Events on February 22 50
Year 1316
Battle of Picotin between Ferdinand of Majorca and the forces of Matilda of Hainaut
Year 1651
St. Peter's Flood: A storm surge floods the Frisian coast, drowning 15,000 people.
Year 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.
Year 1819
By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
Year 1821
Greek War of Independence: Alexander Ypsilantis crosses the Prut river at Sculeni into the Danubian Principalities.
Year 1847
Mexican-American War: The Battle of Buena Vista: Five thousand American troops defeat 15,000 Mexicans troops.
Year 1848
The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins.
Year 1853
Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.
Year 1855
The Pennsylvania State University is founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania).
Year 1856
The United States Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.
Year 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.
Year 1872
The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.
Year 1879
In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.
Year 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.
Year 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.
Year 1909
The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.
Year 1915
World War I: The Imperial German Navy institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.
Year 1921
After Russian forces under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg drive the Chinese out, the Bogd Khan is reinstalled as the emperor of Mongolia.
Year 1924
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio address from the White House.
Year 1942
World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.
Year 1943
World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.
Year 1944
World War II: American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.
Year 1957
Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam survives a communist shooting assassination attempt in Buôn Ma Thuột.
Year 1972
The Official Irish Republican Army detonates a car bomb at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.
Year 1973
Cold War: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.
Year 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.
Year 1980
Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3.
Year 1983
The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
Year 1994
Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.
Year 1995
The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.
Year 1997
In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.
Year 2002
Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.
Year 2005
The 6.4 Mw Zarand earthquake shakes the Kerman Province of Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 612 people dead and 1,411 injured.
Year 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.
Year 2011
New Zealand's second deadliest earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing 185 people.
Year 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.
Year 2012
A train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 51 people and injures 700 others.
Year 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.