On May 20, 1712,

the first version of Alexander Pope's satirical mock-heroic poem "The Rape of the Lock" was published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany. (Pope later revised and expanded the poem.)

In 1799,

French author Honore de Balzac (oh-nohr-AY' duh bahl-ZAHK') was born in Tours, France.

In 1862,

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.