April 22 in History

Basil II Porphyrogenitus (Greek: Βασίλειος Πορφυρογέννητος, romanized: Basíleios Porphyrogénnētos; 958 – 15 December 1025), given the epithet The Bulgar-Slayer, was the senior Byzantine emperor from 976 to 1025. He and his brother Constantine VIII were crowned before their father Romanos II died in 963, but they were too young to rule. The throne thus went to two generals, Nikephoros Phokas (r. 963–969) and John Tzimiskes (r. 969–976) before Basil became senior emperor, though his influential great-uncle Basil Lekapenos remained as the de facto ruler until 985. His reign of 49 years and 11 months was the longest of any Roman emperor. The early years of Basil's reign were dominated by civil wars against two powerful generals from the Byzantine Anatolian aristocracy: first Bardas Skleros and later Bardas Phokas, which ended shortly after Phokas' death and Skleros' submission in 989. Basil then oversaw the stabilization and expansion of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire and the complete subjugation of the First Bulgarian Empire, its foremost European foe, after a long struggle. Although the Byzantines had made a truce with the Fatimid Caliphate in 987–988, Basil led a campaign against the Caliphate that ended with another truce in 1000. He also conducted a campaign against the Khazar Khaganate that gained the Byzantine Empire part of Crimea and led a series of successful campaigns against the Kingdom of Georgia. Despite near-constant warfare, Basil distinguished himself as a capable ruler, reducing the power of the great land-owning families who dominated the administration and military, filling its treasury, and leaving the Empire at its greatest territorial extent in four centuries. Although his successors were largely incompetent, the Empire flourished for decades after Basil's death. One of the most important decisions taken during his reign was to offer the hand of his sister Anna Porphyrogenita to Vladimir I of Kiev in exchange for military support, thus forming the Byzantine military unit known as the Varangian Guard. The marriage of Anna and Vladimir led to the Christianization of the Kievan Rus' and the incorporation of later successor states of Kievan Rus' within the Byzantine cultural and religious tradition. Basil is seen as a Greek national hero but is a despised figure among Bulgarians.

Pope Gregory VII (Latin: Gregorius VII; c. 1015 – 25 May 1085), born Hildebrand of Sovana (Italian: Ildebrando di Soana), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 April 1073 to his death in 1085. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. One of the great reforming popes, he initiated the Gregorian Reform, and is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Emperor Henry IV to establish the primacy of papal authority and the new canon law governing the election of the pope by the College of Cardinals. He was also at the forefront of developments in the relationship between the Holy Roman Emperor and the papacy in the years preceding his election as pope. He was the first pope to introduce a policy of obligatory celibacy for the clergy, which had until then commonly married, and also attacked the practice of simony. During the power struggles between the papacy and the Empire, Gregory excommunicated Henry IV three times, and Henry appointed Antipope Clement III to oppose him. Although Gregory was hailed as one of the greatest of the Roman pontiffs after his reforms proved successful, during his own reign, he was denounced by some for his autocratic exercise of papal power. In later times, Gregory VII became an exemplar of papal supremacy to both supporters and opponents of the papacy. Beno of Santi Martino e Silvestro, who opposed Gregory VII in the Investiture Controversy, accused him of necromancy, cruelty, tyranny, and blasphemy. This was eagerly repeated by later opponents of the Catholic Church, such as the English Protestant John Foxe. In contrast, the modern historian and Anglican priest H. E. J. Cowdrey writes, "[Gregory VII] was surprisingly flexible, feeling his way and therefore perplexing both rigorous collaborators ... and cautious and steady-minded ones ... His zeal, moral force, and religious conviction, however, ensured that he should retain to a remarkable degree the loyalty and service of a wide variety of men and women."

