May 20th in history:

Christopher Columbus died in Spain on May 20th, 1506. Columbus reportedly never thought that he had come upon a new continent, but always believed that he had reached Asia by crossing the Atlantic.

Vasco da Gama reached India on this date in 1498, after starting in Portugal and going around Africa.

Charles Lindbergh began his historic flight across the Atlantic from Long Island on May 20th, 1927. He was the first person to successfully fly solo across the ocean to Europe without stopping.

Lindbergh’s flight began on the 19th birthday of future movie star Jimmy Stewart (1908). In 1957, Stewart would star as Lindbergh in a movie about the flight to Paris, called The Spirit of St. Louis.

Jimmy Stewart won an Oscar for “The Philadelphia Story,” and his hit movies include “Vertigo” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but he also starred as a lawyer in the CBS TV series ‘Hawkins’ in 1973.  Another prime-time series on CBS in ’73 was “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.”  Cher, born on this date in 1946, moved beyond records and TV to a successful movie career, and won a Best Actress Oscar for “Moonstruck” in 1987.