October 22 - Definition and Overview

October 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 70 days remaining.

Events

• 362 - The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
• 1383 - The 1383-1385 Crisis in Portugal: A period of civil war and anarchy began when King Fernando died without a male heir to the Portuguese throne.
• 1575 - Foundation of Aguascalientes.
• 1746 - The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter.
• 1797 - 3,200 feet above Paris, Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump.
• 1836 - Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
• 1844 - Adherents of Millerism recognize this day as "The Great Disappointment". Their leader, William Miller, had told that on Oct. 22 the world would end, and Jesus would come in his second time to earth. Seventh-day Adventists believe that Christ entered into the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary to begin judging the world on that date. His actual coming is thought to be soon due to various signs mentioned in the Bible.
• 1878 - The first rugby match under floodlights took place.
• 1883 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York was opened.
• 1907 - Panic of 1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock sets events in motion that will lead to a depression.
• 1910 - Dr. Crippen was convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and was subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
• 1917 - Bob Fitzsimmons, the only British boxer to have won the world heavyweight title, died.
• 1924 - Toastmasters International was founded.
• 1934 - In East Liverpool, Ohio, notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd is shot and killed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.
• 1943 - Kassel: RAF deliveres severe air raid on the city of 236,000 people, killing 10,000, rendering 150,000 homeless. Second firestorm raid in Germany
• 1953 - Laos gains independence from France.
• 1956 - A concrete girder weighing 200 tons kills 48 in Karachi, Pakistan.
• 1957 - Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy announces that American spy planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.
• 1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he turns down the award.
• 1964 - Canada: A Mult-Party Parliamentary Committee selects a design to become the new official Flag of Canada.
• 1966 - The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A' Go-Go).
• 1968 - Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
• 1968 - Hard rock band Led Zeppelin release the classic album Led Zeppelin II, featuring the hit single "Whole Lotta Love."
• 1972 - Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger andSouth Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu meet to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris. Thieu rejects the proposal and accused the United States of conspiring to undermine his regime
• 1975 - Gays in the military: United States Air Force Technical Sergeant and decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, Leonard Matlovich, is given a general discharge after appearing in his air force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline (printed in all uppercase) "I Am A Homosexual."
• 1976 - Red dye #4 is banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs. The dye is still used in Canada.
• 1981 - The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to decertify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization for its strike the previous August.
• 1986 - US President Ronald Reagan signs the Tax Reform Act of 1986 into law.
• 1989 - Jacob Wetterling is abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
• 1999 - Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, and later chief of the Paris police in 1961 when a large number of Algerian civilians were killed by police after a peaceful demonstration, was jailed for crime against humanity.

Births

• 1071 - William IX, Duke of Aquitaine and vernacular poet
• 1688 - Nadir Shah (d. 1747)
• 1809 - Volney E. Howard, American politician (d. 1889)
• 1811 - Franz Liszt, composer (d. 1886)
• 1844 - Sarah Bernhardt, actress (d. 1923)
• 1844 - Louis Riel, Canadian politician (d. 1885)
• 1870 - Alfred Douglas, partner of Oscar Wilde
• 1887 - John Reed, radical journalist (d. 1920)
• 1903 - Curly Howard, actor, comedian, member of the Three Stooges (d. 1952)
• 1904 - Constance Bennett, actress (d. 1965)
• 1907 - Jimmie Foxx, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1967)
• 1917 - Joan Fontaine, actress
• 1919 - Doris Lessing, British writer
• 1920 - Timothy Leary, writer, drug guru (d. 1996)
• 1922 - Lev Yashin, Soviet football goalkeeper (d. 1990)
• 1925 - Dory Previn, songwriter
• 1936 - Bobby Seale, civil rights activist, member of the Black Panthers
• 1937 - Alan Ladd Jr., film producer
• 1938 - Derek Jacobi, actor
• 1938 - Christopher Lloyd, actor
• 1943 - Jan de Bont, film director
• 1943 - Catherine Deneuve, actress
• 1945 - Leslie West
• 1946 - Kelvin MacKenzie, British media tycoon
• 1949 - Stiv Bators, musician (d. 1990)
• 1949 - Arun Jain, Indian Industrialist
• 1942 - Annette Funicello, actress
• 1953 - Jeff Goldblum, actor
• 1956 - Marvin Pierce Bush
• 1963 - Brian Boitano, figure skating champion
• 1964 - Drazen Petrovic, Basketball Hall of Famer (d. 1993)
• 1965 - John Wesley Harding, musician
• 1967 - Rita Guerra, Portuguese singer
• 1968 - Shaggy, musician
• 1973 - Ichiro Suzuki, Japanese baseball star, American League MVP and Rookie of the Year in 2001

Deaths

• 741 - Charles Martel, victorious general in the Battle of Tours, grandfather of Charlemagne
• 1383 - King Fernando of Portugal
• 1906 - Paul Cezanne, painter
• 1917 - Bob Fitzsimmons, boxing champion
• 1928 - Andrew Fisher, fifth Prime Minister of Australia
• 1934 - Pretty Boy Floyd, gangster
• 1935 - Komitas, Armenian composer
• 1973 - Pau Casals, Catalan virtuoso cellist and conductor
• 1978 - John Riley, poet: murdered near his home in Yorkshire
• 1992 - Cleavon Little, actor
• 1995 - Sir Kingsley Amis, writer
• 1998 - Eric Ambler, novelist
• 2002 - Queen Geraldina of the Albanians

Holidays

• International Stuttering Awareness Day
• International Caps Lock Day
• The Feast of St. Donatus

October 21 - October 23 - November 22 - September 22 - more historical anniversaries