Pedro Álvares Cabral (European Portuguese: [ˈpeðɾu ˈalvɐɾɨʃ kɐˈβɾal], Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈpedɾu ˈawvɐɾɨʃ, ˈawvɐɾɨs kɐˈbɾal]; born Pedro Álvares de Gouveia; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese nobleman, colonizer, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. He was the first human in history to ever be on four continents, uniting all of them in his famous voyage of 1500, where he also conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. While details of Cabral's early life remain unclear, it is known that he came from a minor noble family and received a good education. He was appointed to head an expedition to India in 1500, following Vasco da Gama's newly opened route around Africa. The undertaking had the aim of returning with valuable spices and of establishing trade relations in India—bypassing the monopoly on the spice trade then in the hands of Arab, Turkish and Italian merchants. Although the previous expedition of Vasco da Gama to India, on its sea route, had recorded signs of land west of the southern Atlantic Ocean (in 1497), Cabral led the first known expedition to have touched four continents: Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia. His fleet of 13 ships sailed far into the western Atlantic Ocean, perhaps intentionally, and made landfall (April 1500) on what he initially assumed to be a large island. As the new land was within the Portuguese sphere according to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, Cabral claimed it for the Portuguese Crown. He explored the coast, realizing that the large land mass was probably a continent, and dispatched a ship to notify King Manuel I of the new territory. The continent was South America, and the land he had claimed for Portugal later came to be known as Brazil. The fleet reprovisioned and then turned eastward to resume the journey to India. A storm in the southern Atlantic caused the loss of several ships, and the six remaining ships eventually rendezvoused in the Mozambique Channel before proceeding to Calicut in India. Cabral was originally successful in negotiating trading rights, but Arab merchants saw Portugal's venture as a threat to their monopoly and stirred up an attack by both Muslims and Hindus on the Portuguese entrepôt. The Portuguese sustained many casualties and their facilities were destroyed. Cabral took vengeance by looting and burning the Arab fleet and then bombarded the city in retaliation for its ruler having failed to explain the unexpected attack. From Calicut the expedition sailed to the Kingdom of Cochin, another Indian city-state, where Cabral befriended its ruler and loaded his ships with coveted spices before returning to Europe. Despite the loss of human lives and ships, Cabral's voyage was deemed a success upon his return to Portugal. The extraordinary profits resulting from the sale of the spices bolstered the Portuguese Crown's finances and helped lay the foundation of a Portuguese Empire that would stretch from the Americas to the Far East. Cabral was later passed over, possibly as a result of a quarrel with Manuel I, when a new fleet was assembled to establish a more robust presence in India. Having lost favor with the King, he retired to a private life of which few records survive. His accomplishments slipped mostly into obscurity for more than 300 years. Decades after Brazil's independence from Portugal in the 19th century, Cabral's reputation began to be rehabilitated by Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. Historians have long argued whether Cabral was Brazil's discoverer, and whether the discovery was accidental or intentional. The first question has been settled by the observation that the few, cursory encounters by explorers before him were barely noticed at the time and contributed nothing to the future development and history of the land which would become Brazil, the sole Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. On the second question, no definite consensus has been formed, and the intentional discovery hypothesis lacks solid proof. Nevertheless, although he was overshadowed by contemporary explorers, historians consider Cabral to be a major figure of the Age of Discovery.

Conquistadors or conquistadores were Spanish and Portuguese colonists who explored, traded with, and conquered many parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania during the Age of Discovery. Sailing beyond the Iberian Peninsula, they established numerous colonies and trade routes, and brought much of the New World under the dominion of Spain and Portugal.

The Treaty of Zaragoza or Saragossa, also called the Capitulation of Zaragoza or Saragossa, was a peace treaty between Castile and Portugal, signed on 22 April 1529 by King John III of Portugal and the Habsburg Emperor Charles V in the Aragonese city of Zaragoza. The treaty defined the areas of Castilian and Portuguese influence in Asia in order to resolve the "Moluccas issue", which had arisen because both kingdoms claimed the lucrative Spice Islands (now Indonesia's Malukus) for themselves, asserting that they were within their area of influence as specified in 1494 by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The conflict began in 1520, when expeditions from both kingdoms reached the Pacific Ocean, because no agreed meridian of longitude had been established in the far east.

