Events for May 22
1455 – Start of the Wars of the Roses: At the First Battle of St Albans, Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England.
2017 – Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
1957 – South Africa's government approves of racial separation in universities.
1840 – The penal transportation of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.
1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.
2010 – Air India Express Flight 812, a Boeing 737 crashes over a cliff upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of 166 people on board, becoming the deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737 until the crash of Lion Air Flight 610.
2013 – Fusilier Lee Rigby is murdered by 2 Islamic extremists in Woolwich, Southeast London
1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.
1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, the only volcano besides Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous U.S. during the 20th century.
1863 – American Civil War: Union forces begin the Siege of Port Hudson which lasts 48 days, the longest siege in U.S. military history.
1816 – A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs, and the riots spread to Ely the next day.
1962 – Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes in Unionville, Missouri after bombs explode on board, killing 45.
1939 – World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
1762 – Trevi Fountain is officially completed and inaugurated in Rome.
2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to utilise a public referendum to legalise gay marriage.
1629 – Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Danish King Christian IV sign the Treaty of Lübeck ending Danish intervention in the Thirty Years' War.
2012 – SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 launches a Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket in the first commercial flight to the International Space Station.
1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign the Treaty of Le Goulet.
1990 – North and South Yemen are unified to create the Republic of Yemen.
1943 – Joseph Stalin disbands the Comintern.
2014 – General Prayut Chan-o-cha becomes interim leader of Thailand in a military coup d'état, following six months of political turmoil.
1915 – Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.
Notable Births & Deaths for May 22
1986 – Julian Edelman, American football player
1992 – Anna Baryshnikov, American actress
1994 – Florian Luger, Austrian male model
1994 – Athena Manoukian, Greek-Armenian singer and songwriter
2011 – Joseph Brooks, American director, producer, screenwriter, and composer (b. 1938)
2004 – Peyton Elizabeth Lee, American actress
1987 – Novak Djokovic, Serbian tennis player
2005 – Charilaos Florakis, Greek politician (b. 1914)
2015 – Vladimir Katriuk, Ukrainian-Canadian SS officer (b. 1921)
1998 – John Derek, American actor, director, and photographer (b. 1926)
1998 – José Enrique Moyal, Israeli physicist and engineer (b. 1910)
1999 – Femke Huijzer, Dutch model
2019 – Judith Kerr, German-born British writer and illustrator (b. 1923)
1998 – Samile Bermannelli, Brazilian fashion model
2010 – Martin Gardner, American mathematician, cryptographer, and author (b. 1914)
2016 – Velimir "Bata" Živojinović, Serbian actor and politician (b. 1933)
1986 – Matt Jarvis, English footballer
1985 – Tao Okamoto, Japanese model and actress
1988 – Heida Reed, Icelandic-British actress
1997 – Lauri Markkanen, Finnish basketball player
1984 – Didier Ya Konan, Ivorian footballer
2006 – Lee Jong-wook, South Korean physician and diplomat (b. 1945)
2017 – Nicky Hayden, American motorcycle racer (b. 1981)
2012 – Wesley A. Brown, American lieutenant and engineer (b. 1927)
2001 – Emma Chamberlain, American internet personality
2004 – Richard Biggs, American actor (b. 1960)
2022 – Dervla Murphy, Irish touring cyclist and author (b. 1931)
1986 – Tatiana Volosozhar, Russian figure skater
2000 – Davie Fulton, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1916)
2015 – Marques Haynes, American basketball player and coach (b. 1926)
1985 – Tranquillo Barnetta, Swiss footballer
1984 – Dustin Moskovitz, American entrepreneur, co-founder of Facebook
1997 – Alfred Hershey, American biochemist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
2007 – Pemba Doma Sherpa, Nepalese mountaineer (b. 1970)
2002 – Anthony Richardson, American football player
2012 – Muzafar Bhutto, Pakistani politician (b. 1970)
1989 – Corey Dickerson, American baseball player
1991 – Suho, South Korean singer and actor
2004 – Mikhail Voronin, Russian gymnast (b. 1945)
2013 – Sigurd Ottovich Schmidt, Russian historian and ethnographer (b. 1922)
1987 – Arturo Vidal, Chilean footballer
1999 – Hōshōryū Tomokatsu, Mongolian sumo wrestler
2005 – Thurl Ravenscroft, American voice actor and singer (b. 1914)
2008 – Robert Asprin, American soldier and author (b. 1946)
2024 – David Wilkie, Scottish swimmer (b. 1954)
2020 – Denise Cronenberg, Canadian costume designer (b. 1938)
Quick Start
Our API is incredibly easy to use, check out the code samples below to get started:
Fetch Historical Events
All you need to do is send a request to https://today.zenquotes.io/api/[month]/[day]/[key] in order to generate a JSON array of historical events, including notable births and deaths. API data pulled from WikiPedia.
*[key] not required but recommended.
Sample Requests
https://today.zenquotes.io/api - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for current server time (UTC).
https://today.zenquotes.io/api/1/1 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for January 1.
https://today.zenquotes.io/api/5/5 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for May 5.
https://today.zenquotes.io/api/12/25 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for December 25.
Response
The result data is formatted as a JSON array, grouped by event type.
{ "info":"OnThisDay API", "date":"April_20", "updated":"1615972324",
"data":{
"Events":[
{
"text":"1303 – The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII.[1]",
"html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1303\" title=\"1303\">1303</a> – The <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapienza_University_of_Rome\" title=\"Sapienza University of Rome\">Sapienza University of Rome</a> is instituted by a <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_bull\" title=\"Papal bull\">bull</a> of <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Boniface_VIII\" title=\"Pope Boniface VIII\">Pope Boniface VIII</a>."
},
//.. MORE DATA ..//
],
"Births":[
{
"text":"1494 – Johannes Agricola, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566)[8]",
"html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1494\" title=\"1494\">1494</a> – <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Agricola\" title=\"Johannes Agricola\">Johannes Agricola</a>, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566)"
},
//.. MORE DATA ..//
],
"Deaths":[
{
"text":"689 – Cædwalla, king of Wessex (b. 659)[21]",
"html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/689\" title=\"689\">689</a> – <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A6dwalla_of_Wessex\" title=\"Cædwalla of Wessex\">Cædwalla</a>, king of <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex\" title=\"Wessex\">Wessex</a> (b. 659)" },
//.. MORE DATA ..//
}
]
} }Usage Limits and Attribution
Requests are restricted to 5 per 30 second period, an API key or registered IP is required for unlimited access and to enable Access-Control-Allow-Origin headers. We require that you show attribution with a link back to https://today.zenquotes.io/ when using the free version of this API. Contact support@zenquotes.io to chat with our friendly dev team and get registered.
Historical event data provided by <a href="https://today.zenquotes.io/" target="_blank">ZenQuotes.io</a>