April 22

1500 – While following Vasco da Gama’s newly opened route around Africa to India, Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral sails too far to the west in the Atlantic Ocean, and lands in what is now Brazil, discovering the South American continent.

1529 – The Treaty of Zaragoza between the king of Spain and Emperor Charles V, and João III of Portugal, regarding the areas of influence of both countries in Asia, divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues -892.5 nautical miles – east of the Molucca islands.

1836 – A day after the Texican victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under General Sam Houston identify and take captive Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna who was hiding among the prisoners of war of the battle.

1864 – Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that permits the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as U.S. currency.

1876 – The first major league baseball game is played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston baseball club

1889 – At noon, the first Land Rush into the Unassigned Lands of central Oklahoma Territory starts.

1898 – Off the Florida Keys, gunboat PG-7, the USS Nashville, the first U.S. Navy ship built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, fires the first shot of the Spanish-American War and captures the Spanish merchantman SS Buena Ventura.

1944 –US Army Air Force Lieutenant Carter Harman, of the 1st Air Commando Group, flying a Sikorsky R-4 helicopter, conducts the first combat rescue sortie, rescuing a downed liaison aircraft pilot and his 3 British soldier passengers in the China-Burma-India Theater.

1954 – The ABC and DuMont television networks provide the first live  coverage of Senate committee hearings by covering the Army–McCarthy hearings.

1970 – The first Earth Day is celebrated. Despite all prognostications of imminent doom, 52 years later the Earth and humanity are still here.

1977 – Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic.

1994 – Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States dies, age 81, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, of a stroke suffered 3 days previously.

2005 – Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologizes for Japan’s World War 2 war record.