The Battle of Eckmühl fought on 21–22 April 1809, was the turning point of the 1809 Campaign, also known as the War of the Fifth Coalition. Napoleon I had been unprepared for the start of hostilities on 10 April 1809, by the Austrians under Archduke Charles of Austria, and for the first time since assuming the French Imperial Crown had been forced to give up the strategic initiative to an opponent. Thanks to the dogged defense waged by the III Corps, commanded by Marshal Davout, and the Bavarian VII Corps, commanded by Marshal Lefebvre, Napoleon was able to defeat the principal Austrian army and wrest the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war.

The Texas Revolution (October 2, 1835 – April 21, 1836) was a rebellion by Anglo-American immigrants as well as Hispanic Texans (known as Texians and Tejanos respectively) against the centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although the uprising was part of a larger revolt that included other provinces opposed to the regime of President Miguel Barragán and General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican government believed the United States had instigated the Texas insurrection with the goal of annexation. The Mexican Congress passed the Tornel Decree, declaring that any foreigners fighting against Mexican troops "will be deemed pirates and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag". Only the province of Texas succeeded in breaking with Mexico, establishing the Republic of Texas. It was eventually annexed by the United States about a decade later. The revolution began in October 1835, after a decade of political and cultural clashes between the Mexican government and the large and growing population of Anglo-American settlers in Texas. The Mexican government had become increasingly centralized, stripping Texas of its autonomy. The rights of its citizens had become further curtailed in turn, particularly regarding immigration from the United States, and the holding of slaves as property. Mexico had officially abolished slavery in 1829, but had made an exemption for Texas, however this exemption was not constitutionalized, which made many slave owners in Texas still feel unsatisfied. Although slavery is not mentioned explicitly in the Texas Declaration of Independence, the ownership of human beings in bondage as property was of great importance to many of the settlers. Texians and Tejanos disagreed on whether the ultimate goal was independence or a return to the Mexican Constitution of 1824. While delegates at the Consultation (provisional government) debated the war's motives, Texians and a flood of volunteers from the United States defeated the small garrisons of Mexican soldiers by mid-December 1835. The Consultation declined to declare independence and installed an interim government, whose infighting led to political paralysis and a dearth of effective governance in Texas. An ill-conceived proposal to invade Matamoros siphoned much-needed volunteers and provisions from the fledgling Texian Army. In March 1836, a second political convention declared independence and appointed leadership for the new Republic of Texas. Determined to avenge Mexico's honor, Santa Anna vowed to personally retake Texas. His Army of Operations entered Texas in mid-February 1836 and found the Texians completely unprepared. Mexican general José de Urrea led a contingent of troops on the Goliad Campaign up the Texas coast, defeating all Texian troops in his path and executing most of those who surrendered. Santa Anna led a larger force to San Antonio de Béxar (or Béxar), where his troops defeated the Texian garrison in the Battle of the Alamo, killing almost all of the defenders. A newly created Texian army under the command of Sam Houston was constantly on the move, while terrified civilians fled with the army, in a melee known as the Runaway Scrape. On March 31, Houston paused his men at Groce's Landing on the Brazos River, and for the next two weeks, the Texians received rigorous military training. Becoming complacent and underestimating the strength of his foes, Santa Anna further subdivided his troops. On April 21, Houston's army staged a surprise assault on Santa Anna and his vanguard force at the Battle of San Jacinto. The Mexican troops were quickly routed, and vengeful Texians executed many who tried to surrender. Santa Anna was taken hostage; in exchange for his life, he ordered the Mexican army to retreat south of the Rio Grande. The Texians forced Santa Anna to sign the Treaty of Velasco, which gave Texas its independence. However, Mexico refused to recognize the Republic of Texas, and intermittent conflicts between the two countries continued into the 1840s. The annexation of Texas as the 28th state of the United States in 1845 led directly to the Mexican–American War.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) of 1871–1875 (often called simply the "National Association"), the NL is sometimes called the Senior Circuit, in contrast to MLB's other league, the American League, which was founded 25 years later and is called the "Junior Circuit". Each league has 15 teams. The National League survived competition from various other professional baseball leagues during the late 19th century. Most did not last for more than a few seasons, with a handful of teams joining the NL once their leagues folded. The American League declared itself a second major league in 1901, and the AL and NL engaged in a "baseball war" during 1901 and 1902 before agreeing to a "peace pact" that recognized each other as legitimate "major leagues". As part of this agreement, the leagues agreed to respect player contracts, establish rules about relationships with minor league clubs, and allow their champions to meet in a "World Series" to decide the overall professional baseball championship. National League teams have won 53 of the 121 World Series championships contested from 1903 to 2025. For decades, Major League baseball clubs only played teams from their own league during the regular season and most of the playoffs, with only their champions facing off in the World Series. This separation gradually caused the leagues to develop slightly different strategies and styles of play. The National League was long considered the more "traditional" league, a reputation most exemplified by the NL's more prevalent use of "smallball" tactics and lack of a designated hitter rule, which the AL implemented in 1973. However, with the advent of free agency in the 1970s allowing for more player movement between leagues, and the introduction of regular season interleague play in 1997, the difference in play between the two major leagues has diminished considerably. The NL's adoption of the designated hitter rule in 2022, and the expansion of interleague play to 46 games beginning in 2023, has further blurred the lines between leagues. Though both leagues agreed to be jointly governed by a commissioner in 1920; they remained separate legal and business entities with their own president and management. This was the case until after the 1999 season, when the National League legally merged with the American League under the auspices of Major League Baseball, which has since operated much like other North American professional sports leagues, albeit with two "leagues" instead of "conferences".

