22 April History
- 296 - St. Gaius ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
- 536 - St. Agapitus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
- 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 Saragosa.
- 1745 - The Peace of Fussen is signed.
- 1792 - President George Washington proclaims American neutrality in the war in Europe.
- 1861 - Robert E. Lee is named commander of Virginia forces.
- 1889 - The Oklahoma land rush officially starts at noon as thousands of Americans race for new, unclaimed land.
- 1898 - In the first action of the Spanish-American War, the USS Nashville, takes on a Spanish ship.
- 1915 - At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans use poison gas for the first time.
- 1918 - British naval forces attempt to sink block-ships in the German U-boat bases at the Battle of Zeeburgge.
- 1931 - Egypt signs treaty of friendship with Iraq.
- 1944 - Allies launch major attack against the Japanese in Hollandia, New Guinea.
- 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."
- 1976 - Barbara Walters becomes the first female nightly news anchor on network television.
- 1995 - In Africa, Rwandan troops kill thousands of Hutu refugees in Kibeho.
22 April Birthdays
- 1451 - Isabella I of Castile, Queen of Spain, patron of Christopher Columbus.
- 1707 - Henry Fielding, English novelist (Tom Jones).
- 1724 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher.
- 1870 - Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov), leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and first head of the U.S.S.R.
- 1873 - Ellen Glassgow, American novelist.
- 1876 - O.E. Rolvaag, novelist (Giants in the Earth).
- 1899 - Vladimir Nabokov, Russian novelist (Lolita).
- 1904 - J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, director of the Manhattan Project.
- 1916 - Yehudi Menuhin, violinist.
- 1918 - Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest man (8'11.1").
- 1922 - Charles Mingus, jazz bassist.
- 1943 - Louise Gluck, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.