May 20, 1960: the Silver Beetles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe, and Tommy Moore) played the first night of a short tour of Scotland backing singer Johnny Gentle, at Alloa Town Hall in Clackmannanshire. They were never billed as The Silver Beetles on the tour; all posters gave the billing as “Johnny Gentle and his group”. Paul McCartney later wrote:
“Now we were truly professional, we could do something we had been toying with for a long time, which was to change our names to real showbiz names. I became Paul Ramon, which I thought was suitably exotic. I remember the Scottish girls saying, ‘Is that his real name? That’s great.’ It’s French, Ramon. Ra-mon, that’s how you pronounce it. Stuart became Stuart de Staël after the painter. George became Carl Harrison after Carl Perkins (our big idol, who had written ‘Blue Suede Shoes’). John was Long John. People have since said, ‘Ah, John didn’t change his name, that was very suave.’ Let me tell you: he was Long John. There was none of that ‘he didn’t change his name’: we all changed our names.
So here we were, suddenly with the first of Larry’s untempestuous acts and a tour of Scotland, when I should have been doing my GCE exams. A lot of my parents’ hopes were going up the spout because I was off with these naughty boys who weren’t doing GCEs at all.” (see June 11)
May 20Music et al
Karlheinz Stockhausen
May 20, 1967: advanced copies of Sgt Pepper’s are sent to the B.B.C. radio service. It decides to ban “A Day In the Life” from broadcast because it contained drug inducement themes in the song. The song’s style was influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge. [Stockhausen site] (see June 1)
May 20Music et al
“Groovin’”
May 20 – June 2, 1967: “Groovin’ ” by the Young Rascals #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
May 20Music et al
The Road to Bethel
May 20, 1969: Michael Lang found separate office space at 513-A Avenue of the Americas in NYC so he could be away from the other organizers. (see Road for expanded story)
May 20Music et al
Let It Be
May 20, 1970: Let It Be movie released. [Guardian article] (see June 13)
May 20, 1782: women were not allowed to enlist in the army as a Continental soldier, but Deborah Sampson, five feet seven inches in height, disguised herself as a man and successfully enlisted in the army under the name of her deceased brother, Robert Shurtlieff Sampson. (see Sampson for expanded story)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Cultural Milestone
May 20, 1873: San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis were given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans. [Levi Strauss site timeline] (see November 18, 1883)
May 20, 1913: Goldman and Ben Reitman returned to San Diego a year after Reitman’s abduction (see May 14, 1912). Goldman was scheduled to lecture on “Ibsen’s Play, An Enemy of the People.” Upon their arrival, they were taken to a police station under police protection, surrounded by a mob. Police later escorted and placed them aboard the afternoon train to Los Angeles “for their own safety.” (see Goldman for expanded story)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Railway Labor Act
May 20, 1926: the Railway Labor Act took effect. It was the first federal legislation protecting workers’ rights to form unions. [US DoT article] (see April 30, 1927)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
Cantwell v. Connecticut
May 20, 1940: the Supreme Court overturned the Cantwells’ convictions in Cantwell v. Connecticut holding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. (Cantwells, see April 26, 1938) This case marked the incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, making it applicable to the states. [Oyez article] (FS, see June 28; JM, see April 27, 1942)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
Gen. Henri Navarre
May 20, 1953: Gen. Henri Navarre assumed command of French Union Forces in Vietnam and stated “Now we can see [success in Vietnam] clearly, like light at the end of a tunnel” The Vietnamese will defeat the French a year. (see July 27)
Flower Power Day
May 20, 1967: Flower Power Day in NYC. Abbie Hoffman organized the Flower Brigade as an official contingent of a New York City parade honoring the soldiers in Vietnam. News coverage captured Flower Brigade participants, who carried flowers, flags and pink posters imprinted with LOVE, being attacked and beaten by bystanders. In response to the violence, Hoffman wrote in WIN magazine, “Plans are being made to mine the East River with daffodils. Dandelion chains are being wrapped around induction centers…. The cry of ‘Flower Power’ echoes through the land. We shall not wilt (see June Peace…)
Hamburger Hill
May 20, 1969: US Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st, sent in two additional U.S. airborne battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements. The communist stronghold was finally captured in the 11th attack, when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain. In the face of the four-battalion attack, the North Vietnamese retreated to sanctuary areas in Laos.