The Land Rush of 1889 was the first land run into the Unassigned Lands of the former western portion of the federal Indian Territory, which had decades earlier since the 1830s been assigned to the Creek and Seminole native peoples. The area that was opened to settlement included all or part of the Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties of the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma. The land run started at high noon (12:00 pm) on April 22, 1889. An estimated 50,000 people were lined up at the start, seeking to gain a piece of the available two million acres (8,100 km2). The Unassigned Lands were considered some of the best unoccupied public land in the United States. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1889 was passed and signed into law with an amendment by congressman William McKendree Springer that authorized 23rd president Benjamin Harrison to open the two million acres (8,100 km2) of the western portion of the remaining Indian Territory (established in 1834 with a much greater allotment set aside for the southeastern native tribes of extensive lands of the previous Louisiana Purchase of 1803, west of the Mississippi River), during the administration of 7th president Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, served 1829-1837). The additional land opening being authorized by Congress also included the adjacent western Unassigned Lands for settlement. A quarter-century earlier, the 16th president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, served 1861-1865), had earlier signed the famous Homestead Act of 1862 during the American Civil War which allowed settlers to claim lots of up to 160 acres (0.65 km2), provided that they lived on the land and improved it for several years.

The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898) was fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. It began with the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, and resulted in the U.S. acquiring sovereignty over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, and establishing a protectorate over Cuba. It represented U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence and Philippine Revolution, with the latter later leading to the Philippine–American War. The Spanish–American War brought an end to almost four centuries of Spanish presence in the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific; the United States meanwhile not only became a major world power, but also gained several island possessions spanning the globe, which provoked rancorous debate over the wisdom of expansionism. The 19th century represented a clear decline for the Spanish Empire, while the United States went from a newly founded country to a rising power. In 1895, Cuban nationalists began a revolt against Spanish rule, which was brutally suppressed by the colonial authorities. W. Joseph Campbell argues that yellow journalism in the U.S. exaggerated the atrocities in Cuba to sell more newspapers and magazines, which swayed American public opinion in support of the rebels. But historian Andrea Pitzer also points to the actual shift toward savagery of the Spanish military leadership, who adopted the brutal reconcentration policy after replacing the relatively conservative Governor-General of Cuba Arsenio Martínez Campos with the more unscrupulous and aggressive Valeriano Weyler, nicknamed "The Butcher." President Grover Cleveland resisted mounting demands for U.S. intervention, as did his successor William McKinley. Though not seeking a war, McKinley made preparations in readiness for one. In January 1898, the U.S. Navy armored cruiser USS Maine was sent to Havana to provide protection for U.S. citizens. After the Maine was sunk by a mysterious explosion in the harbor on February 15, 1898, political pressures pushed McKinley to receive congressional authority to use military force. On April 21, the U.S. began a blockade of Cuba, and soon after Spain and the U.S. declared war. The war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, where