TODAY HISTORY LESSON: APRIL 22
1056 Supernova Crab nebula last seen by the naked eye
1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil.
1509 Henry VIII ascends to the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VII.
1529 Spain and Portugal divide the eastern hemisphere in the Treaty of Saragossa.
1769 Madame du Barry becomes King Louis XV’s “official” mistress
1792 President George Washington proclaims American neutrality in the war in Europe.
1864 Congress authorized the inscription “In God We Trust” on coins minted as U.S. currency.
1889 The Oklahoma land rush officially starts at noon as thousands of Americans race for new, unclaimed land.
1898 Congress passes Volunteer Army Act calling for a Volunteer Cavalry
1915 At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans use poison gas for the first time.
1945 Adolf Hitler admits defeat. The German dictator announced in the underground Führerbunker that he plans to commit suicide after learning that Soviet forces had entered Berlin.
1945 Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen liberated
1954 The Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin. They are broadcast on television.
1955 Congress orders all U.S. coins to bear the motto “In God We Trust.”
1969 1st human eye transplant performed
1970 1st Earth Day held internationally to conserve natural resources
1977 Optical fiber is used for telephone transmissions for the first time
1978 ‘The Blues Brothers’ (Dan Akroyd and John Belushi) make their first appearance on Saturday Night Live
1983 Stern magazine announces major historical find-discovery of 60 volume personal diaries written by Adolf Hitler (turned out to be a hoax)
1991 Shalom America (Jewish cable network) is launched in Brooklyn & Queens
1993 Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1995 In Africa, Rwandan troops kill thousands of Hutu refugees in Kibeho.
1997 The Japanese embassy hostage crisis ends after 126 days. The hero status of the Peruvian troops involved in the successful raid was later called into question when evidence of summary executions of captured insurgents emerged.
2000 Armed immigration agents took Elian Gonzalez from the Miami home of his relatives to reunite him with his father.
2016 Paris Agreement on climate change signed in New York binding 195 nations to an increase in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
