TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: OCTOBER 22
1746 The College of New Jersey was officially chartered. It later became known as Princeton University.
1797 Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute jump from a balloon.
1836 Sam Houston sworn in as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
1844 This day is recognized as “The Great Disappointment” among those who practiced Millerism. The world was expected to come to an end according to the followers of William Miller.
1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide, creating 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich meridian
1907 The Panic of 1907 began when depositors began withdrawing money from many New York banks.
1907 Ringling Brothers buys Barnum & Bailey.
1914 Congress pass the Revenue Act mandating the first tax on incomes over $3,000.
1918 The cities of Baltimore and Washington run out of coffins during the “Spanish Inflenza” epidemic.
1928 Pres Hoover speaks of “American system of rugged individualism”
1938 Chester Carlson invents the photocopier. He tries to sell the machine to IBM, RCA, Kodak and others, but they see no use for a gadget that makes nothing but copies.
1962 U.S. President Kennedy went on radio and television to inform the United States about his order to send U.S. forces to blockade Cuba. The blockade was in response to the discovery of Soviet missile bases on the island. https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/address-during-the-cuban-missile-crisis
1963 225,000 students boycott Chicago schools in Freedom Day protest
1975 Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich was discharged after publicly declaring his homosexuality. His tombstone reads ” “A gay Vietnam Veteran. When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”
1979 Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi, the deposed Shah of Iran, was allowed in the United States for medical treatment. This action led to the Iran hostage crisis.
1981 The US Federal Labor Relations authority decertified the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) from representing federal air traffic controllers, as a result of a PATCO strike in August that was broken by the Reagan Administration.
1981 US national debt tops $1 trillion
1986 U.S. President Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 into law.
1999 Maurice Papon, formerly an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity for his role in deporting more than 1,600 Jews to concentration camps.
2002 The Washington Sniper claims his last victim Conrad Johnson a bus driver in Aspen Hill, Md., in the 13th and final attack. The two men involved were arrested 2 days later on October 24.
2008 Stock markets around the world continue the downward spiral as companies shed more workers and weak corporate earnings and countries around the world prop up financial institutions who have been effected by the meltdown in the housing market.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
