February 22

1512 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian cartographer, sailor and namesake of the continents of the New World, dies, age 60 in Seville, Spain.

1732 –  George Washington in born in the family home at Popes Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia. The date is celebrated from 1879 until 1971 as a federal holiday.

1819 – Under terms of the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for 5 million dollars.

1847 – In the Mexican–American War’s Battle of Buena Vista, 5000 American troops under the command of General Zachary Taylor, defeat 15,000 Mexican troops under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna (yes of Alamo and San Jacinto notoriety)

1856 – The Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.

1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a 6 year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.

1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.

1878 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.

1881 – Cleopatra’s Needle, a 3,500-year-old Ancient Egyptian obelisk, relocated from the ruins of the Caesareum temple of Alexandria is erected in Central Park, New York.

1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.

1901 – The Pacific Mail Company’s steamer City of Rio de Janeiro strikes a rock hidden by dense fog in Golden Gate harbor and quickly sinks, with the loss of 122 of the 201 passengers and crew aboard.

1909 – The 16 battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.

1942 – As Japanese victory becomes inevitable in the Philippines, President Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur to evacuate to Australia.

1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500 stock car race.

1974 –Reportedly inspired by the news reports of the buzzing of the White House by U.S. Army soldier Robert K. Preston in a stolen helicopter on February 17; Samuel Byck attempts to hijack a Delta Air Lines DC-9 jet at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate President Nixon, but commits suicide aboard the aircraft after being shot and wounded by police.

1980 – In Lake Placid, New York, the United States Olympic hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.

1994 – CIA officer Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union.

1997 – In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.

2006 – An unknown party at the time detonates 2 bombs at the Shite al-Askari Shrine in Samara, Iraq causing extensive damage, but no casualties, which incites a full on civil war between the U.S. backed Iraqi government and forces of Al Qaida and the Mahdi Army lasting over 2 years.

2018 – A Serbian man throws a grenade at the U.S embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro then detonates a suicide vest, managing to kill only himself and not even wound anyone else.