22 March History
- 1622 - Indians attack a group of colonists in the James River area of Virginia, killing 350 residents.
- 1630 - The first legislation prohibiting gambling is enacted in Boston.
- 1664 - Charles II gives large tracks of land from west of the Connecticut River to the east of Delaware Bay in North America to his brother James, the Duke of York.
- 1719 - Frederick William abolishes serfdom on crown property in Prussia.
- 1765 - The Stamp Act is passed, the first direct British tax on the American colonists.
- 1775 - British statesman Edmund Burke makes a speech in the House of Commons, urging the government to adopt a policy of reconciliation with America.
- 1790 - Thomas Jefferson becomes the first U.S. Secretary of State.
- 1794 - Congress passes laws prohibiting slave trade with foreign countries although slavery remains legal in the United States.
- 1834 - Horace Greeley publishes New Yorker, a weekly literary and news magazine and forerunner of Harold Ross' more successful The New Yorker.
- 1901 - Japan proclaims that it is determined to keep Russia from encroaching on Korea.
- 1904 - The first color photograph is published in the London Daily Illustrated Mirror.
- 1907 - Russians troops complete the evacuation of Manchuria in the face of advancing Japanese forces.
- 1915 - A German Zepplin makes a night raid on Paris railway stations.
- 1919 - The first international airline service is inaugurated on a weekly schedule between Paris and Brussels.
- 1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill legalizing the sale and possession of beer and wine.
- 1935 - Persia is renamed Iran.
- 1946 - First U.S. built rocket to leave the Earth's atmosphere reaches a 50-mile height.
- 1948 - The United States announces a land reform plan for Korea.
- 1954 - The London gold market reopens for the first time since 1939.
- 1968 - President Lyndon Johnson names General William Westmoreland as Army Chief of Staff.
- 1972 - The U.S. Senate passes the Equal Rights Amendment. The amendment fails to achieve ratification.
- 1974 - The Viet Cong propose a new truce with the United States and South Vietnam, which includes general elections.
- 1990 - A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, finds Captain Hazelwood not guilty in the Valdez oil spill.
22 March Birthdays
- 1599 - Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish artist, the namesake of the beard style.
- 1797 - Wilhelm I, German emperor (1871-88)
- 1846 - Randolph Caldecott, illustrator.
- 1907 - James Gavin, U.S. Army general of the 82nd Airborne Division in WWII.
- 1908 - Louis L'Amour, American Western novelist.
- 1923 - Marcel Marceau, French mime.
- 1930 - Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist (A Little Night Music, Passion).
- 1948 - Andrew Lloyd Webber, British composer (The Phantom of the Opera, Cats)