopher/economist John Stuart Mill in 1806; German Emile Berliner, inventor of the flat phonograph record, in 1851; actor James Stewart in 1908; Israeli leader Moshe Dayan in 1915; comedian George Gobel in 1919; actor Anthony Zerbe in 1936 (age 86); hockey Hall of Fame member Stan Mikita in 1940; Japanese baseball home run king Sadaharu Oh in 1940 (age 82); singer/songwriter Joe Cocker in 1944; singer/actor Cher, born Cherilyn Sarkisian, in 1946 (age 76); Ronald Prescott Reagan, son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, in 1958 (age 64); actor Bronson Pinchot in 1959 (age 63); musician Israel Kamakawiwoʻole in 1959; actor Tony Goldwyn in 1960 (age 62); TV personality Ted Allen in 1965 (age 57); actor Timothy Olyphant in 1968 (age 54); race car driver Tony Stewart in 1971 (age 51); rapper Busta Rhymes, born Trevor George Smith Jr., in 1972 (age 50); actor Matt Czuchry in 1977 (age 45); singer Rachel Platten in 1981 (age 41); actor Jack Gleeson in 1992 (age 30).

On this date in history:

In 526, up to 300,000 people were killed in an earthquake in Syria and Antioch.

In 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were granted a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from New York in his single-engine monoplane, "The Spirit of St. Louis," bound for Paris. While he winged his way across the Atlantic, his mother taught her chemistry class at Cass Technical High School as usual.

In 1940, German forces punched through the Allied lines in Abbeville, France, to reach the English Channel. The Battle of Abbeville one week later culminated in the evacuation of Dunkirk.

In 1969, in one of the more infamous and bloody battles of the Vietnam War, U.S. troops seized Dong Ap Bia mountain, commonly known as Hamburger Hill.

In 1974, Judge John Sirica ordered U.S. President Richard Nixon to turn over tapes and other records of 64 White House conversations on the Watergate affair.

In 1989, Chinese Premier Li Peng declared martial law in Beijing in response to heightened student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton permanently closed Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House after more than 200 years of mostly unimpeded traffic.

In 2002, East Timor, a small Pacific Coast nation, gained independence from Indonesia. It is called Timor Leste.

In 2013, a tornado struck the Moore, Okla., area near Oklahoma City, killing 24 people, injuring more than 300 and destroying many buildings, including two elementary schools.

In 2018, King Mswati III announced he was changing the name of his country, Swaziland, to eSwatini, which means "land of the Swazis."

In 2021, Israeli officials agreed to an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire with Palestinian militant group Hamas to end a 15-day conflict that killed more than 250 people.

A thought for the day: "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies." -- Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan