Historical Events on Tuesday, 22nd April

22/04/2025

At least 26 people are killed in a terrorist attack on a group of tourists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility for the attack.

The 2025 Pahalgam attack, also referred to as the 2025 Pahalgam massacre, was an Islamist terrorist attack on tourists by at least three armed terrorists near Pahalgam in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed on 22 April 2025. The militants targeted Hindu tourists, though a Christian tourist and a local Muslim pony ride operator were also killed. The attackers, armed with M4 carbines and AK-47s, entered the Baisaran Valley, a famous tourist spot, through the surrounding forests. This incident is considered the deadliest attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

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22/04/2020

Four police officers are killed after being struck by a truck on the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne while speaking to a speeding driver, marking the largest loss of police lives in Victoria Police history.

On 22 April 2020, a truck driver under the influence of drugs, Mohinder Singh, crashed his truck into a Porsche 911 and two police cars on the Eastern Freeway, in the suburb of Kew East, Australia, killing four police officers who were on routine highway patrol. Prior to the incident, the officers had pulled over the Porsche's driver, Richard Pusey, for speeding. After the truck hit the officers, Pusey filmed them for several minutes with vulgar commentary as they lay dying, before fleeing.

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22/04/2016

The Paris Agreement is signed, an agreement to help fight global warming.

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of January 2026, 194 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the three UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States, the second largest emitter, withdrew from the agreement in 2020, rejoined in 2021, and withdrew again in 2026.

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22/04/2005

Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologizes for Japan's war record.

Junichiro Koizumi is a Japanese retired politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2009. He is the sixth-longest serving Prime Minister in Japanese history.

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22/04/1993

Eighteen-year-old Stephen Lawrence is murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall, Eltham.

Stephen Adrian Lawrence was an 18-year-old black British student from Woolwich, southeast London, England who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road in Eltham, on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre; its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.

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22/04/1992

A series of gas explosions rip through the streets in Guadalajara, Mexico, killing 206.

A gas explosion is the ignition of a mixture of air and flammable gas, typically from a gas leak. In household accidents, the principal explosive gases are those used for heating or cooking purposes such as natural gas, methane, propane, butane. In industrial explosions, many other gases, like hydrogen, as well as evaporated (gaseous) gasoline or ethanol play an important role. Industrial gas explosions can be prevented with the use of intrinsic safety barriers to prevent ignition, or use of alternative energy.

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22/04/1977

Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic.

An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communication, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are immune to electromagnetic interference. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, such as fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.

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22/04/1974

Pan Am Flight 812 crashes on approach to Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, killing all 107 people on board.

Pan Am Flight 812, operated by a Pan Am Boeing 707-321B registered N446PA and named Clipper Climax, was a scheduled international flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, California, with intermediate stops at Denpasar, Sydney, Nadi, and Honolulu. On April 22, 1974, the aircraft crashed into rough mountainous terrain while preparing for a runway 09 approach to Denpasar after a 4-hour 20-minute flight from Hong Kong. All 107 people on board perished. The location of the accident was about 42.5 nautical miles northwest of Ngurah Rai International Airport. Until the 1991 Jakarta Indonesian Air Force C-130 crash, it was the deadliest aviation accident to happen on Indonesian soil.

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22/04/1970

The first Earth Day is celebrated.

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.

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Chicano residents in San Diego, California occupy a site under the Coronado Bridge, leading to the creation of Chicano Park.

San Diego is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. It is the eighth-most populous city in the U.S. and second-most populous city in California with a population of over 1.4 million, while the San Diego metropolitan area with over 3.3 million residents is the 18th-largest metropolitan area in the country. San Diego is the county seat of San Diego County. It is known for its mild Mediterranean climate, extensive beaches and parks, long association with the United States Navy, and recent emergence as a wireless, electronics, healthcare, and biotechnology development center.

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22/04/1969

British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston wins the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and completes the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.

Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston CBE RD* is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, he won in 1994 the second Jules Verne Trophy, for which they were also given the ISAF World Sailor of the Year Awards. In 2007, at the age of 67, he set a record as the oldest yachtsman to complete a round the world solo voyage in the Velux 5 Oceans Race.

