Today in history
By Correspondent
| YEAR | DAY | EVENT |
| 296AD | Apr 22 | St. Gaius ended his reign as Catholic Pope. |
| 536AD | Apr 22 | St. Agapitus I ended his reign as Catholic Pope (535-36). |
| 1056 | Apr 22 | Supernova Crab nebula was last seen by the naked eye. |
| 1073 | Apr 22 | Gregory VII, St. Hildebrand, became Pope. He was driven from Rome and died in exile in 1085. |
| 1164 | Apr 22 | Raynald of Dassel named Guido di Crema as anti-pope Paschalis III. |
| 1357 | Apr 22 | Johan I, King of Portugal (1383-1433), was born. |
| 1370 | Apr 22 | The first stone of the Bastille was laid by order of King Charles V (1364-1380). The original design of the Bastille was merely a fortified gate, but it was later turned into a fortress by Charles VI. It began to be used as a prison in the 17th century. Following the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, it was demolished. |
| 1451 | Apr 22 | Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain (1479-1504), patron of Christopher Columbus, was born in Madrigal, Spain. |
| 1500 | Apr 22 | Pedro Alvares Cabral (c1460-c1526), Portuguese explorer, discovered Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. He anchored for 10 days in a bay he called “Porto Seguro” and continued on to India. |
| 1509 | Apr 22 | Henry Tudor became King Henry VIII of England following the death of his father, Henry VII. He soon married Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow and the aunt of Charles V (the Holy Roman Emperor), and fathered Mary, future Queen of England. |
| 1521 | Apr 22 | French king Francois I declared war on Spain. |
| 1529 | Apr 22 | Spain and Portugal divided the eastern hemisphere in Treaty of Saragosa. |
| 1610 | Apr 22 | Alexander VIII, [Pietro Ottoboni], Italian lawyer, Pope (1689-91), was born |
| 1648 | Apr 22 | English army claimed king Charles I was responsible for bloodshed. |
| 1658 | Apr 22 | Giuseppe Torelli, composer (Concert Grossi op 8), was born in Italy. |
| 1659 | Apr 22 | Lord protector Cromwell disbanded the English parliament. |
| 1671 | Apr 22 | King Charles II sat in on English parliament. |
| 1692 | Apr 22 | Edward Bishop was jailed for proposing flogging as cure for witchcraft. |
| 1707 | Apr 22 | Henry Fielding (d.1754), English novelist and essayist, was born in Sharpham Park, Somerset, England. His work included “Tom Jones.” |
| 1722 | Apr 22 | In Batavia, Indonesia, 19 VOC “komplotteurs” were executed. |
| 1724 | Apr 22 | Immanuel Kant (d.1804), German philosopher (Critique of Pure Reason), was born in Konigsberg (Kaliningrad). He held that space is just a “form of sensibility” that our minds impose on experience to give it structure. His work included the essay “Perpetual Peace.” |
| 1745 | Apr 22 | Peace of Fussen was signed, restoring the status quo of Germany. |
| 1769 | Apr 22 | Madame du Barry became King Louis XV’s “official” mistress. |
| 1776 | Apr 22 | Johann Adolph Scheibe (67), German music theorist, composer, died. |
| 1777 | Apr 22 | Henry Clay, American statesman, the “Great Compromiser,” was born. |
| 1778 | Apr 22 | James Hargreaves, inventor (spinning jenny), died. |
| 1792 | Apr 22 | President Washington proclaimed American neutrality in the war in Europe. |
| 1793 | Apr 22 | Pres. Washington attended the opening of Rickett’s, the 1st circus in US. |
| 1796 | Apr 22 | Napoleon defeated the Piedmontese at Battle of Mondovi. |
| 1804 | Apr 22 | Gioacchino Rossini (12) performed in Imola. |
| 1809 | Apr 22 | At the Battle at Eckmahl Napoleon beat Austrian archduke Karl. |
| 1823 | Apr 22 | R.J. Tyers patented roller skates. |
| 1826 | Apr 22 | Ibrahim, son of Mohammed Ali of Egypt, took Missolonghi (in West Greece) after a long siege |
| 1833 | Apr 22 | Richard Trevithick (b.1771), British engineer, died in Kent, England. In 1804 he built the first steam locomotive. |
| 1838 | Apr 22 | The English steamship “Sirius” docked in NYC after a record Atlantic crossing. |
| 1861 | Apr 22 | Robert E. Lee was named commander of Virginia forces. |
| 1864 | Apr 22 | Congress authorized the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on for the 1st time on a 2 cent coin. |
| 1870 | Apr 22 | Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin (d.1924), also known as Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, Russian revolutionary leader and first communist leader of USSR, was born. It was later learned that he was a hereditary noble and that he had a French mistress named Inessa Armand. In 1996 Richard Pipes edited “The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive.” |
