April 22 is the 112th day of the year (113th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 253 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Discovery Day (Brazil)
- Earth Day and its related observances:
- Holocaust Remembrance Day (Serbia)
History
In 687, B.C., Chinese record a meteor shower in Lyra.
In 238, Year of the Six Emperors: The Roman Senate outlaws emperor Maximinus Thrax for his bloodthirsty proscriptions in Rome and nominates two of its members, Pupienus and Balbinus, to the throne.
In 960, Coronation of Basil II as Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. Basil was associated on the throne by his father, who then died in 963, when Basil was only five years old. Because he and his brother, the future Emperor Constantine VIII (ruled 1025–1028), were too young to reign in their own right, Basil’s mother Theophano married one of Romanos’ leading generals, Nikephoros Phokas, who took the throne as the Emperor Nikephoros II several months later in 963. Nikephoros was murdered in 969 by his nephew John I Tzimisces, who then became emperor and reigned for seven years. When Tzimisces died on 10 January 976, Basil II finally took the throne as senior emperor.
In 1056, Supernova Crab nebula last seen by the naked eye.
In 1145, 19th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
In 1348, Edward III, King of England, retrieves the Garter of the Countess of Salisbury, and remarks “Shame be to him who thinks evil of it,” thus beginning the Order of the Garter
In 1370, Construction of the Bastile began. The French king Charles the Fifth wanted it erected as a defense against the British.
In 1500, Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil & claims it for Portugal.
In 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico.
In 1529, Spain and Portugal divide eastern the hemisphere in Treaty of Saragossa.
In 1622, The Capture of Ormuz by the East India Company ends Portuguese control of Hormuz Island.
In 1659, Lord protector Cromwell disbands English parliament.
In 1672, King Charles II sits in on English parliament with his Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it.
In 1692, Edward Bishop of Massachusetts proposes that a person accused of practicing witchcraft could be cured by flogging; he was imprisoned for his suggestion.
In 1793, Philadelphia played host to the first circus attended by George Washington.
In 1793, U.S. President George Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality to ensure that the United States did not become involved in the war between France and Britain.
In 1823, Roller Skates were patented by R.J. Tyers.
In 1834, The Quadruple Alliance was formed between Britain, France, Portugal and Spain, supporting Isabella II’s claim to the Spanish throne against Don Carlos.
In 1836, Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston capture Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
In 1838, The British steamship Sirius became the first to cross the Atlantic from Britain to New York on steam power only. The journey from Cork to New York took 18 days 10 hours.
In 1861, Robert E. Lee was named commander of Virginia forces.
In 1864, The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that mandates that the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.
In 1876, The first ever National League baseball game is played in Philadelphia.
In 1889, At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.
In 1892, The Winstar Institute, the first anatomy school in the U.S., opens.
In 1898, Congress passes the Volunteer Army Act which calls for the organization of a first Volunteer Cavalry, which later became known as the Rough Riders.
In 1898, Spanish-American War: the first shot of the Spanish-American War rang out as the USS Nashville captured a Spanish merchant ship off Key West, Florida.
In 1906, The 1906 Summer Olympics, not now recognized as part of the official Olympic Games, open in Athens.
In 1912, Pravda, the “voice” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg.
In 1914, Mexico ended diplomatic relations with US.
In 1915, The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.
In 1930, The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
In 1931, a contraption known as the autogyro landed on the lawn of the White House on this day. Before the Secret Service could come out with guns blazing, President Herbert Hoover shook hands with pilot, James G. Ray, and gave him a trophy! Don’t try this today.
In 1937, thousands of college students in New York City staged a fourth annual “peace strike”.
In 1940, Rear Adm Joseph Taussig testified before the U.S. Senate Naval Affairs Committee that war with Japan is inevitable (He was right).
In 1943, German counter attack in North-Tunisia, the RAF shot down 14 German transport planes over the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1944, Hitler & Mussolini meet at Salzburg.