American war advocates correctly anticipated that U.S. naval power would prove decisive. On May 1, a squadron of U.S. warships destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines and captured the harbor. The first U.S. forces landed in Cuba on June 10 in the island's southeast, moving west and engaging in the Battles of El Caney and San Juan Hill on July 1 and then destroying the Spanish fleet and capturing Santiago de Cuba on July 17. On June 20, the island of Guam surrendered without resistance, and on July 25, U.S. troops landed on Puerto Rico, of which a blockade had begun on May 8 and where fighting continued until an armistice was signed on August 13. The war formally ended with the 1898 Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10 with terms favorable to the U.S. The treaty ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the U.S., and set Cuba up to become an independent state in 1902, although in practice it became a U.S. protectorate. The cession of the Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($640 million in 2024) to Spain by the U.S. to cover infrastructure owned by Spain. In Spain, the defeat in the war was a profound shock to the national psyche and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic reevaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98.

The 1906 Intercalated Games or 1906 Olympic Games (Greek: Μεσολυμπιάδα, romanized: Mesolympiada, lit. 'Mesolympics'), held from 22 April 1906 to 2 May 1906, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated in Athens, Greece. It was at the time considered to be part of the series of the Olympic Games, and was referred to as the "Second International Olympic Games in Athens" by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, the medals distributed to participants during these Games were later stripped of official recognition when, in 1949, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to no longer recognize the 1906 Games, and as a result they are not displayed with the collection of Olympic medals at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The 1906 Games is noted for its influence on the Olympic tradition and the records broken during these Games are recorded in history, but are no longer considered part of the Olympic records. 894 athletes from 20 nations competed in this competition. The idea behind the Intercalated Games was to have an Olympics in Greece every four years, but this would be the first and last. The idea was not pursued further, and is sometimes termed the "forgotten Games" in the context of the Olympics. The next Olympic Games was the 1908 Summer Olympics in London; the next time the Olympic Games returned to Greece was 98 years later in 2004, also in Athens.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I caused 15 to 22 million deaths, including those resulting from war crimes and genocides. The war also contributed to the spread of the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The fall of Denmark in April 1940 left the Danish colony of Greenland an unoccupied territory of an occupied nation, under the possibility of seizure by the United Kingdom, United States or Canada, a Dominion of the British Empire.

The Landing at Aitape (code-named Operation Persecution) was a battle of the Western New Guinea campaign of World War II. American and Allied forces undertook an amphibious landing on 22 April 1944 at Aitape on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The amphibious landing was undertaken simultaneously with the landings at Humboldt and Tanahmerah Bays to secure Hollandia to isolate the Japanese 18th Army at Wewak. Operations in the area to consolidate the landing continued until 4 May, although US and Japanese forces fought further actions in western New Guinea following a Japanese counter-offensive that lasted until early August 1944. Aitape was subsequently developed into an Allied base of operations and was used by Australian forces throughout late 1944 and into 1945 during the Aitape–Wewak campaign.