During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and U.S. casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and was dubbed “Hamburger Hill” in the U.S. media, a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a “meat grinder.” The purpose of the operation was not to hold territory but rather to keep the North Vietnamese off balance. [Guardian article] (see May 29)
Pro-Vietnam demonstration
May 20, 1970: around 100,000 people demonstrated in the Wall Street district in support of the war. [janos nyc article] (see May 21)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
H-bomb
May 20, 1956: the first hydrogen fusion bomb (H-bomb) to be dropped from an airplane exploded over Namu Atoll at the northwest edge of the Bikini Atoll. The fireball was four miles in diameter. It was designated as “Cherokee,” as part of “Operation Redwing.”. (see Oct 23)
May 20, 1960: the Silver Beetles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe, and Tommy Moore) played the first night of a short tour of Scotland backing singer Johnny Gentle, at Alloa Town Hall in Clackmannanshire.They were never billed as The Silver Beetles on the tour; all posters gave the billing as “Johnny Gentle and his group”. Paul McCartney later wrote:
“Now we were truly professional, we could do something we had been toying with for a long time, which was to change our names to real showbiz names. I became Paul Ramon, which I thought was suitably exotic. I remember the Scottish girls saying, ‘Is that his real name? That’s great.’ It’s French, Ramon. Ra-mon, that’s how you pronounce it. Stuart became Stuart de Staël after the painter. George became Carl Harrison after Carl Perkins (our big idol, who had written ‘Blue Suede Shoes’). John was Long John. People have since said, ‘Ah, John didn’t change his name, that was very suave.’ Let me tell you: he was Long John. There was none of that ‘he didn’t change his name’: we all changed our names.
So here we were, suddenly with the first of Larry’s untempestuous acts and a tour of Scotland, when I should have been doing my GCE exams. A lot of my parents’ hopes were going up the spout because I was off with these naughty boys who weren’t doing GCEs at all.” (see June 11)
Karlheinz Stockhausen
May 20, 1967: advanced copies of Sgt Pepper’s are sent to the B.B.C. radio service. It decides to ban “A Day In the Life” from broadcast because it contained drug inducement themes in the song. The song’s style was influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge (see June 1)
“Groovin’”
May 20 – June 2, 1967: “Groovin’ ” by the Young Rascals #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Road to Bethel
May 20, 1969: Michael Lang found separate office space at 513-A Avenue of the Americas in NYC so he can be away from the other organizers. (see Road for expanded story)
Let It Be
May 20, 1970: Let It Be movie released. (see June 13)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Delray Beach Segregation
May 20, 1956: a group of Black residents attempted to gain access to the beach, only to be forced out by an angry gathering of 70 white people demanding they leave. Over the next several days, white citizens began stockpiling weapons from stores in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, anticipating the return of Black beachgoers and preparing to respond with lethal violence. [EJI article] (next BH and Delray Beach, see May 23)
Freedom Riders
May 20, 1961: The Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery, AL where a police escort abandoned them to an angry mob. Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg and Federal official John Seigenthaler were badly injured in an ensuing brawl. (see May 21)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
John Singer and Paul Barwick
May 20, 1974: The Court of Appeals of Washington denied the case of Seattle residents John Singer and Paul Barwick, who challenged the denial of the freedom to marry to same-sex couples. . (see March 26, 1975)
Romer v. Evans
May 20, 1996: in the case of Romer v. Evans, the US Supreme Court ruled that Colorado’s 2nd amendment, denying gays and lesbians protections against discrimination, was unconstitutional, calling them “special rights.” According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, “We find nothing special in the protections Amendment 2 withholds. These protections . . . constitute ordinary civil life in a free society.” [Oyez article] (see September 21, 1996)
“We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history,” wrote Judge John E. Jones III of Federal District Court in a decision posted on Tuesday afternoon.
President George W. Bush had appointed Judge Jones in 2002.