In 1944, The 1st Air Commando Group using Sikorsky R-4 helicopters stage the first use of helicopters in combat with CSAR operations in the China-Burma-India theater.
In 1944, World War II: Operation Persecution is initiated – Allied forces land in the Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura) area of New Guinea.
In 1945, World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. 520 are killed and 80 escape.
In 1945, World War II: Führerbunker: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse.
In 1948, 1948 Arab-Israeli War: Haifa, a major port of Israel, is captured from Arab forces.
In 1951, Korean War: The Chinese People’s Volunteer Army begin assaulting positions defended by the Royal Australian Regiment and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry at the Battle of Kapyong.
In 1954, Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army-McCarthy Hearings begins.
In 1969, British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston wins the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and completes the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.
In 1969, the first human eye transplant was performed.
In 1969, The formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) is announced at a mass rally in Calcutta.
In 1972, Vietnam War: Increased American bombing in Vietnam prompts anti-war protests in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco.
In 1987, a divided Supreme Court said capital punishment does not discriminate against blacks.
In 1993, Gov. Guy Hunt, Alabama’s first Republican governor since the Reconstruction, was removed from office after being convicted of felony ethics violations.
In 1994, Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, four days after suffering a stroke. He was 81. He became the only president to resign the office. Nixon had previously served as a Republican U.S. Representative and Senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. His pursuit of the Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. In 1968, he ran again for the presidency and was elected. Although Nixon initially escalated America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, he subsequently ended U.S. involvement by 1973. Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic of China in 1972 opened communications between the two nations and eventually led to the normalization of diplomatic relations. He initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. Domestically, his administration generally embraced policies that transferred power from Washington to the states. Among other things, he launched initiatives to fight cancer and illegal drugs, imposed wage and price controls, enforced desegregation of Southern schools, implemented environmental reforms, and introduced legislation to reform healthcare and welfare. Though he presided over the lunar landings beginning with Apollo 11, he replaced manned space exploration with shuttle missions. He was re-elected by a landslide in 1972.
In 2000, In dramatic pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez from his relatives’ home in Miami; Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. Seized in darkness, the little castaway adrift for five months in an international custody dispute was placed in his father’s arms after federal agents used battering rams and pepper spray to hustle him from Miami and the relatives fighting to block his return to communist Cuba. “We’re taking you to see your papa,” an agent told a terrified Elian Gonzalez, ending the protracted standoff in three frantic minutes with a raid that sparked protests through Miami and debate over the Clinton administration’s use of force. Crying with fright, the 6-year-old Cuban boy was taken before dawn and flown to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, where he was in seclusion with his father, stepmother and baby half-brother. Though in his father’s custody, Elian’s fate still remains unsettled. The courts will ultimately rule on whether the boy should remain in the United States. Unrest spread through Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood as protesters spilled into the streets, lighting street fires and struggling with police carrying batons and shields. Arrests were reported.
In 2008, The United States Air Force retires the remaining F-117 Nighthawk aircraft in service.
In 2013, Six people die in a shooting in Belgorod, Russia.
In 2013, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrest and charge two men with plotting to disrupt a Toronto area train service in a plot claimed to be backed by Al-Qaeda elements.
In 2014, More than 60 people are killed and 80 are seriously injured in a train crash in the Democratic Republic of the Congo‘s Katanga Province.
In 2016, The Paris Agreement is signed, an agreement to help fight global warming. On 4 August 2017, the Trump administration delivered an official notice to the United Nations that the United States, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, intended to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as it was eligible to do so. The U.S. government deposited the notification with the Secretary General of the United Nations and officially withdrew one year later on 4 November 2020. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office, 20 January 2021, to re-admit the United States into the Paris Agreement.
In 2020, Four police officers are killed after being struck by a truck on the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne while speaking to a speeding driver, marking the largest loss of police lives in Victoria Police history.[11]