The first president of the United States of America, George Washington, was born on this date. The birthday is celebrated as a federal holiday. Looking for fun activities to do on this holiday? Add this list of events to your to-do activities and get to brush your history for the better.
Below are major events of February 22 sure to increase your know-how.
- 1909 – Great White Fleet which was the 1st US fleet to circle the globe, returned to Virginia.
- 1939 – The Netherlands recognized the Franco regime in Spain.
- 1942 – World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapsed.
- 1943 – A plane crash in Portugal killed singer Jane Froman and 23 others.
- 1968 – Rock group Genesis released their 1st record “Silent Sun”.
- 1972 – The IRA planted a bomb at the 16th Parachute Brigade headquarters at Aldershot, Hampshire, that killed 5 women and an army priest.
- 1979 – Billy Martin was named the manager of Oakland A’s.
- 1989 – UK physicist Stephen Hawking called the proposed missile defense system known as Star Wars a “deliberate fraud”.
- 1997 – Sheep Dolly, the world’s first cloned mammal was announced by the Roslin Institute in Scotland.
- 2006 – An armed gang stole £53 million from the Securitas bank depot in Kent.
- 2006 – The South Dakota Senate approved a bill that outlaws nearly all abortions in the state.
- 2006 – Following the Kosovo Unilateral Declaration Of Independence from Serbia, they received strong opposition from Russia.
- 2011 – Karl-Theodor zu Gutenberg, the defense minister of Germany, gave up his doctorate after being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis.
- 2014 – Pope Francis appointed nineteen new cardinals.
- 2014 – Viktor Yanukovych was ousted as President of Ukraine by the parliament.
- 2017 – Jay-Z became the 1st rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
- 2017 – US President Donald Trump overturned Obama’s directive on Transgender rights to use toilets.
- 2018 – Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stirred up controversy by declaring he prefers quinoa to rice, which is the country’s national dish.
- 2021 -US President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris held a candle-lighting ceremony to mark the 500,000 COVID-19 deaths.
- 2021 -Wife of drug cartel boss “El Chapo” Emma Coronel Aispuro was arrested in the US on drug trafficking charges and conspiring to free her husband from prison.