Jones did not issue a stay, writing, “By virtue of this ruling, same-sex couples who seek to marry in Pennsylvania may do so, and already married same-sex couples will be recognized as such in the Commonwealth.”
Pennsylvania was the last of the Northeast states with a ban on same-sex marriage.
Boy Scouts of America
May 20, 2014: the Boy Scouts of America announced that it will limit the maximum age of youth in its programs to 18 years old in 2015, down from 21.
The move means those young men from 18 to 20 years old currently participating as youth members in Scouting will have to meet adult membership standards, likely by next spring, BSA spokesman Deron Smith said in an email. Those standards include barring “open or avowed” gay adults from joining and have been at the center of a controversy that has roiled one of America’s most popular youth organizations for years. (LGBTQ, see June 4; BSA, see January 21, 2015)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Tiananmen Square
May 20, 1989: the Chinese government declared martial law in Beijing. [UPI article] (see May 30)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Ryan White
May 20, 1996: the U.S. Congress reauthorized the Ryan White CARE Act. (see Ryan White for expanded story)
May 20 Peace Love Art Activism
Sexual Abuse of Children
May 20, 2009: Ireland. the Commission to Inquire into Child Abusereleased a 2000-page report recording claims from hundreds of Irish residents that they were physically, sexually, or emotionally abused as children between the 1930s and the 1990s in a network of state-administered and church-run residential schools meant to care for the poor, the vulnerable, and the unwanted. The alleged abuse was by nuns, priests and non-clerical staff and helpers. (see March 20, 2012)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Stop and Frisk Policy
May 20, 2012: Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended stop and frisk practices and said the NYPD will continue the practice that had faced increasing scrutiny. (see June 4, 2012)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
DEATH PENALTY
Nebraska
May 20, 2015: with a vote of 32 – 15, the Nebraska legislature passed a bill to repeal the state’s death penalty and replace it with life without parole. The measure faced a promised veto from Gov. Pete Ricketts. State Sen. Ernie Chambers, the bill’s sponsor and a member of the New Alliance Party, said he was confident supporters could muster the 30 votes necessary to override a veto. (DP, see May 26; Nebraska, see May 27)
Women’s Health
May 20, 2016: Oklahoma‘s Republican Governor Mary Fallin vetoed a bill that called for prison terms of up the three years for doctors who performed abortions, saying the legislation “would not withstand a criminal constitutional legal challenge.”
The bill, which was approved a day earlier in the Republican-dominated legislature, would have made performing an abortion a felony and also called for revoking the licenses of any doctor who conducted one. The bill allowed an exemption for an abortion necessary to save the life of the mother.
“The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered ‘necessary to preserve the life of the mother,’” Fallin said, in a statement from her office, where she was described as “the most pro-life governor in the nation.” (see June 27)
May 20Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
May 20, 2019: the US Supreme Court ruled that an 1868 treaty between the United States and the Crow Tribe that promised that in exchange for the Tribe’s territory in modern-day Montana and Wyoming, its members would “have the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon . . . and peace subsists,” 15 Stat. 650. In 2014, still held true despite Wyoming challenging off-season hunting in Bighorn National Forest.
The state court held that the treaty right expired upon Wyoming’s statehood and that, in any event, the national forest became categorically “occupied” when it was created.
The Supreme Court vacated. Hunting rights under the Treaty did not expire upon Wyoming’s statehood or that the Tribe would have understood it to do so. Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” within the meaning of the Treaty when the national forest was created. (see Aug 29)
May 19, 1891: Nguyễn Sinh Cung born in Kim Liên, Nghệ An Province, Vietnam.
In 1907: after receiving a primary education at a local school, Nguyen Sinh Cungand and his brother traveled to the city of Hué to attend a prestigious Franco-Vietnamese academy.
In 1911: Nguyen Sinh Cung traveled to Saigon and obtained a job as a cook aboard a French steam ship bound for the French city of Marseille. Although the details of his journey are not well documented, Cung spent the next two years traveling around the world, visiting cities in Europe, Asia, North America, and, according to some accounts, Africa and South America as well. Ho eventually settled in London.
