On May 20
On May 20, the Human Saga records one pivotal event: Vasco da Gama opens the sea route to India (1497).
On this day
On 20 May 1498 the Portuguese commander Vasco da Gama anchored near Calicut (Kozhikode) on India's Malabar Coast, becoming the first European to reach India by sea.
Also this week in history (May 17 – May 23)
On 23 May 1618 Bohemian Protestant nobles threw two Catholic imperial regents and their secretary from a window of Prague Castle, an act of defiance against the Habsburg crown that triggered the Bohemian Revolt and ignited the Thirty…
18 May 1848 – June 1849The Frankfurt Parliament and the failure of liberal German unificationPolitics & governance
The Frankfurt National Assembly, which first met in the Paulskirche on 18 May 1848, was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany and the boldest attempt of the 1848 revolutions to create a unified, constitutional German…