February 22

Events

• 705 – Empress Wu Zetian abdicates the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty.
• 1316 – Battle of Picotin between Ferdinand of Majorca and the forces of Matilda of Hainaut.
• 1371 – Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.
• 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.
• 1651 – St. Peter's Flood: A storm surge floods the Frisian coast, drowning 15,000 people.
• 1744 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon causes several Royal Navy captains to be court-martialed, and the Articles of War to be amended.
• 1797 – The last Invasion of Britain begins near Fishguard, Wales.
• 1819 – By the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
• 1821 – Greek War of Independence: Alexander Ypsilantis crosses the Prut river at Sculeni into the Danubian Principalities.
• 1847 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Buena Vista: Five thousand American troops defeat 15,000 Mexican troops.
• 1848 – The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins.
• 1853 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1855 – The Pennsylvania State University is founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania).
• 1856 – The United States Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.
• 1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.
• 1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.
• 1878 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.
• 1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.
• 1899 – Filipino forces led by General Antonio Luna launch counterattacks for the first time against the American forces during the Philippine–American War. The Filipinos fail to regain Manila from the Americans.
• 1904 – The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina; the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.
• 1909 – The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.
• 1915 – World War I: The Imperial German Navy institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.
• 1921 – After Russian forces under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg drive the Chinese out, the Bogd Khan is reinstalled as the emperor of Mongolia.
• 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio address from the White House.
• 1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.
• 1943 – World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.
• 1944 – World War II: American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.
• 1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptures Krivoi Rog.
• 1946 – The "Long Telegram", proposing how the United States should deal with the Soviet Union, arrives from the US embassy in Moscow.^[1]
• 1957 – Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam survives a communist shooting assassination attempt in Buôn Ma Thuột.
• 1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.
• 1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.
• 1972 – The Official Irish Republican Army detonates a car bomb at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.
• 1973 – Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.
• 1974 – The Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit begins in Lahore, Pakistan. Thirty-seven countries attend and twenty-two heads of state and government participate. It also recognizes Bangladesh.
• 1974 – Samuel Byck attempts to hijack an aircraft at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate Richard Nixon, but is killed by police.^[2]
• 1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.
• 1983 – The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
• 1984 – President of Bangladesh, H M Ershad upgraded South Sylhet's sub-division status to a district and renamed it back to Moulvibazar.^[3]
• 1986 – Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
• 1994 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.
• 1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.
• 1997 – In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.
• 2002 – Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.
• 2005 – The 6.4 M_w  Zarand earthquake shakes the Kerman Province of Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 612 people dead and 1,411 injured.
• 2006 – At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
• 2011 – New Zealand's second deadliest earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing 185 people.
• 2011 – Bahraini uprising: Tens of thousands of people march in protest against the deaths of seven victims killed by police and army forces during previous protests.
• 2012 – A train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 51 people and injures 700 others.
• 2014 – President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine is impeached by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a vote of 328–0, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.
• 2015 – A ferry carrying 100 passengers capsizes in the Padma River, killing 70 people.
• 2018 – A man throws a grenade at the U.S embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro. He dies at the scene from a second explosion, with no one else hurt.