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The formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) is announced at a mass rally in Calcutta.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI(ML)) was an Indian communist party formed by the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) at a congress in Calcutta in 1969. The foundation of the party was declared by Kanu Sanyal at a mass meeting in Calcutta on 22 April, Vladimir Lenin's birthday. Later the CPI(ML) party splintered into several Naxalite groups.

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22/04/1966

American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D crashes on approach to Ardmore Municipal Airport in Ardmore, Oklahoma, killing 83.

American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D was a flight operated on a U.S. Military Air Command contract from Monterey Regional Airport in California to Columbus Airport in Georgia, via Ardmore Municipal Airport, Oklahoma. On April 22, 1966, while approaching Runway 8 at Ardmore, the aircraft overshot the runway and crashed into a hill, bursting into flames. Eighty-three of the 98 passengers and crew on board died as a result of the accident making it the deadliest to have occurred in Oklahoma.

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22/04/1954

Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings begins.

McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s, heavily associated with the Second Red Scare, also known as the McCarthy era. After the mid-1950s, U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare.

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22/04/1951

Korean War: The Chinese People's Volunteer Army begin assaulting positions defended by the Royal Australian Regiment and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry at the Battle of Kapyong.

The Korean War was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC). The conflict was one of the first major proxy wars of the Cold War and one of its deadliest conflicts on noncombatants, especially civilians. It is estimated that 1.5 to 3 million Korean civilians were killed during the war. The Korean War was the first time the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) authorized the use of military force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

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22/04/1948

Arab–Israeli War: The port city of Haifa is captured by Jewish forces.

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the invasion by a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.

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22/04/1945

World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. Five hundred twenty are killed and around eighty escape.

Jasenovac was a concentration and extermination camp established in the village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. The concentration camp, one of the ten largest in Europe, was established and operated by the governing Ustaše regime, Europe's only Nazi collaborationist regime that operated its own extermination camps, for Serbs, Romani, Jews, and political dissidents. It quickly grew into the third largest concentration camp in Europe.

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World War II: Sachsenhausen concentration camp is liberated by soldiers of the Red Army and Polish First Army.

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners included Joseph Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili; assassin Herschel Grynszpan; Paul Reynaud, the penultimate prime minister of the French Third Republic; Francisco Largo Caballero, prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War; the wife and children of the crown prince of Bavaria; Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera; and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents.

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22/04/1944

The 1st Air Commando Group using Sikorsky R-4 helicopters stage the first use of helicopters in combat with combat search and rescue operations in the China Burma India Theater.

The 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida is one of three United States Air Force active duty Special Operations wings and falls under the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).

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World War II: Operation Persecution is initiated: Allied forces land in the Hollandia (currently known as Jayapura) area of New Guinea.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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World War II: In Greenland, the Allied Sledge Patrol attack the German Bassgeiger weather station.

The fall of Denmark in April 1940 left the Danish colony of Greenland an unoccupied territory of an occupied nation, under the possibility of seizure by the United Kingdom, United States or Canada, a Dominion of the British Empire.

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22/04/1930

The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.

The London Naval Treaty, officially the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, was an agreement between the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States that was signed on 22 April 1930. Seeking to address issues not covered in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which had created tonnage limits for each nation's surface warships, the new agreement regulated submarine warfare, further controlled cruisers and destroyers, and limited naval shipbuilding.

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22/04/1915

World War I: The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

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22/04/1906

The 1906 Intercalated Games open in Athens.

The 1906 Intercalated Games or 1906 Olympic Games, held from 22 April 1906 to 2 May 1906, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated in Athens, Greece. It was at the time considered to be an Olympic Games, and was referred to as the "Second International Olympic Games in Athens" by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, the medals that were distributed to the participants during these Games were later not officially recognised by the IOC and are not displayed with the collection of Olympic medals at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

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22/04/1898

Spanish–American War: President William McKinley calls for 125,000 volunteers to join the National Guard and fight in Cuba, while Congress more than doubles regular Army forces to 65,000.

