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This Day In History: April 22
Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on April 22.
On this day, April 22 ...
2000: In a pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seize Elian Gonzalez, a Cuban boy at the center of a custody dispute, from his relatives’ home in Miami; he is reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
Also on this day:
- 1864: Congress authorizes the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.
- 1898: Congress authorizes creation of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, also known as the “Rough Riders.”
- 1915: The first full-scale use of deadly chemicals in warfare takes place as German forces unleash chlorine gas against Allied troops at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium during World War I; thousands of soldiers are believed to have died.
- 1952: An atomic test in Nevada becomes the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television as a 31-kiloton bomb is dropped from a B-50 Superfortress.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., gives a resigned shrug at being unable to get across with one of his "point of order" interruptions, during the Senate Investigation Subcommittee hearing, in Washington, D.C., April 30, 1954. Pvt. G. David Schine was in the witness chair at the time. (AP Photo/WF)
- 1954: The publicly televised sessions of the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin.
- 1970: Millions of Americans concerned about the environment observe the first Earth Day.
- 1993: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is dedicated in Washington, D.C., to honor victims of Nazi extermination.
- 1994: Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, dies at a New York hospital four days after suffering a stroke.
- 2004: Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who traded in a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to serve in Afghanistan, is killed by friendly fire at age 27.
- 2005: Zacarias Moussaoui pleads guilty in a federal courtroom outside Washington, D.C., to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers to kill Americans. (Moussaoui is serving a life prison sentence.)
- 2008: Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, defeating Barack Obama and keeping her presidential hopes alive for the moment.
- 2013: Richie Havens, the folk singer and guitarist who was the first performer at the 1969 Woodstock festival, dies in Jersey City, N.J., at 72.
- 2014: In a blow to affirmative action, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds, 6-2, a voter-approved change to the Michigan Constitution forbidding the state’s public colleges to take race into account in admissions.
