Events on May 22 66
Year 1246
Henry Raspe is elected anti-king of the Kingdom of Germany, in opposition to Conrad IV.
Year 1370
The Brussels massacre: Several Jews are murdered and the rest of the Jewish community is banished from Brussels.
Year 1377
Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe.
Year 1455
Start of the Wars of the Roses: At the First Battle of St Albans, Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England.
Year 1629
Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Danish King Christian IV sign the Treaty of Lübeck to end the Danish intervention in the Thirty Years' War.
Year 1762
Trevi Fountain in Rome is officially completed and inaugurated by Pope Clement XIII.
Year 1804
The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.
Year 1807
A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.
Year 1809
On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna, Austria), Napoleon I is repelled by an enemy army for the first time.
Year 1816
A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs, which spreads to Ely the next day.
Year 1819
The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Year 1840
The transportation of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.
Year 1849
Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.
Year 1856
Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery.
Year 1863
American Civil War: Union forces begin the Siege of Port Hudson which lasts 48 days, the longest siege in U.S. military history.
Year 1864
American Civil War: After ten weeks, the Union Army's Red River Campaign ends in failure.
Year 1872
Reconstruction Era: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
Year 1900
The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative.
Year 1906
The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
Year 1915
Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, the only volcano other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous U.S. during the 20th century.
Year 1915
Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.
Year 1927
Near Xining, China, a 8.3 quake causes 200,000 deaths in one of the world's most destructive earthquakes.
Year 1957
South Africa's government approves racial separation in universities.
Year 1958
The 1958 riots in Ceylon become a watershed in the race relationship of various ethnic communities of Sri Lanka. The total deaths is estimated at 300, mostly Tamils.
Year 1960
The Great Chilean earthquake, measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, hits southern Chile. It is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
Year 1963
Greek left-wing politician Grigoris Lambrakis is shot in an assassination attempt and dies five days later.
Year 1967
The L'Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium, burns down, resulting in 323 dead or missing and 150 injured, the most devastating fire in Belgian history.
Year 1968
The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
Year 1969
Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.
Year 1972
Ceylon adopts a new constitution, becoming a Republic, changes its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.
Year 1972
Over 400 women in Derry, Northern Ireland attack the offices of Sinn Féin following the shooting by the Irish Republican Army of a young British soldier on leave.
Year 1987
First ever Rugby World Cup kicks off with New Zealand playing Italy at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand.
Year 1994
A worldwide trade embargo goes into effect against Haiti to punish its military rulers for not reinstating the country's ousted elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Year 1996
The Burmese military regime jails 71 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in a bid to block a pro-democracy meeting.
Year 1998
A U.S. federal judge rules that U.S. Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton.
Year 2000
In Sri Lanka, over 150 Tamil rebels are killed over two days of fighting for control in Jaffna.
Year 2002
Civil Rights Movement: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
Year 2010
An Air India Express Boeing 737 goes over a cliff and crashes upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. It is the worst crash involving a Boeing 737.
Year 2011
An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 162 people and wreaking $2.8 billion in damage—the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.
Year 2012
Tokyo Skytree opens to the public. It is the tallest tower in the world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth, after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m).
Year 2014
General Prayut Chan-o-cha becomes interim leader of Thailand in a military coup d'état, following six months of political turmoil.
Year 2014
An explosion occurs in Ürümqi, the capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region, resulting in at least 43 deaths and 91 injuries.
Year 2015
The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.
Year 2017
22 people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.