On February 22nd...

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1281 Simon de Brio was elected Pope Martinus IV.

1288 Girolamo Masci was ellected Pope Nicolas IV.

1349 Jews were expelled from Zurich, Switzerland.

1495 French King Charles VIII entered Naples to claim the crown.

1561 William of Orange was appointed Viceroy of Burgundy and Charolais.

1732 George Washington, 1st President of the United States, was born.

1746 French troops conquered Brussels, Belgium.

1784 The first U. S. ship to trade with China, Empress of China, sailed from New York.

1788 Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was born.

1810 Composer Frederic Chopin was born.
1810 Author Charles Brockden Brown died.

1819 The United States and Spain signed the Adams-Onis Treat.
1819 The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of McCulloch vs Maryland.
1819 Poet James Russell Lowell was born.

1825 Russia and Britain established a boundary between Alaska and Canada.

1827 Portrait painter Charles Willson Peale died.

1847 U. S. troops defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of Buena Vista.

1854 The first meeting of the Republican Party was held in Michigan.

1856 The first national meeting of the Republican Party was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1857 Scientist Heinrich Rudolph Hertz was born.
1857 Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell was born.

1860 Shoe-making workers in Lynn, Massachusetts, struck successfully for higher wages.

1862 Jefferson Davis was formally inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America.

1865 Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery.

1867 The Pullman Palace Car Company was chartered.

1872 The first national convention of the Prohibition Party opened in Columbus, Ohio.

1875 Geologist Charles Lyell died.

1876 Johns Hopkins University opened its doors.

1878 The Greenback Labor Party was formed in Toledo, Ohio.

1879 Frank W. Woolworth opened the first "5 and 10" store in Utica, New York.

1881 "Cleopatra's Needle," a 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk, was erected in New York City, New York's, Central Park.

1882 The Serbian Kingdom was refounded.

1887 The Union Labor Party was organized in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1892 Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was born.

1893 Auburn defeated Alabama 32-22 in the 1st Iron Bowl.

1900 Hawaii became a U. S. territory.

1909 The Great White Fleet, the first U. S. naval fleet to circle the globe, returned to Virginia.

1913 Francisco Indalecio Madero, recently overthrown President of Mexico, was assassinated.

1918 TV announcer Don Pardo was born.
1918 Robert Wadlow, the tallest person ever recorded, was born.

1920 The first artificial rabbit was used at a dog race track in Emeryville, California.

1921 Jean-Bédel Bokassa, self-proclaimed Emperor of the Central African Empire, was born.

1922 The United Kingdom issued a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence.

1923 Transcontinental airmail service began.

1928 Bert Hinkler completed the first solo England-to-Australia flight.

1932 The Purple Heart was reinstituted.
1932 Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy was born.

1934 The film It Happened One Night opened.

1935 Airplane flights over the White House were banned.

1945 The Arab League was formed.

1950 Basketball player Julius Erving was born.

1957 Commercial air service over the North Pole was inaugurated between Tokyo, Japan, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
1957 A U.S. Air Force plane crash-landed near Kimpo Air ForceBase in South Korea, killing 22 of the 159 persons aboard.

1958 Arturo Frondizi won the first free presidential election in Argentina since 1928.

1959 The annual stock car race at Daytona Beach, Florida, was moved from the beach to a brand new $3 million, 2-1/2-mile paved speedway.

1960 An explosion inside a coal mine at Zwickau, Germany, killed 40 miners and trapped 74 others.

1962 Steve Irwin, aka "the Crocodile Hunter," was born.

1963 U. S. President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
1963 Golfer Vijay Singh was born.

1965 U. S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter died.

1967 Indonesian President Sukarno was forced to turn over all governmental power to General Suharto.

1970 Pete Hamilton won the Daytona 500.

1975 Actress Drew Barrymore was born.

1979 St. Lucia became independent of the United Kingdom.
1979 Proceedings of the U. S. House of Representatives were televised for the first time.

1980 Afghanistan declared martial law.
1980 The United States Olympic Hockey Team defeated the Soviet Union's team 4-3 in the gold medal round.

1983 Hindus killed 3,000 Muslims in Assam, India.

1987 Artist Andy Warhol died.

1995 Steve Fossett completed the first balloon crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
1995 Actor Ed Flanders died.

2002 Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in a military ambush.
2002 Cartoon director Chuck Jones died.

2006 At least six men stole £53 million from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent, England.

2011 A magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed 181 persons in Christchurch, New Zealand.

2012 A train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killed 50 persons and injured hundreds.

2015 Joey Logano won the Daytona 500.

2016 Singer Sonny James died.

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This page was last updated on June 17, 2018.