On this day in history

May 22

29 births · 15 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

571

Wars of the Roses

571 years ago

Born this day

1813

Richard Wagner

Died aged 69

Photo (modified): Franz Hanfstaengl · Public domain

Oldest record

1689th

Constantine the Great

death anniversary

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Famous births29

1772 · 254 yrs

Ram Mohan Roy

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (Bengali pronunciation:; 22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833) was an Indian social reformer and writer who was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a socio-religious reform movement in the Indian subcontinent.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Rembrandt Peale · Public domain

1813 · 213 yrs

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( VAHG-nər; German:; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor, best known for his operas, although his mature works are often referred to as music dramas.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MusicDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): Franz Hanfstaengl · Public domain

1844 · 182 yrs

Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived most of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtDied aged 82

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1859 · 167 yrs

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He is best known for his four novels and fifty-six short stories about the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 71

View profile Photo (modified): Walter Benington · Public domain

1879 · 147 yrs

Symon Petliura

Symon Vasyliovych Petliura (Ukrainian: Симон Васильович Петлюра, Ukrainian pronunciation:; 22 May 1879 – 25 May 1926) was a Ukrainian revolutionary, politician and journalist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 147

View profile Photo (modified): н. · Public domain

1885 · 141 yrs

Yakov Sverdlov

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (3 June 1885 – 16 March 1919) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician.

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PoliticsWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Пётр Адольфович Оцуп (1883-1963) · Public domain

1891 · 135 yrs

Johannes R. Becher

Johannes Robert Becher (pronounced; 22 May 1891 – 11 October 1958) was a German politician, novelist, and poet. He was affiliated with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) before World War II. He was part of the literary avant-garde, writing in an expressionist style.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 135

View profile Photo (modified): Hans-Joachim Koch · CC BY-SA 4.0

1907 · 119 yrs

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier ( ə-LIV-ee-ay; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director. He and his contemporaries John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave and Ralph Richardson made up a quartet of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 119

View profile Photo (modified): Allan warren · CC BY-SA 3.0

1907 · 119 yrs

Hergé

Georges Prosper Remi (French:; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé ( air-ZHAY; French: ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials RG, was a Belgian comic strip artist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 119

View profile Photo (modified): Anonyme, revue italienne Linus, publiée en 1965. · Public domain

1912 · 114 yrs

Herbert C. Brown

Herbert Charles Brown (22 May 1912 – 19 December 2004) was an American chemist and recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work with organoboranes.

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ScienceWould be 114

View profile Photo (modified): Willy Pragher · CC BY 3.0 de

1927 · 99 yrs

George Andrew Olah

George Andrew Olah (born Oláh András György; May 22, 1927 – March 8, 2017) was a Hungarian-American chemist. His research involved the generation and reactivity of carbocations via superacids.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 99

View profile Photo (modified): user:Bitman · CC BY-SA 3.0

1930 · 96 yrs

Harvey Milk

Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in New York.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 96

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Showing 12 of 29

Famous deaths15

AD 337 · 1689 yrs

Constantine the Great

Constantine I (27 February 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 65

View profile Photo (modified): Wilfredor · CC0

1540 · 486 yrs

Francesco Guicciardini

Francesco Guicciardini (Italian:; 6 March 1483 – 22 May 1540) was an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 57

View profile Photo (modified): Cristofano dell'Altissimo · Public domain

1667 · 359 yrs

Alexander VII

Pope Alexander VII (Italian: Alessandro VII; 13 February 1599 – 22 May 1667), born Fabio Chigi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 April 1655 to his death, in May 1667. He began his career as a vice-papal legate, and he held various diplomatic positions in the Holy See.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 68

View profile Photo (modified): Giovanni Battista Gaulli · Public domain

1802 · 224 yrs

Martha Washington

Martha Washington (previously Custis, née Dandridge; June 2, 1731 O.S. – May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, who was a Founding Father and the first president of the United States.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 70

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1826 · 200 yrs

Nikolay Karamzin

Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin (12 December 1766 – 3 June 1826) was a Russian historian, writer, poet and critic. He is best remembered for his fundamental History of the Russian State, a 12-volume national history.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 59

View profile Photo (modified): Vasily Andreevich Tropinin · Public domain

1873 · 153 yrs

Alessandro Manzoni

Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (UK:, US:, Italian:; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian philosopher, poet, playwright, and novelist. He is best known for the novel The Betrothed (Italian: I promessi sposi), generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 88

View profile Photo (modified): Francesco Hayez · Public domain

1885 · 141 yrs

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (French:; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 83

View profile Photo (modified): Étienne Carjat · Public domain

1910 · 116 yrs

Jules Renard

Pierre-Jules Renard (pronounced; 22 February 1864 – 22 May 1910) was a French novelist, playwright, and diarist. He was a member of the Académie Goncourt and is acclaimed for Poil de carotte (Carrot Top, 1894), a bitterly ironical account of his own childhood.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 46

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1935 · 91 yrs

Jane Addams

Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, philosopher, and author. She was a leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): Harris Ewing, publisher · Public domain

1967 · 59 yrs

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. An early innovator of jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 125

View profile Photo (modified): Carl Van Vechten · Public domain

1982 · 44 yrs

Cevdet Sunay

Ahmet Cevdet Sunay (10 February 1899 – 22 May 1982) was a Turkish politician and military officer who served as the president of Turkey from 1966 to 1973.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 127

View profile Photo (modified): F.N. Broers / Anefo · CC0

1983 · 43 yrs

Albert Claude

Albert Claude (French pronunciation:; 24 August 1899 – 22 May 1983) was a Belgian-American cell biologist and medical doctor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Christian de Duve and George Emil Palade.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 128

View profile Photo (modified): Keystone · Public domain

Showing 12 of 15

Events5

1455 · 571 yrs

Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in the following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought for control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

1916 · 110 yrs

Brusilov Offensive

The Brusilov offensive (Russian: Брусиловский прорыв, romanized: Brusilovskiĭ proryv, lit. 'Brusilov's breakthrough') of June to September 1916 was the Russian Empire's greatest feat of arms during World War I and among the most lethal offensives in world history.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2012 · 14 yrs

Eurovision Song Contest 2012

The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of two semi-finals on 22 and 24 May and a final on 26 May 2012, held at the Baku Crystal Hall in Baku, Azerbaijan, and presented by Leyla Aliyeva, Nargiz Birk-Petersen, and Eldar Gasimov.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

2014 · 12 yrs

2014 European Parliament election

The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 22 and 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candidates for President of the Commission.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

2017 · 9 yrs

Manchester Arena bombing

On 22 May 2017, twenty-two people were killed and 1,017 injured in an Islamic terrorist suicide bombing at Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. The attack was perpetrated by Islamic extremist Salman Abedi and aided by his brother, Hashem Abedi, at 22:31 following a concert by the American pop singer Ariana Grande.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

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