In 1917: Nguyen Sinh Cung moved to Paris during the height of World War I. He adopted the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (“Nguyen the Patriot”) and became involved in leftist and anti-colonial activism. (see June 18, 1919)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Fraterville Mine explosion
May 19, 1902: two hundred sixteen miners die from an explosion and its aftermath at the Fraterville Mine in Anderson County, Tenn. All but three of Fraterville’s adult males were killed. The mine had a reputation for fair contracts and pay—miners were represented by the United Mine Workers—and was considered safe; methane may have leaked in from a nearby mine. [WVLT article](see February 14, 1903)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
Mary Turner lynched
May 19, 1918: Mary Turner the 8-month pregnant wife of Hayes Turner, publicly denounced her husband’s lynching the previous day. A mob hung her upside down from a tree, doused her in gasoline and motor oil, and set her on fire. While Turner was still alive, a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife. Her unborn child fell on the ground, where it cried before it was stomped on and crushed. Finally, Turner’s body was riddled with hundreds of bullets. Mary Turner and her child were cut down and buried near the tree. A whiskey bottle marked the grave. No charges were ever brought against the known or suspected participants in these crimes. [Miami Herald article] (next BH, see June 3; next Lynching, see July 29; for expanded chronology, see American Lynching 2)
May 19, 1960: in Ringgold Georgia. a bomb killed Mattie Green, a 32-year-old mother of six while she and her family were sleeping at home. Her family survived. No one was convicted on the crime, and the FBI closed the case after concluding no federal laws had been violated. [DoJ article] (see June Peace…)
Freedom Riders
May 19, 1961: The Nashville Riders return to Birmingham and attempt to leave the city by bus. Bus drivers again refuse to depart the station, fearing the mobs waiting outside. (see May 20)
George Whitmore, Jr.
May 19, 1965: The New York Assembly passes the abolition bill by a vote of seventy-eight to sixty-seven. (see Whitmore for expanded story)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
Emergency Quota Act
May 19, 1921: the Emergency Quota Act became law. It restricted immigration into the US and added two new features to American immigration law: numerical limits on immigration from Europe and the use of a quota system for establishing those limits.
The Emergency Quota Act restricted the number of immigrants admitted from any country annually to 3% of the number of residents from that same country living in the United States as of the U.S. Census of 1910. Based on that formula, the number of new immigrants admitted fell from 805,228 in 1920 to 309,556 in 1921-22. The act meant that only people of Northern Europe who had similar cultures to that of America were likely to get in. [Immigration to the US article] (see May 26, 1924)
May 19, 1947: Jerry Hyman of Blood, Sweat and Tears was born on in Brooklyn, NY
DJ payola
May 19, 1960: five radio disk jockeys, including Alan Freed, were arrested on charges that they had accepted payola. District Attorney Frank Hogan said they had accepted illegal gratuities amounting to $116,580 from twenty-three record companies in the previous two years. (see Sept 13)
Marilyn Monroe
May 19, 1962: Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of “Happy Birthday” for President John F. Kennedy during a fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden. (see June 15)
Two Virgins
May 19, 1968: while Cynthia Lennon was on vacation in Greece, John invited Yoko Ono to his home. He recalled: ” I called her over, it was the middle of the night and Cyn was away, and I thought, ‘Well, now’s the time if I’m going to get to know her any more.’ She came to the house and I didn’t know what to do; so we went upstairs to my studio and I played her all the tapes that I’d made, all this far-out stuff, some comedy stuff, and some electronic music. There were very few people I could play those tapes to. She was suitably impressed, and then she said, ‘Well, let’s make one ourselves,’ so we made Two Virgins. It was midnight when we finished, and then we made love at dawn. It was very beautiful.” (Beatles, see May 31; see Two Virgins for more)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
The Cold War
Secret surveillance
May 19, 1964: the US State Department delivered a strong protest in Moscow after more than 40 secret microphones were found in the U.S. Embassy. U.S. security had tore into walls of the building in April. US officials said the microphones were embedded 8 to 10 inches deep in the walls of the 10-story building, and obviously had been installed before the Russians turned the building over for U.S. occupancy in 1952. [State Dept memorandum re bugging] (see Oct 14)
David Greenglass
May 19, 2015: U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of New York ordered the unsealing of the testimony of Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, who implicated his sister as a spy. Greenglass recanted his testimony seven years after he gave it, saying that he gave false testimony after prosecutors threatened him by saying they would go after his wife, who may have assisted Julius Rosenberg. Hellerstein said the testimony now could be unsealed because Greenglass died last year at the age of 92, though he fought to the end of his life to keep it permanently sealed, according to the Associated Press.
