What are the important events that happened on May 22? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.

May 22: Facts & Myths About This Day

May 22 is the 143^rd day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 223 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Wednesday.

Under the Julian calendar, this day is May 9, 2024 – a Wednesday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?

When this day started, 476,760 hours has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.

Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘hectatetracontatrigon’ day.

Gemini is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Emerald is the modern birthstone for this month. Sapphire is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 252 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,170 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.

May 22 Historical Events

• 1377 –
  Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe.
• 1816 –
  A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs; the rioting spreads to Ely the next day.
• 1939 –
  World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
• 1942 –
  World War II: Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps as a flight instructor.
• 1964 –
  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.
• 1967 –
  The L'Innovation department store in the centre of Brussels, Belgium, burns down. It is the most devastating fire in Belgian history, resulting in 323 dead and missing and 150 injured.
• 1987 –
  First ever Rugby World Cup kicks off with New Zealand playing Italy at Eden Park, Auckland.
• 1997 –
  Kelly Flinn, US Air Force’s first female bomber pilot certified for combat, accepts a general discharge in order to avoid a court martial.
• 2003 –
  In Fort Worth, Texas, Annika Sörenstam becomes the first woman to play the PGA Tour in 58 years.
• 2011 –
  An EF5 Tornado strikes the US city of Joplin, Missouri killing up to 161 people. It is the single deadliest US tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950.

Who were born on May 22?

• 1823 –
  Solomon Bundy, American politician (d. 1889)
• 1885 –
  Giacomo Matteotti, Italian politician (d. 1924)
• 1902 –
  Al Simmons, American baseball player (d. 1956)
• 1912 –
  Herbert C. Brown, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
• 1917 –
  Nathan Davis, American actor (d. 2008)
• 1925 –
  James King, American tenor (d. 2005)
• 1947 –
  Andreas Gerasimos Michalitsianos, Greek-American astronomer and a NASA astrophysicist (d. 1997)
• 1967 –
  Brooke Smith, American actress
• 1972 –
  Alison Eastwood, American actress and model
• 1992 –
  Chinami Tokunaga, Japanese singer

Who died on May 22?

• 337 –
  Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor (b. 272)
• 1666 –
  Gaspar Schott, German scientist (b. 1608)
• 1667 –
  Pope Alexander VII (b. 1599)
• 1772 –
  Durastante Natalucci, Italian historian (b. 1687)
• 1965 –
  Christopher Stone, first disc jockey in the United Kingdom (b. 1882)
• 1967 –
  Langston Hughes, American writer (b. 1902)
• 1972 –
  Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish poet and writer (b. 1904)
• 1975 –
  Lefty Grove, American baseball player (b. 1900)
• 1997 –
  Alfred Hershey, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1908)
• 1998 –
  José Enrique Moyal, mathematical physicist (b. 1910)