May 22: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1807 - A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.
2. 1819 - The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship arrived at Liverpool, England, on June 20.
3. 1849 - President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, the only patent ever issued to a U.S. President.
4. 1872 - Reconstruction: U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
5. 1906 - The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
6. 1947 - Cold War: in an effort to fight the spread of Communism, the U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs an act into law that will later be called theTruman Doctrine. The act grants $400 million in military and economic aid toTurkey and Greece, each battling an internal Communist movement.
7. 1960 - An earthquake measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, now known as the Great Chilean Earthquake, hits southern Chile. It is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
8. 1964 - The U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the goals of his Great Society social reforms to bring an "end to poverty and racial injustice" in America.
9. 1980 - Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man.
10. 2012 - Tokyo Skytree is opened to public. It is the tallest tower in world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth, after Burj Khalifa(829.8 m).
11. Famous Birthdays: Michel-François Dandré-Bardon (French history painter and etcher), William Sturgeon (English physicist and inventor, invented the Electromagnet and Electric motor), Bodo von Borries (German physicist, co-inventor of the electron microscope), Herbert C. Brown (English-American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate), Michael Green (British physicist and co-pioneer of string theory)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: May 21

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: May 23

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.