“The requested records are critical pieces of an important moment in our nation’s history,” Hellerstein wrote. “The time for the public to guess what they contain should end.” [Newsday article] (DP, see May 20; Cold War, see May 29; Nuclear, see July 14; Rosenbergs, see July 15)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News
May 19, 1967: the Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space. (see July 1, 1968)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
Leary v. United States
May 19, 1969: the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with the constitutionality of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Timothy Leary had been arrested for the possession of marijuana in violation of the Marihuana Tax Act. Leary challenged the act on the ground that the act required self-incrimination, which violated the Fifth Amendment. The unanimous opinion of the court was penned by Justice John Marshall Harlan II and declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional. [Oyez article]
NORML
In 1970: The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws [NORML] founded as a nonprofit public-interest advocacy group whose mission is to end marijuana prohibition. [NORML site] (next Cannabis, see May 1, 1971 or see CC for expanded chronology)
May 19, 2004: Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits received a year in prison and a bad conduct discharge in the first court-martial stemming from abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison. [NYT article] (see Aug 27)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
May 19, 2010: Oil washes ashore on mainland Louisiana [Reuters article] (see May 27)
California spill
May 19, 2015: a broken onshore pipeline spewed oil down a storm drain and into the Pacific Ocean for several hours before it was shut off, creating a slick some 4 miles long across a scenic stretch of central California coastline. Initial estimates put the spill at about 21,000 gallons. The spill was about 20 miles northwest of Santa Barbara. (see May 27)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
Stop and Frisk Policy
May 19, 2010,: in another lawsuit, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed to stop the NYC from keeping a huge database of New Yorkers stopped, but never charged. (see July 16)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
NAACP
May 19, 2012: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People approved a resolution supporting marriage for same-sex couples. In the weeks that follow, the National Center for La Raza (NCLR) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s largest and oldest Latino civil rights organizations, respectively, pass similar resolutions supporting all families. [NY Daily News article] (see May 31)
Oregon ban on same-sex marriage
May 19, 2014: U.S. District Judge Michael McShane struck down Oregon’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage, saying it was unconstitutional. McShane said the ban unconstitutionally discriminated against same-sex couples and ordered the state not to enforce it. State officials earlier refused to defend the constitutional ban in court. (next LGBTQ, see May 20; Oregon, see June 4)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health
Affordable Care Act
May 19, 2015: a federal court again denied the University of Notre Dame’s challenge to the health law’s contraception provision, saying a compromise arrangement offered by the Obama administration appeared adequate to meet the Catholic institution’s religious objections to covering Women’s Health for students and staff. Notre Dame had been fighting the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most employers include contraception in health plans with no out-of-pocket costs, arguing that the federal government was forcing it to violate its beliefs. Notre Dame had argued its concerns weren’t satisfied by the Obama administration’s alternative arrangement, under which an employer with a religious objection can state its conflict and have its insurer administrate contraceptive coverage.
In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said the university hadn’t done enough to show it is entitled to a preliminary injunction that would allow it to opt out of the requirements while it continued to fight them. Instead, the court indicated it believed the administration had hit the right balance in addressing the university’s concerns.
“Although Notre Dame is the final arbiter of its religious beliefs, it is for the courts to determine whether the law actually forces Notre Dame to act in a way that would violate those beliefs,” the court said in an opinion written by Judge Richard Posner. “The very word ‘accommodation’ implies a balance of competing interests; and when we compare the burden on the government or third parties of having to establish some entirely new method of providing contraceptive coverage with the burden on Notre Dame of simply notifying the government that the ball is now in the government’s court, we cannot conclude that Notre Dame has yet established its right to the injunctive relief that it is seeking before trial,” he wrote. [WSJ article] (BC, see May 29; ACA, see June 8; Notre Dame, see February 7, 2018)
May 19Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
