May 20 Birthday

Famous Birthdays on May 20

• Jimmy Stewart (1908)

  American actor known for It's a Wonderful Life and a long collaboration with director Alfred Hitchcock.

• Joe Cocker (1944)

  English singer known for his raspy voice and cover of "With a Little Help from My Friends," including a famous Woodstock performance.

• Cher (1946)

  American singer and actress with a career spanning over six decades, an Academy Award winner and multi-genre chart-topper.

• Busta Rhymes (1972)

  American rapper known for a rapid-fire delivery style and hits including "Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check."

This Day in History

• 1506 — Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, still believing he had reached parts of Asia rather than a previously unknown-to-Europeans continent.

• 1902 — Cuba gained formal independence, ending nearly four years of U.S. military occupation following the Spanish-American War.

• 1927 — Charles Lindbergh departed New York in the Spirit of St. Louis, beginning the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.

• 1932 — Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland, beginning the flight that would make her the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

What May 20 Says About You

May 20 is this site's designated cusp date — the calendar's official Taurus range runs through today by most standard tropical-zodiac conventions, though people born on this exact date sometimes get read as Gemini depending on which source or year's precise solar timing is used, since the sign boundary isn't fixed to the same clock instant every year. Practically, that means a May 20 birthday carries real Taurus grounding — patience, material focus, a preference for the tangible — layered with an early current of Gemini's curiosity and restlessness, and the date's history backs that dual reading up unusually well. Charles Lindbergh departed New York on this date in 1927, beginning the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, a feat that took grinding, Taurus-style preparation (he'd had a custom aircraft built specifically for the fuel capacity the crossing required) but was executed with genuinely Gemini-level nerve and improvisation once he was over open ocean with no autopilot and dangerously little sleep. Amelia Earhart's own transatlantic attempt launched from Newfoundland on this same date five years later, in 1932, echoing Lindbergh's flight almost exactly in timing and ambition, on her way to becoming the first woman to complete the crossing solo. Jimmy Stewart, born May 20, 1908, built a screen persona around exactly this same tension — an everyman steadiness that, in his best work with Hitchcock, kept cracking open to reveal real anxiety and unpredictability underneath. Cher, also born on this date, in 1946, has spent decades reinventing her sound and image every few years without ever losing the core steadiness of her voice — arguably the most literal embodiment of a Taurus-Gemini split personality in modern pop culture. Cuba's 1902 independence, achieved on this date after nearly four years of U.S. occupation, and Columbus's death in 1506, still convinced to his last day that he'd reached Asia rather than an unknown continent, both round out a date whose real theme is standing at a genuine threshold — old certainty giving way to something not yet fully mapped. The numerology day number for the 20th reduces to 2, tied to balance and partnership, a fitting number for a date that itself sits balanced between two very different signs. Jimmy Stewart's steady screen persona had a genuine wartime basis: he flew combat missions over Germany as a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber pilot during World War II, eventually reaching the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve, a rare instance of a leading man's real biography matching his onscreen reputation for quiet resolve. Busta Rhymes, born Trevor Tahiem Smith Jr., built his rapid-fire rap style partly through early work with the group Leaders of the New School before launching his solo career.