| 1873 | Apr 22 | Ellen Glassgow, American novelist, was born. |
| 1876 | Apr 22 | O.E. Rolvaag, novelist (Giants in the Earth), was born. |
| 1881 | Apr 22 | Alexander Kerensky, Russian PM (1917), was born in Simbirsk. |
| 1884 | Apr 22 | Thomas Stevens (b.1853) started the 1st bicycle trip to cross the US from SF. He later continued around world (2 yrs 9 mos). He purchased a bicycle with a 50-inch diameter front wheel from Col. Albert Pope of Hartford, Conn., for $110 the price of a horse and buggy. |
| 1889 | Apr 22 | The US federal government opened up the Unassigned Lands of Indian Territory to the country’s first land run. The Oklahoma land rush officially started at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims. |
| 1897 | Apr 22 | NYC Jewish newspaper “Forward” began publishing. |
| 1898 | Apr 22 | US Congress passed the Volunteer Army Act calling for a Volunteer Cavalry. |
| 1904 | Apr 22 | J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan (Atomic-bomb) Project, was born. |
| 1906 | Apr 22 | Eddie Albert (d.2005), film and TV star (Green Acres), was born in Rock Island, Ill, and grew up in Minneapolis. |
| 1912 | Apr 22 | At the urging of Pres. Taft the Chamber of Commerce of the USA was established at a Washington hotel by a gathering of 700 delegates from 44 states. The represented 324 voluntary organizations. |
| 1914 | Apr 22 | Babe Ruth’s 1st professional game as a pitcher was a 6-hit 6-0 win. |
| 1915 | Apr 22 | Germans made the first use of poison gas in World War I at the Second Battle Ypres. Chlorine gas was used along 4 miles of the French line at Ypres. |
| 1916 | Apr 22 | Yehudi Menuhin (d.1999), violinist, was born in New York. |
| 1918 | Apr 22 | British naval forces attempted to sink block-ships in the German U-boat bases at the Battle of Zeeburgge. |
| 1922 | Apr 22 | Charles Mingus (d.1979), jazz bassist, was born. |
| 1926 | Apr 22 | James Stirling, Scottish D-day-parachutist, architect, knight, was born. |
| 1929 | Apr 22 | Harold E. Jones, director of research at the Univ. of Cal. Institute of child Welfare reported that children doing poor schoolwork and those most often exhibiting objectionable traits were found to be those who attend motion picture shows frequently. |
| 1930 | Apr 22 | The United States, Britain and Japan signed the London Naval Treaty, which regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding. The London Naval Conference met in Europe and agreed to shrink the world’s navies. |
| 1931 | Apr 22 | Egypt signed a treaty of friendship with Iraq. |
| 1933 | Apr 22 | Dutch government forbade a left-wing radio address. |
| 1936 | Apr 22 | Glen Campbell, American country music singer (By the Time I get to Phoenix, Galveston), was born in Arkansas. |
| 1937 | Apr 22 | Jack Nicholson, actor (One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest, Shining), was born in NJ. |
| 1938 | Apr 22 | In Virginia 45 workers were killed in a coal mine explosion at Keen Mountain in Buchanan County. |
| 1940 | Apr 22 | Rear Adm. Joseph Taussig testified before US Senate Naval Affairs Committee that war with Japan is inevitable. |
| 1943 | Apr 22 | Louise Gluck, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born. |
| 1944 | Apr 22 | During World War II, U.S. forces and Allies began invading Japanese-held New Guinea with amphibious landings near Hollandia, New Guinea. |
| 1945 | Apr 22 | Hitler acknowledged that the war was lost. A stenographic record of Hitler’s conferences with his generals from Apr, 1942, until Apr, 1945, was published in 2003 as: “Hitler and His Generals.” It was edited by Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz.” |
| 1946 | Apr 22 | Dectuplets were born in Bacacay, Brazil, 8 males and 2 females. |
| 1951 | Apr 22 | There was a ticker-tape parade for General MacArthur in NYC. |
| 1952 | Apr 22 | An atomic test conducted at Yucca Flat, Nevada, became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television. |
| 1954 | Apr 22 | The publicly televised US Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began. |
| 1955 | Apr 22 | Congress ordered all U.S. coins to bear motto “In God We Trust”. |