Jasenovac (pronounced [jasěnovats]) was a concentration and extermination camp established in the village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. The concentration camp, one of the ten largest in Europe, was established and operated by the governing Ustaše regime, Europe's only Nazi collaborationist regime that operated its own extermination camps, for Serbs, Romani, Jews, and political dissidents. It quickly grew into the third largest concentration camp in Europe. The camp was established in August 1941, in marshland at the confluence of the Sava and Una rivers near the village of Jasenovac, and was dismantled in April 1945. It was "notorious for its barbaric practices and the large number of victims". Unlike German Nazi-run camps, Jasenovac lacked the infrastructure for mass murder on an industrial scale, such as gas chambers. Instead, it "specialized in one-on-one violence of a particularly brutal kind", and prisoners were primarily murdered with the use of knives, hammers, and axes, or shot. In Jasenovac, the majority of victims were Serbs (as part of the genocide of the Serbs); others were Romani (the Porajmos), Jews (The Holocaust), and socialists. Jasenovac was a complex of five subcamps spread over 210 km2 (81 sq mi) on both banks of the Sava and Una rivers. The largest camp was the "Brickworks" camp at Jasenovac, about 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Zagreb. The overall complex included the Stara Gradiška sub-camp, the killing grounds across the Sava river at Gradina Donja, five work farms, and the Uštica Roma camp. There has been much debate and controversy regarding the number of victims killed at the Jasenovac concentration camp complex during its more than three-and-a-half years of operation. Over the last few decades, a consensus has formed in support of estimates of the Ustaše regime having murdered somewhere near 100,000 people in Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945.

Sachsenhausen (German pronunciation: [zaksn̩ˈhaʊzn̩] ) or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners included Joseph Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili; assassin Herschel Grynszpan; Paul Reynaud, the penultimate prime minister of the French Third Republic; Francisco Largo Caballero, prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War; the wife and children of the crown prince of Bavaria; Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera; and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents. Sachsenhausen was a labour camp, outfitted with several subcamps, a gas chamber, and a medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated inhumanely, fed inadequately, and killed openly. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used by the NKVD as special camp Nr. 7. Today, Sachsenhausen is open to the public as a memorial.

The 1948 Arab–Israeli War (15 May 1948 – 10 March 1949), also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine (29 November 1947 – 14 May 1948) as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 creation of the British Mandate of Palestine, and in the context of Zionism and the mass migration of European Jews to Palestine, there had been tension and conflict between Arabs, Jews, and the British in Palestine. On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, proposing to divide the territory into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and an internationally administered corpus separatum for the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The land allocated to the Arab State included about 43% of Mandatory Palestine. The land allocated to the Jewish State, who constituted a third of the population, was 56% of Mandatory Palestine. While Jewish leaders in Palestine supported the plan, leaders of the Palestinian Arab community and in the broader Arab world did not. The following day, the conflict escalated into a civil war with attacks by Palestinian militias and mobs on Jewish areas. As the two communities battled, the British withdrew. In April 1948, Zionist forces launched an offensive codenamed Plan Dalet, during which they conquered and depopulated cities, villages, and territories in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish state. Just before the expiration of the British Mandate for Palestine, Zionist leaders announced the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948. The following morning, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and expeditionary forces from Iraq launched an invasion into Palestine, taking control of the Arab areas and attacking Israeli forces and settlements. The 10 months of fighting took place mostly on the territory of the British Mandate and in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon, interrupted by several truce periods. By the end of the war, the State of Israel controlled about 78% of the former territory of Mandatory Palestine: all of the area that the UN had proposed for a Jewish state, as well as almost 60% of the area proposed for an Arab state, including Jaffa, Lydda and Ramla (Ramle) area, Upper Galilee, some parts of the Negev, the west coast as far as Gaza City, and a wide strip along the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road. Israel also took control of West Jerusalem, which was meant to be part of an international zone for Jerusalem and its environs. Transjordan took control of East Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank, annexing it the following year. The territory known today as the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt. Expulsions of Palestinians, which had begun during the civil war, continued during the Arab-Israeli war. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in multiple massacres, such as occurred in the expulsions from Lydda and Ramla. These events are known today as the Nakba (Arabic for "the catastrophe") and were the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem. A similar number of Jews migrated, fled, or were expelled from Arab states in the three years following the war, 260,000 of whom went to Israel.

The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC).

McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the accusation and investigation of left-wing individuals of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s, heavily associated with the McCarthy era. After the mid-1950s, U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity after several of his accusations were found to be false. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare.

