February 22nd in History

This Day in History

  • Galileo publishes the book that would get him in trouble for heresy, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems(1632)
  • Spain sells Florida to the US for $5 million, throws in a free set of voting machines (1819)
  • Washington University (1853) and Pennsylvania State University (1855) are founded
  • the Republican Party (1856) and the Prohibition Party (1872) have their first national conventions
  • Jefferson Davis is inaugurated (1862)
  • Frank Woolworth opens a retail store (1879)
  • North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington become US states (1889)
  • the Great White Fleet returns to America (1909)
  • FDR orders MacArthur to leave the Philippines (1942)
  • Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500 (1959)
  • in the Miracle on Ice, the US hockey team defeats the Soviet Union 4-3 in the Lake Placid Winter Olympics (1980)
  • the Securitas depot robbery, the largest cash robbery in British history, yields over £53 million (2006)

Birthdays

  • the irresistably named Ladislaus the Posthumous (1440)
  • Johann Ambrosius Bach (Sebastian’s dad) and his twin Johann Christoph Bach (1645), both musicians
  • father of his country George Washington (1732)
  • portrait painter Rembrandt Peale (1778)
  • philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788)
  • composer Frédéric Chopin (1810)
  • American poets James Russell Lowell (1819) and Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892)
  • frequency namesake Heinrich Hertz (1857)
  • scout leaders Robert (1857) and Olave (1889) Baden-Powell
  • Spanish director Luis Buñuel (1900)
  • TV producers Bud Yorkin (1926) and Big Bang namesake Sheldon Leonard (1907)
  • played a doctor on TV Robert Young (1907)
  • Burn Notice identity and baseball player Charlie Finley and announcer Don Pardo (1918)
  • illustrators Reed Crandall (1917) and Edward Gorey (1925)
  • scion Ted Kennedy (1932)
  • mystery scribe James Patterson (1947)
  • hoops star Julius Erving (1950)
  • Star Trek player Jeri Ryan (1968) and Twin Peaks agent Kyle MacLachlan (1959)
  • actresses Miou-Miou (1950) and Drew Barrymore (1975)

Deaths

  • continental namesake Amerigo Vespucci (1512)
  • Mahatma’s spouse Kasturba Gandhi (1944)
  • supreme judge Felix Frankfurter (1965)
  • supreme singer Florence Ballard (1976)
  • New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno (1968)
  • pop artist Andy Warhol (1987)
  • animation legend Chuck Jones (2002) and his long-time screenwriter Michael Maltese (1981)
  • journalist Daniel Pearl (2002)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Scouting Founder’s Day
  • World Thinking Day
  • Scientology Celebrity Day
  • Santa Lucia Independence Day