| 1956 | Apr 22 | Soviet authorities exposed a secret Allied spy tunnel built a year earlier from Rudow in West Berlin to Alt-Glienicke in East Berlin. It had tapped into underground cables and operated for 11 months and 11 days intercepting Red Army communications. |
| 1959 | Apr 22 | In SF dignitaries opened the new 1.4 mile extension of the Central Freeway from 13th and Mission to Golden Gate Ave. and Franklin St. In 1999 SF and the California Dept. of Transportation agreed replace it with a ground-level thoroughfare. Octavia Blvd. was dedicated in 2005. |
| 1961 | Apr 22 | An uprising of French parachutists was led by Gen. Salan/Challe in Algeria., The islands of Zanzibar and Pemba joined the former British colony of Tanganyika to form the republic of Tanzania. Zanzibar consists of the Pemba and Unguja islands. It has its own president and legislation but also votes in the Tanzanian presidential and National Assembly elections. |
| 1969 | Apr 22 | In the Golden Globe boat race one man became the 1st to single-handedly sail nonstop around the world. In 2001 Peter Nichols authored “A Voyage for Madmen.” |
| 1970 | Apr 22 | The first Earth Day and Earth Week was celebrated and millions protested pollution on Earth and their concern for the environment. The event was organized by a 33-member committee in Philadelphia. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson suggested Earth Day as a means to focus national attention on ecological issues. Gaylord selected Pete McCloskey as co-chairman. Organizers later identified 12 anti-environment members of the US House and Senate, 7 of whom soon lost their seats. |
| 1971 | Apr 22 | Former US Navy lieutenant John Kerry (27) testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and talked about hearing from fellow veterans about war crimes and atrocities committed in Vietnam by US forces. |
| 1974 | Apr 22 | A Pan Am 707 crashed into the mountains of Bali, killing 107. |
| 1976 | Apr 22 | Director Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) actress Bibi Anderson announced they were leaving Sweden because of harassment by Swedish tax officials. |
| 1977 | Apr 22 | Simon Peres became premier of Israel under Pres. Ephraim Katzir. Peres served until June 21. He served again as premier from 1984-1986, and 1985-1996. |
| 1978 | Apr 22 | Will Geer (75), TV and film actor, died. He is best remembered for portraying the wise and crusty Grandpa Zeb Walton on the long-running The Waltons (1972-1978). |
| 1979 | Apr 22 | Samir Kantar (b.1962) and 3 PLF terrorists killed three Israelis in the northern city of Nahariya. |
| 1980 | Apr 22 | Jane Froman (72), band singer, died. The 1952 film “With a Song in My Heart” starred Susan Hayward as band singer Jane Froman. |
| 1981 | Apr 22 | In the largest US bank robbery, more than $3.3 million was stolen in Tucson Ariz. 4 men were later arrested for the robbery. |
| 1982 | Apr 22 | Melville Bell Grosvenor (b.1901), president of the Natl. Geographic Society, died. |
| 1983 | Apr 22 | Earl Hines (b.1903), jazz pianist and bandleader, died in Oakland, Ca. He was one of jazz’s greatest pianist and was universally known as Earl “Fatha” Hines. |
| 1984 | Apr 22 | The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said French researchers had discovered that a virus causes AIDS. Scientists identified a retrovirus named human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of AIDS. |
| 1987 | Apr 22 | Joe Hunt, leader of a social and investment group called the “Billionaire Boys Club,” was convicted by a jury in Santa Monica, Calif., of murdering Ron Levin in 1984, a con man whose body had not been found. Hunt was sentenced to life in prison. In 1992 Hunt was also tried for the 1984 killing of Hedayat Eslaminia, but a hung jury forced a mistrial. |
| 1988 | Apr 22 | Secretary of State George P. Shultz, visiting the Soviet Union, met with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who reportedly criticized the Reagan administration for its “confrontational” approach to U.S.-Soviet relations. |
| 1989 | Apr 22 | The Xinhua News Agency reported the first outbreak of violence stemming from China’s pro-democracy protests, in the provincial capital of Xian. |
| 1990 | Apr 22 | Pro-Iranian kidnappers in Lebanon freed American hostage Robert Polhill after nearly 39 months of captivity. |
| 1991 | Apr 22 | The US White House promised a full accounting of chief of staff John Sununu’s travels as it sought to stem political fallout over reports of his extensive personal use of military jets. |
