22 November History
- 1220 - After promising to go to the aid of the Fifth Crusade within nine months, Frederick II is crowned emperor by Pope Honorius III.
- 1542 - New laws are passed in Spain giving Indians in America protection against enslavement.
- 1757 - The Austrian army defeats the Prussians at Breslau in the Seven Years War.
- 1847 - In New York, the Astor Place Opera House, the city's first operatic theater, is opened.
- 1902 - A fire causes considerable damage to the unfinished Williamsburg bridge in New York.
- 1915 - The Anglo-Indian army, led by British General Sir Charles Townshend, attacks a larger Turkish force under General Nur-ud-Din at Ctesiphon, Iraq, but is repulsed.
- 1919 - A Labor conference committee in the United States urges an eight-hour workday and a 48-hour week.
- 1928 - British King George is confined to bed with a congested lung; the queen is to take over duties.
- 1935 - Pan Am inaugurates the first transpacific airmail service from San Francisco to Manila.
- 1936 - 1,200 soldiers are killed in a battle between the Japanese and Mongolians in China.
- 1942 - Soviet troops complete the encirclement of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
- 1948 - Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam requests admittance to the UN.
- 1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president.
- 1964 - Almost 40,000 people pay tribute to John F. Kennedy at Arlington Cemetery on the first anniversary of his death.
- 1973 - Great Britain announces a plan for moderate Protestants and Catholics to share power in Northern Ireland.
- 1980 - Eighteen Communist Party secretaries in 49 provinces are ousted from Poland.
- 1982 - President Ronald Reagan calls for defense-pact deployment of the MX missile.
- 1986 - Justice Department finds memo in Lt. Col. Oliver North's office on the transfer of $12 million to Contras of Nicaragua from Iranian arms sale.
22 November Birthdays
- 1819 - George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), English novelist (Silas Marner, Middlemarch).
- 1890 - Charles de Gaulle, French general in exile during World War II and president of France from 1958 to 1969.
- 1899 - Hoagy Carmichael, American composer, pianist and singer.
- 1913 - Benjamin Britten, English composer, pianist and conductor.
- 1924 - Geraldine Page, actress well known for roles in Tennessee Williams' plays.
- 1925 - Gunther Schuller, composer and French Horn player.
- 1943 - Billie Jean King, U.S. tennis player and women's rights pioneer.