American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D was a flight operated on a U.S. Military Air Command contract from Monterey Regional Airport in California to Columbus Airport in Georgia, via Ardmore Municipal Airport, Oklahoma. On April 22, 1966, while approaching Runway 8 at Ardmore, the aircraft overshot the runway and crashed into a hill, bursting into flames. Eighty-three of the 98 passengers and crew on board died as a result of the accident making it the deadliest to have occurred in Oklahoma.

Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston CBE RD* (born 17 March 1939) is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, in 1994 Knox-Johnston won the second Jules Verne Trophy, for which they were also given the ISAF World Sailor of the Year Awards. In 2007, at the age of 67, he set a record as the oldest yachtsman to complete a round the world solo voyage in the Velux 5 Oceans Race.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI(ML)) was an Indian communist party formed by the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) at a congress in Calcutta in 1969. The foundation of the party was declared by Kanu Sanyal at a mass meeting in Calcutta on 22 April, Vladimir Lenin's birthday. Later the CPI(ML) party splintered into several Naxalite groups.

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally through earthday.org including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.

San Diego ( SAN dee-AY-goh; Spanish: [san ˈdjeɣo]) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, next to the Mexican border. It is the eighth-most populous city in the U.S. and second-most populous city in California with a population of over 1.4 million, while the San Diego area with over 3.3 million residents is the 18th-largest metropolitan area in the country. San Diego is the county seat of San Diego County. It is known for its mild Mediterranean climate, extensive beaches and parks, long association with the United States Navy, and recent emergence as a wireless, electronics, healthcare, and biotechnology development center. Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, San Diego has been referred to as the Birthplace of California, as it was the first site visited and settled by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. In 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California, 200 years later. The Presidio and Mission San Diego de Alcalá, founded in 1769, formed the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of the newly declared Mexican Empire. California was ceded to the U.S. in 1848 following the Mexican–American War and was admitted as the 31st state in 1850. The largest sectors of the economy of San Diego include military and defense-related activities, tourism, international trade, research, and manufacturing. The city is home to several universities, including UC San Diego, San Diego State University, and the University of San Diego. San Diego is the economic center of the San Diego–Tijuana region, the second-most populous transborder metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere, home to an estimated five million people as of 2022. The primary border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, the San Ysidro Port of Entry, is the busiest international land border crossing in the world outside of Asia (fourth-busiest overall). San Diego International Airport (SAN) is the busiest single-runway airport in the United States.

Pan Am Flight 812, operated by a Pan Am Boeing 707 registered N446PA and named Clipper Climax, was a scheduled international flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, California, with intermediate stops at Denpasar, Sydney, Nadi, and Honolulu. On April 22, 1974, the aircraft crashed into rough mountainous terrain while preparing for a runway 09 approach to Denpasar after a 4-hour 20-minute flight from Hong Kong. All 107 people on board perished. The location of the accident was about 42.5 nautical miles (48.9 mi; 78.7 km) northwest of Ngurah Rai International Airport. Until the 1991 Jakarta Indonesian Air Force C-130 crash, it was the deadliest aviation accident to happen on Indonesian soil.

An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communication, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data transfer rates) than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of cables because signals travel along them with less loss and are immune to electromagnetic interference. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, such as fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers. Glass optical fibers are typically made by drawing, while plastic fibers can be made either by drawing or by extrusion. Optical fibers typically include a core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by the phenomenon of total internal reflection which causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers that support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers, while those that support a single mode are called single-mode fibers (SMF). Multi-mode fibers generally have a wider core diameter and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be transmitted. Single-mode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 1,050 meters (3,440 ft). Being able to join optical fibers with low loss is important in fiber optic communication. This is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable and involves careful cleaving of the fibers, precise alignment of the fiber cores, and the coupling of these aligned cores. For applications that demand a permanent connection, a fusion splice is common. In this technique, an electric arc is used to melt the ends of the fibers together. Another common technique is a mechanical splice, where the ends of the fibers are held in contact by mechanical force. Temporary or semi-permanent connections are made by means of specialized optical fiber connectors. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers is known as fiber optics. The term was coined by Indian-American physicist Narinder Singh Kapany.