| 1992 | Apr 22 | The Supreme Court heard arguments on Pennsylvania’s restrictive abortion law. The court upheld most of the law’s provisions the following June, but also reaffirmed a woman’s basic right to an abortion. |
| 1993 | Apr 22 | The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C., to honor the victims of Nazi extermination. |
| 1994 | Apr 22 | The Lyrid meteor shower was on this day. |
| 1996 | Apr 22 | After 11 days of focusing on Hezbollah guerrillas, Israeli warplanes turned to a new target in Lebanon, attacking the heavily fortified base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. |
| 1997 | Apr 22 | President Clinton flew over the flooded town of Grand Forks, N.D. |
| 1998 | Apr 22 | The new Disney Animal Kingdom theme park in Orlando opened. |
| 1999 | Apr 22 | Earth Day. TV Turnoff Week began. |
| 2000 | Apr 22 | In Miami US INS agents stormed the home of Lazaro Gonzalez and took away Elian Gonzalez to Washington, where he was united with his father. Riots erupted in Little Havana and 290 protesters were arrested. |
| 2001 | Apr 22 | Two spacewalking astronauts, including Canadian Chris Hadfield, installed a massive Canadian-built robot arm on the international space station. |
| 2002 | Apr 22 | Zacarias Moussaoui (33), charged in connection with the Sep 11 terrorism, made a 50 minute statement and asked that his court-appointed attorneys be replaced by a Muslim legal consultant. |
| 2003 | Apr 22 | President Bush announced he would nominate Alan Greenspan for a fifth term as Federal Reserve chairman. |
| 2004 | Apr 22 | On Earth Day Pres. Bush toured a Maine nature preserve and said the US should try to expand its wetlands. |
| 2005 | Apr 22 | President Bush named Gen. Peter Pace to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. |
| 2006 | Apr 22 | In Alaska 6 seventh-graders were arrested in North Pole, just outside of Fairbanks, for conspiracy to commit murder during an assault on their school. Authorities found weapons in their homes. |
| 2007 | Apr 22 | In eastern Afghanistan 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in Khost, killing 11 civilians and wounding over 40 others. In Paktia province, a mob of Taliban fighters ambushed a police patrol, kicking off a three-hour battle that left 5 Taliban dead. Assailants in Laghman province bombed an intelligence service vehicle in an attack that killed two intelligence service officers, a soldier and a driver in the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam. In Ghazni province assailants abducted and beheaded an Afghan intelligence service employee. |
| 2008 | Apr 22 | In New Orleans Pres. Bush ended a 2-day meeting with PM Harper of Canada and Pres. Calderon of Mexico as all three defended NAFTA. Bush denied the US is in recession calling the current economic situation a slowdown. |
| 2009 | Apr 22 | In Connecticut a decade-long battle for marriage equality ended when the General Assembly voted to update the state’s marriage laws to conform with a landmark court ruling allowing gay and lesbian couples to tie the knot. |
| 2010 | Apr 22 | The US National Research Council released a study that found the level of acid in oceans increasing by 30% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, some 200 years ago. This came on the 40th observance of Earth Day. |
| 2011 | Apr 22 | Oregon motorcycle officer Chris Kilcullen (43) was fatally shot while chasing a fleeing driver. The female driver was arrested after a standoff with a SWAT team. |
| 2012 | Apr 22 | In Albany, Ca., Occupy the Farm protesters took over the Gill Tract as a protest against planned development and housing nearby. UC Berkeley used the tract for agricultural experiments. Police cleared the farm of protesters on May 14. |
| 2013 | Apr 22 | US prosecutors charged Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the Boston Marathon bombings in an impromptu hearing in his hospital room, accusing him of crimes that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted. Sixteen hours after investigators began interrogating him, Tsarnaev went silent: He’d just been read his constitutional rights. |
| 2014 | Apr 22 | Pres. Obama took an aerial tour of Oso, Wa., where at least 41 people were killed in a mudslide on March 22. Afterwards he spoke at the Oso Fire Dept. |
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