February 22 - Definition and Overview

February 22 is the 53rd day of every year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 312 days remaining, 313 in leap years.

Events

1300 BC-AD 1899

• 1290s BC - The coronation of Ramses II, on whose face the sun's rays fall each year in Abu Simbel temple.
• AD 1281 - Martin IV becomes Pope.
• 1288 - Nicholas IV becomes Pope.
• 1495 - King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne.
• 1632 - Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published.
• 1819 - Spain cedes Florida to the United States.
• 1847 - Mexican-American War: The Battle of Buena Vista - 5,000 American troops drive off 15,000 Mexican.
• 1865 - Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.
• 1876 - Johns Hopkins University founded in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 1879 - In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.
• 1889 - President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.

1900-1999

• 1920 - In Emeryville, California, the first dog race track to employ an imitation rabbit opens.
• 1924 - Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.
• 1942 - World War II: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defense collapses.
• 1943 - Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.
• 1956 - Elvis Presley enters the music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel".
• 1959 - Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
• 1967 - Suharto takes power from Sukarno in Indonesia.
• 1969 - Barbara Jo Rubin wins a United States thoroughbred horse race making history as the first woman to do so.
• 1973 - Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to China, the United States and the People's Republic of China agree to establish liaison offices.
• 1979 - Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom.
• 1980 - The United States ice hockey team defeats the Soviet Union team at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in an upset dubbed the "Miracle on Ice".
• 1994 - Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.
• 1997 - In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned.

2000-2099

• 2002 - A MH-47E Chinook helicopter crashes into the ocean near the Philippines killing all 10 aboard.

Births

up to 1699

• 1440 - Ladislaus Posthumus of Bohemia and Hungary

1700-1899

• 1732 - George Washington, first President of the United States (d. 1799) (Note: February 11 in the Julian Calendar that was then still in use)
• 1778 - Rembrandt Peale, artist
• 1788 - Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (d. 1860)
• 1796 - Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, mathematician (d. 1874)
• 1810 - Frédéric Chopin, Polish composer (d. 1849)
• 1817 - Carl Wilhelm Borchardt, mathematician
• 1819 - James Russell Lowell, poet and essayist (d. 1891)
• 1839 - Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher (d. 1906)
• 1840 - August Bebel, politician (d. 1913)
• 1849 - Nikolay Yakovlevich Sonin, Russian mathematician (d 1915)
• 1857 - Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting movement (d. 1941)
• 1857 - Heinrich Hertz, German physicist (d. 1894)
• 1878 - Walter Ritz, Swiss physicist (d. 1909)
• 1880 - Frigyes Riesz, mathematician
• 1889 - Lady Olave Baden-Powell GBE (nee Soames) Chief Girl Guide (d. 1977)
• 1892 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, writer (d. 1950)
• 1899 - Dwight Frye, actor (d. 1943)
• 1899 - Dechko Uzunov, painter (d. 1986)

1900-1999

• 1900 - Luis Buñuel, film director (d. 1983)
• 1903 - Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer (d. 1990)
• 1903 - Frank Plumpton Ramsey, mathematician (d. 1903)
• 1907 - Sheldon Leonard, actor, writer, director, producer
• 1907 - Robert Young, actor (d. 1998)
• 1908 - John Mills, actor
• 1926 - Kenneth Williams, actor (d. 1988)
• 1927 - Guy Mitchell, singer
• 1932 - Edward Kennedy, politician and brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy
• 1934 - Sparky Anderson, Baseball Hall of Fame manager
• 1941 - Hipólito Mejía, former President of the Dominican Republic (2000-2004)
• 1944 - Jonathan Demme, director, Robert Kardashian, Lawyer for O. J. Simpson
• 1949 - Niki Lauda, Formula One driver
• 1950 - Julius Erving, Basketball Hall of Famer
• 1950 - Miou-Miou, actress
• 1950 - Julie Walters, actress
• 1959 - Kyle MacLachlan, actor
• 1962 - Steve Irwin, Australian herpetologist and TV personality (The Crocodile Hunter)
• 1963 - Vijay Singh, golfer
• 1966 - Brian Andrew Greig, statesman
• 1967 - Alf Poier, Austrian comedian
• 1968 - Jeri Ryan, actress
• 1975 - Drew Barrymore, actress
• 1982 - Jenna Haze, erotic actress

Deaths

• 965 - Odo of Paris, Duke of Burgundy
• 1512 - Amerigo Vespucci, explorer (b. 1454)
• 1875 - Sir Charles Lyell, geologist (b. 1797)
• 1901 - George Francis FitzGerald, mathematician
• 1903 - Hugo Wolf, composer (b. 1860)
• 1943 - Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, founders of the German resistance group White Rose
• 1961 - Nick LaRocca, jazz musician (b. 1889)
• 1965 - Felix Frankfurter, justice of the United States Supreme Court (b. 1882)
• 1968 - Peter Arno, cartoonist
• 1976 - Angela Baddeley, actress & sister of Hermione Baddeley (b. 1904)
• 1976 - Florence Ballard, singer with The Supremes (b. 1943)
• 1983 - Sir Adrien Boult, English conductor (b. 1889)
• 1984 - Jessamyn West, writer (b. 1902)
• 1987 - Andy Warhol, artist, director, writer (b. 1928)
• 1994 - Papa John Creech, musician
• 2000 - Fernando Buesa, Basque politician (b. 1946)
• 2002 - Chuck Jones, animator (b. 1912)
• 2002 - Jonas Savimbi, Angolan rebel leader (b. 1934)
• 2003 - Kurt Gscheidle, politician

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism - Chair of St. Peter.
• United States - Washington's Birthday (traditionally)
• Saint Lucia - independence (1979)

February 21 - February 23 - January 22 - March 22 -- listing of all days