Historical Events on May 22

  • 1804: The Corps of Discovery leaves St. Charles, Missour and officially begins the Lewis and Clark Expedition on this day.
  • 1807: Former U.S Vice President Aaron Burr is indicted by a Grand Jury on the charge of Treason.
  • 1816: Riots over the rising cost of grain and high unemployment break out around Littleport in England and spreads to other towns in the following days.
  • 1819: Trying to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, the SS Savannah heads out of the port at Savannah, Georgia.
  • 1826: The HMS Beagle begins its maiden voyage.
  • 1848: In Martinique, slavery is officially abolished.
  • 1849: United States President Abraham Lincoln become the first U.S President to get a patent when he’s granted one for his invention that lifts boats over obstructions and shoals in a river.
  • 1856:S Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts is severely beaten with a cane in the hall of the U.S Senate by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina. Senator Sumner had given a speech about Southerners and slavery and that started the instigation.
  • 1863: A siege on Port Hudson begins on this day. It would last forty-eight days and is the longest siege in United States Military History.
  • 1864: The Red River Campaign undertaken by the Union fails after 10-weeks.
  • 1872: The Amnesty Act is signed into law by U.S President Ulysses S. Grant. This act restores full political and civil right to almost all Confederate sympathizers – except for about five hundred of them.

Famous Birthdays on May 22

  • British writer, Arthur Conan Doyle is born in 1859.
  • English actor and director, Laurence Olivier is born in 1907.
  • American politician and activist, Harvey Milk is born in 1930.
  • American psychiatrist Robert Spitzer is born in 1932.
  • American actress Susan Strasberg is born in 1938.
  • American journalist Bernard Shaw is born in 1940.
  • Irish peace activist and Nobel Prize laureate, Betty Williams is born in 1943.
  • English model Naomi Campbell is born in 1970.
  • American author and screenwriter, Max Brooks is born in 1972.
  • German actress Karoline Herfurth is born in 1984.