April 22
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Featured Event
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
On this day in 1876, the Boston Red Caps defeated the Philadelphia Athletics in the first National League baseball game. At the time, the game was just another game, not least because the National League was just another entity trying to bring order to professional baseball during its disorderly early days. But the National League endured, and by 1903 its champion was facing off against the American League champion in the event we know today as the World Series. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, who died this day in Madrid in 1616, has long been regarded as one of the most important figures in Spanish literature, largely for his novel Don Quixote, a classic of Western literature.
Famous Birthdays
More on April 22
© Nasir Kachroo—NurPhoto/Getty Images
2025
Gunmen opened fire on tourists near the resort town of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir, killing 26 people. The Indian government linked the attack to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the incident escalated tensions between India and Pakistan, with India suspending the Indus Waters Treaty.
© Elyxandro Cegarra—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
2016
More than 170 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, a landmark treaty that sought to control and reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere; it took effect in November 2016. [What’s the difference between global warming and climate change?]
U.S. Army
2004
American football player Pat Tillman, who had left his lucrative NFL career to enlist in the army following the September 11 attacks, died in Afghanistan. Although initial reports claimed he was killed by enemy forces, it was eventually revealed that he had died in a friendly-fire incident.
© Gianni Ferrari—Cover/Getty Images
1994
Former U.S. president Richard M. Nixon, who was the first American president to resign from office, died. [Take our U.S. presidents quiz.]
dpa dena/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
1983
The German magazine Stern created a sensation when it announced the discovery of the Hitler Diaries, 60 volumes of journals reportedly written by Adolf Hitler. They were, however, quickly determined to be forgeries.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1970
Earth Day was first celebrated in the United States. An estimated 20 million people participated, making it the largest single-day protest in American history, and it quickly became an international event.
© Long Road Productions; photograph from a private collection
1937
Jack Nicholson—one of the most prominent motion-picture actors of his generation, especially noted for his versatile portrayals of unconventional, alienated outsiders—was born in Neptune, New Jersey. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about movie actors.]
© Photo12—Universal Images Group/Getty Images
1915
During World War I, German forces introduced the systematized use of chemical warfare when they released chlorine gas along a 4-mile (6-km) front at the Second Battle of Ypres. [Explore a timeline of World War I.]
Courtesy of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico
1904
Theoretical physicist and science administrator J. Robert Oppenheimer, who served as director of the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico during development of the atomic bomb, was born in New York. [Watch U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1889
At noon, by federal decree, white settlers were allowed into what was called Indian Territory, sparking a land rush involving tens of thousands in what became Oklahoma Territory. [Test your knowledge of U.S. history.]
Tass/Sovfoto
1870
Vladimir Lenin—who inspired and led the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and was the architect, builder, and first ruler of the Soviet state—was born in Simbirsk, Russia. [Sort fact from fiction in our Russia quiz.]
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1864
The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864, which led to “In God We Trust” appearing on U.S. coins. (The phrase was added to all of the country’s currency after it was made the official motto of the United States in 1956.) [Take our quiz about the history of currency.]
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1724
Immanuel Kant, whose work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). [Take our Philosophy 101 quiz.]
Album/Alamy
1500
Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, while on a voyage tracing Vasco da Gama’s 1497–99 water route to India, sighted the mainland of South America near the present-day city of Pôrto Seguro, Brazil. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about European exploration.]
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1370
Construction began on the Bastille, the medieval fortress turned state prison that, centuries later, came to symbolize French despotism. It was attacked in 1789 during the early days of the French Revolution and later torn down. [Test your knowledge of French history.]
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1073
Gregory VII was elected by acclamation to succeed Alexander II as pope. [How much do you know about popes?]