The Spanish–American War was fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. It began with the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, and resulted in the U.S. acquiring sovereignty over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, and establishing a protectorate over Cuba. It represented U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence and Philippine Revolution, with the latter later leading to the Philippine–American War. The Spanish–American War brought an end to almost four centuries of Spanish presence in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific; the United States meanwhile not only became a major world power, but also gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which provoked rancorous debate over the wisdom of expansionism.

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22/04/1889

At noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Rush of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.

The Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of the former western portion of the federal Indian Territory, which had decades earlier since the 1830s been assigned to the Creek and Seminole native peoples. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of the Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma. The land run started at high noon on April 22, 1889. An estimated 50,000 people were lined up at the start, seeking to gain a piece of the available two million acres (8,100 km2).

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22/04/1876

The first National League baseball game is played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia.

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) of 1871–1875, the NL is sometimes called the Senior Circuit, in contrast to MLB's other league, the American League, which was founded 25 years later and is called the "Junior Circuit". Each league has 15 teams.

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22/04/1864

The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that permitted the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

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22/04/1836

Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston identify Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna among the captives of the battle when some of his fellow soldiers mistakenly give away his identity.

The Texas Revolution was a rebellion by Anglo-American immigrants as well as Hispanic Texans against the centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. The uprising was part of a larger revolt against the Centralist Republic of Mexico that included other provinces opposed to the regime of President Antonio López de Santa Anna. The Mexican Congress passed the Tornel Decree, declaring that any foreigners fighting against Mexican troops "will be deemed pirates and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag". Only the province of Texas succeeded in breaking with Mexico, establishing the Republic of Texas. It was eventually annexed by the United States about a decade later.

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22/04/1809

The second day of the Battle of Eckmühl: The Austrian army is defeated by the First French Empire army led by Napoleon and driven over the Danube in Regensburg.

The Battle of Eckmühl fought on 21–22 April 1809, was the turning point of the 1809 Campaign, also known as the War of the Fifth Coalition. Napoleon I had been unprepared for the start of hostilities on 10 April 1809, by the Austrians under Archduke Charles of Austria, and for the first time since assuming the French Imperial Crown had been forced to give up the strategic initiative to an opponent. Thanks to the dogged defense waged by the III Corps, commanded by Marshal Davout, and the Bavarian VII Corps, commanded by Marshal Lefebvre, Napoleon was able to defeat the principal Austrian army and wrest the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war.

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22/04/1529

Treaty of Zaragoza divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues (1,250 kilometres (780 mi)) east of the Moluccas.

The Treaty of Zaragoza or Saragossa, also called the Capitulation of Zaragoza or Saragossa, was a peace treaty between Castile and Portugal, signed on 22 April 1529 by King John III of Portugal and the Habsburg Emperor Charles V in the Aragonese city of Zaragoza. The treaty defined the areas of Castilian and Portuguese influence in Asia in order to resolve the "Moluccas issue", which had arisen because both kingdoms claimed the lucrative Spice Islands for themselves, asserting that they were within their area of influence as specified in 1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The conflict began in 1520, when expeditions from both kingdoms reached the Pacific Ocean, because no agreed meridian of longitude had been established in the far east.

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22/04/1519

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico.

Conquistadors or conquistadores were Spanish and Portuguese conquerors who explored, traded with, and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania during the Age of Discovery. Sailing beyond the Iberian Peninsula, they established numerous colonies and trade routes, and brought much of the New World under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.

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22/04/1500

Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral lands in Brazil (discovery of Brazil).

Pedro Álvares Cabral was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human in history to ever be on four continents, uniting all of them in his famous voyage of 1500, where he also conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. While details of Cabral's early life remain unclear, it is known that he came from a minor noble family and received a good education. He was appointed to head an expedition to India in 1500, following Vasco da Gama's newly opened route around Africa. The undertaking had the aim of returning with valuable spices and of establishing trade relations in India—bypassing the monopoly on the spice trade then in the hands of Arab, Turkish and Italian merchants. Although the previous expedition of Vasco da Gama to India, on its sea route, had recorded signs of land west of the southern Atlantic Ocean, Cabral led the first known expedition to have touched four continents: Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia.

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