On this day: November 22

Events on November 22

• 498 After the death of Anastasius II, Symmachus is elected Pope in the Lateran Palace, while Laurentius is elected Pope in Santa Maria Maggiore. Wikipedia
• 1220 Frederick II is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Honorius III. Wikipedia
• 1574 Juan Fernández, a Spanish explorer, discovered an archipelago that now bears his name off the coast of Chile. Wikipedia
• 1635 Dutch colonial forces on Formosa launched a three-month pacification campaign against Taiwanese indigenous peoples. Wikipedia
• 1718 The pirate Blackbeard was killed in battle by a boarding party of British sailors off the coast of the Province of North Carolina. Wikipedia
• 1797 The Geisel School of Medicine, the fourth oldest medical school in the United States, was founded by the physician Nathan Smith. Wikipedia
• 1869 In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched. Wikipedia
• 1873 The French steamship Ville du Havre collided with a Scottish iron clipper in the North Atlantic and sank with the loss of 226 lives. Wikipedia
• 1908 The Congress of Manastir establishes the Albanian alphabet. Wikipedia
• 1910 The crews of three Brazilian warships – all commissioned only months before – and several smaller vessels mutinied against perceived "slavery" being practised in the Brazilian Navy. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German 6th Army is surrounded. Wikipedia
• 1943 World War II: Cairo Conference: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chinese Premier Chiang Kai-shek meet in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss ways to defeat Japan. Wikipedia
• 1943 Lebanon gains independence from France, nearly two years after it was first announced by the Free French government. Wikipedia
• 1963 John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas; hours later, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States. Wikipedia
• 1967 The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Wikipedia
• 1968 The Beatles released their eponymous double album, popularly known as the White Album. Wikipedia
• 1971 In Britain's worst mountaineering disaster, five teenage students and one of their leaders were found dead from exposure on the Cairngorm Plateau in the Scottish Highlands. Wikipedia
• 1975 Two days after the death of Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos I was declared King of Spain according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. Wikipedia
• 1978 The serpent labret with articulated tongue, "perhaps the finest Aztec gold ornament to survive the crucibles of the sixteenth century", was sold at Sotheby's. Wikipedia
• 1986 Mike Tyson defeated Trevor Berbick to win the World Boxing Council title, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history. Wikipedia
• 1987 Two television stations in Chicago had their broadcast signals hijacked with footage of an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume. Wikipedia
• 1988 The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber of the United States Air Force was first displayed in public at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Wikipedia
• 1989 NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-33, a classified mission for the United States Department of Defense. Wikipedia
• 1995 Toy Story, the first feature film created using only computer-generated imagery, was released in theaters in the United States. Wikipedia
• 2004 The Orange Revolution begins in Ukraine, resulting from the presidential elections. Wikipedia
• 2013 Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen defeated India's Viswanathan Anand to become world chess champion. Wikipedia

Born on November 22

• 1744 Abigail Adams, American wife of John Adams, 2nd First Lady of the United States (died 1818) Wikipedia
• 1819 George Eliot, English novelist and poet (died 1880) Wikipedia
• 1868 John Nance Garner, American politician, 32nd Vice President of the United States (died 1967) Wikipedia
• 1869 André Gide, French novelist, essayist, and dramatist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1951) Wikipedia
• 1881 Enver Pasha, Ottoman general and politician (died 1922) Wikipedia
• 1890 Charles de Gaulle, French general and politician, President of France (died 1970) Wikipedia
• 1904 Louis Néel, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2000) Wikipedia
• 1913 Benjamin Britten, English pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1976) Wikipedia
• 1917 Andrew Huxley, English physiologist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2012) Wikipedia
• 1940 Terry Gilliam, American-English actor, director, animator, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1943 Billie Jean King, American tennis player Wikipedia
• 1954 Paolo Gentiloni, Italian politician, Prime Minister of Italy Wikipedia
• 1958 Jamie Lee Curtis, American actress Wikipedia
• 1965 Mads Mikkelsen, Danish actor Wikipedia
• 1967 Mark Ruffalo, American actor Wikipedia
• 1967 Boris Becker, German tennis player Wikipedia
• 1969 Marjane Satrapi, Iranian author and illustrator (died 2026) Wikipedia
• 1984 Scarlett Johansson, American actress Wikipedia
• 1985 Asamoah Gyan, Ghanaian footballer Wikipedia
• 1986 Oscar Pistorius, South African sprinter and convicted murderer Wikipedia
• 1987 Marouane Fellaini, Belgian footballer Wikipedia
• 1989 Chris Smalling, English footballer Wikipedia

Died on November 22

• 1617 Ahmed I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam (born 1590) Wikipedia
• 1718 Blackbeard, English pirate (born 1680) Wikipedia
• 1916 Jack London, American novelist and journalist (born 1876) Wikipedia
• 1944 Arthur Eddington, English astrophysicist and astronomer (born 1882) Wikipedia
• 1963 John F. Kennedy, American politician, 35th President of the United States (born 1917) Wikipedia
• 1963 Aldous Huxley, English novelist and philosopher (born 1894) Wikipedia
• 1963 C. S. Lewis, British writer, literary scholar, and Anglican lay theologian (born 1898) Wikipedia
• 1980 Mae West, American stage and film actress (born 1893) Wikipedia
• 1981 Hans Adolf Krebs, German-English physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1900) Wikipedia
• 1993 Anthony Burgess, English novelist, playwright, and critic (born 1917) Wikipedia
• 2007 Maurice Béjart, French-Swiss dancer, choreographer, and director (born 1927) Wikipedia
• 2011 Svetlana Alliluyeva, Russian-American author (born 1926) Wikipedia
• 2011 Lynn Margulis, American biologist and academic (born 1938) Wikipedia
• 2015 Kim Young-sam, South Korean soldier and politician, President of South Korea (born 1927) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Cecilia Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pedro Esqueda Ramírez Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Philemon and Apphia Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Pragmatius of Autun Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Salvatore Lilli Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: November 22 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Good Spouses Day (いい夫婦の日) celebrates married couples in Japan. Wikipedia
• Independence Day celebrates the independence of Lebanon from France in 1943. Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “November 22” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/November 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 “November 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 November 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.