A gas explosion is the ignition of a mixture of air and flammable gas, typically from a gas leak. In household accidents, the principal explosive gases are those used for heating or cooking purposes such as natural gas, methane, propane, butane. In industrial explosions, many other gases, like hydrogen, as well as evaporated (gaseous) gasoline or ethanol play an important role. Industrial gas explosions can be prevented with the use of intrinsic safety barriers to prevent ignition, or use of alternative energy.

Stephen Adrian Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was an 18-year-old black British student from Woolwich, southeast London, England who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road in Eltham, on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre; its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012. After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but, at the time, not charged; a private prosecution subsequently initiated by Lawrence's family failed to secure convictions for any of the accused. It was suggested during the investigation that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was affected by issues of race. A 1998 public inquiry, headed by Sir William Macpherson, concluded that the original MPS investigation was incompetent and that the force was institutionally racist. It also recommended that the double jeopardy rule should be repealed in murder cases to allow a retrial upon new and compelling evidence: this was effected in 2005 upon enactment of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The publication in 1999 of the resulting Macpherson Report has been called "one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain". Jack Straw said that ordering the inquiry was the most important decision he made during his tenure as home secretary from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, the Lawrence case was said to be "one of the highest-profile unsolved racially motivated murders". On 18 May 2011, after a further review, it was announced that two of the original suspects, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were to stand trial for the murder in the light of new evidence. At the same time it was disclosed that Dobson's original acquittal had been quashed by the Court of Appeal, allowing a retrial to take place. Such an appeal had only become possible following the 2005 change in the law, although Dobson was not the first person to be retried for murder as a result. On 3 January 2012, Dobson and Norris were found guilty of Lawrence's murder; the pair were juveniles at the time of the crime and were sentenced to detention at Her Majesty's pleasure, equivalent to a life sentence for an adult, with minimum terms of 15 years 2 months and 14 years 3 months respectively for what the judge described as a "terrible and evil crime". In March 2025 Norris eventually admitted his involvement in the crime. In the years after Dobson and Norris were sentenced, the case regained prominence when concerns of corrupt police conduct during the original case handling surfaced in the media. Such claims had surfaced before, and been investigated in 2007, but were reignited in 2013 when a former undercover police officer stated in an interview that, at the time, he had been pressured to find ways to "smear" and discredit the victim's family, in order to mute and deter public campaigning for better police responses to the case. Although further inquiries in 2012 by both Scotland Yard and the Independent Police Complaints Commission had ruled that there was no basis for further investigation, Home Secretary Theresa May ordered an independent inquiry by a prominent QC into undercover policing and corruption, which was described as "devastating" when published in 2014.

Junichiro Koizumi is a Japanese retired politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2009. He is the sixth-longest serving and second longest-uninterrupted serving Prime Minister in Japanese history.

The Fox News Channel (FNC), often referred to as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City. Owned by the Fox News Media subsidiary of Fox Corporation, as of 2022, it is the most-watched cable news network in the United States, and as of 2023, it generates approximately 70% of its parent company's pre-tax profit. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. Fox News provides service to 86 countries and territories, with international broadcasts featuring Fox Extra segments during advertising breaks.

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of January 2026, 194 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the three UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States, the second largest emitter, withdrew from the agreement in 2020, rejoined in 2021, and withdrew again in 2026.

The 2025 Pahalgam attack, also referred to as the 2025 Pahalgam massacre, was an Islamist terrorist attack on tourists by three armed militants near Pahalgam in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in which 26 civilians were killed on 22 April 2025. The attackers targeted Hindu tourists, though a Christian tourist and a local Muslim pony ride operator were also killed. The attackers, armed with M4 carbines and AK-47s, entered the Baisaran Valley, a popular tourist spot, through the surrounding forests. This incident is considered the deadliest attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Scholars and analysts contend that the specific targeting of Hindus, the high civilian casualty of the massacre and its barbarity was aimed at exploiting 'communal fault lines' and elicit a reaction from the Indian government, compelling the government to respond militarily.