1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1951 – The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition: A gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School.

1972 – Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth.

1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

1981 – Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film Heaven's Gate.

2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

2010 – JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launches the solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS aboard an H-IIA rocket. The vessel would make a Venus flyby late in the year.

2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date.

2017 – Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performed their final show at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

…and if today is your birthday, Happy Birthday To You! You share this day with…

1471 – Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (d. 1528)

1844 – Henri Rousseau, French painter (d. 1910)

1898 – Armand Hammer, American physician and businessman, founded Occidental Petroleum (d. 1990)

1903 – Manly Wade Wellman, American author (d. 1986)

1904 – Fats Waller, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1943)

1916 – Harold Robbins, American author and screenwriter (d. 1997)

1917 – Raymond Burr, Canadian-American actor and director (d. 1993)

1921 – Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)

1924 – Peggy Cass, American actress, comedian, and game show panelist (d. 1999)

1928 – Tom Donahue, American radio host and producer (d. 1975)

1940 – Tony Sheridan, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)

1941 – Martin Carthy, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

1944 – Mary Robinson, Irish lawyer and politician, 7th President of Ireland

1948 – Leo Sayer, English-Australian singer-songwriter and musician

1951 – Al Franken, American actor, screenwriter, and politician

1952 – Mr. T, American actor and wrestler

1954 – Marc Ribot, American guitarist and composer

1959 – Nick Cassavetes, American actor, director, and screenwriter

1972 – The Notorious B.I.G., American rapper (d. 1997)

Almanac - Thursday 5/21/20

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