On this day: March 22

Events on March 22

• 106 The Bostran era, the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, began. Wikipedia
• 1312 Vox in excelso: Pope Clement V dissolves the Order of the Knights Templar. Wikipedia
• 1508 Ferdinand II of Aragon commissions Amerigo Vespucci chief navigator of the Spanish Empire. Wikipedia
• 1638 Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her participation in the Antinomian Controversy. Wikipedia
• 1765 The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Stamp Act, requiring that many printed materials in the Thirteen Colonies in British America carry a tax stamp. Wikipedia
• 1784 The Emerald Buddha, considered to be the sacred palladium of Thailand, was installed in its current location at Wat Phra Kaew on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Wikipedia
• 1794 The Slave Trade Act, which banned the export of slaves from the United States, was signed by George Washington Wikipedia
• 1871 William Woods Holden, Governor of North Carolina, became the first U.S. state governor to be removed from office through impeachment. Wikipedia
• 1895 Before the Société pour L'Encouragement à l'Industrie, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrate movie film technology publicly for the first time. Wikipedia
• 1896 Charilaos Vasilakos won the first modern marathon in preparation for the inaugural Summer Olympics. Wikipedia
• 1913 Phan Xích Long, the self-proclaimed emperor of Vietnam, was arrested for organising a revolt against the colonial rule of French Indochina, which was nevertheless carried out by his supporters the following day. Wikipedia
• 1934 In golf, the first Masters Tournament was held at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, United States. Wikipedia
• 1942 Second World War: British and Italian naval forces fought the Second Battle of Sirte in the Gulf of Sidra north of Libya. Wikipedia
• 1943 British propaganda radio station Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik began broadcasting to German submariners. Wikipedia
• 1943 World War II: Almost the entire population of the village of Khatyn, in present-day Belarus, were massacred by Ukrainian and Belarusian Nazi collaborators. Wikipedia
• 1945 The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt. Wikipedia
• 1963 Please Please Me, the first album recorded by the Beatles, was released. Wikipedia
• 1984 Teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren, leading to the longest and costliest criminal trial in United States history. Wikipedia
• 1992 USAir Flight 405 crashed in Flushing Bay shortly after takeoff from New York City's LaGuardia Airport, killing 27 people, and leading to studies into the effects of ice on aircraft. Wikipedia
• 1995 Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned from the space station Mir aboard Soyuz TM-20 after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight. Wikipedia
• 1997 Comet Hale–Bopp reached its closest approach to Earth at 1.315 AU. Wikipedia
• 2013 At least 37 people were killed after a fire in Thailand destroys a camp containing Burmese refugees. Wikipedia
• 2014 A massive landslide in Oso, Washington, killed 43 people after engulfing a rural neighborhood, the largest death toll for a standalone landslide in U.S. history. Wikipedia
• 2016 Three suicide bombers kill 32 people and injure 316 in the 2016 Brussels bombings at the airport and at the Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station. Wikipedia
• 2017 A terrorist attack in London near the Houses of Parliament leaves four people dead and at least 20 injured. Wikipedia
• 2024 At least 145 people were killed and 551 injured in a bombing and mass shooting at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Russia. Wikipedia

Born on March 22

• 1394 Ulugh Beg, Persian astronomer and mathematician (died 1449) Wikipedia
• 1459 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1519) Wikipedia
• 1599 Anthony van Dyck, Flemish-English painter and etcher (died 1641) Wikipedia
• 1609 John II Casimir Vasa, Polish king (died 1672) Wikipedia
• 1728 Anton Raphael Mengs, German painter and theorist (died 1779) Wikipedia
• 1797 William I, German Emperor (died 1888) Wikipedia
• 1842 Mykola Lysenko, Ukrainian pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1912) Wikipedia
• 1857 Paul Doumer, French mathematician, journalist, and politician, 14th President of France (died 1932) Wikipedia
• 1868 Robert Andrews Millikan, American colonel and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1953) Wikipedia
• 1869 Emilio Aguinaldo, Filipino general and politician, 1st President of the Philippines (died 1964) Wikipedia
• 1929 P. Ramlee, Malaysian actor, director, singer, songwriter, composer, and producer (died 1973) Wikipedia
• 1931 William Shatner, Canadian actor Wikipedia
• 1931 Burton Richter, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2018) Wikipedia
• 1933 Abolhassan Banisadr, Iranian economist and politician, 1st President of Iran (died 2021) Wikipedia
• 1941 Bruno Ganz, Swiss actor (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1943 George Benson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist Wikipedia
• 1948 Andrew Lloyd Webber, English composer and director Wikipedia
• 1949 Fanny Ardant, French actress Wikipedia
• 1955 Valdis Zatlers, Latvian physician and politician, 7th President of Latvia Wikipedia
• 1963 Martín Vizcarra, Peruvian engineer and politician, 67th President of Peru Wikipedia
• 1976 Reese Witherspoon, American actress Wikipedia
• 1999 Mick Schumacher, German racing driver Wikipedia

Died on March 22

• 235 Severus Alexander, Roman emperor (born 208) Wikipedia
• 880 Carloman of Bavaria, Frankish king Wikipedia
• 1471 George of Poděbrady (born 1420) Wikipedia
• 1602 Agostino Carracci, Italian painter and educator (born 1557) Wikipedia
• 1685 Emperor Go-Sai of Japan (born 1638) Wikipedia
• 1687 Jean-Baptiste Lully, Italian-French composer and conductor (born 1632) Wikipedia
• 1758 Jonathan Edwards, English minister, theologian, and philosopher (born 1703) Wikipedia
• 1832 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German novelist, poet, playwright, and diplomat (born 1749) Wikipedia
• 2001 Sabiha Gökçen, Turkish soldier and pilot (born 1913) Wikipedia
• 2001 William Hanna, American animator, director, producer, and voice actor, co-founded Hanna-Barbera (born 1910) Wikipedia
• 2004 Ahmed Yassin, Co-founded Hamas (born 1937) Wikipedia
• 2005 Kenzō Tange, Japanese architect, designed the Yoyogi National Gymnasium and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (born 1913) Wikipedia
• 2010 James Black, Scottish biologist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1924) Wikipedia
• 2026 Lionel Jospin, French civil servant and politician, 165th Prime Minister of France (born 1937) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Bihar Day (Bihar, India) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Basil of Ancyra Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Darerca of Ireland Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Epaphroditus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Jonathan Edwards (Lutheranism) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Lea of Rome Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Nicholas Owen Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Paul of Narbonne Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: March 22 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Earliest day on which Easter Sunday can fall (last in 1818, will not happen again until 2285), while April 25 is the latest. (Christianity) Wikipedia
• Emancipation Day or Día de la Abolición de la Esclavitud (Puerto Rico) Wikipedia
• World Water Day (International) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “March 22” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/March 22” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “March 22” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for March 22 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.