Today in History, April 22nd
On April 22, 1970, about 20 million Americans took part in the first Earth Day. Plus the Oklahoma land rush and the first gas attack at Ypres.
Published
April 22 is best known as the day in 1970 when Americans held the first Earth Day, with an estimated 20 million people taking part. The date also saw the Oklahoma land rush begin in 1889 and the first major poison gas attack of World War I at Ypres in 1915.
The big story: The First Earth Day (1970)
Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring is often seen as the start of the modern U.S. environmental movement. But it was scattered. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin wanted to pull those grassroots groups together, and he picked April 22, 1970, for a nationwide day of action. The response was huge. Students at thousands of colleges and universities joined millions of other Americans, and more than 12,000 events drew an estimated 20 million Americans. Politicians took note. The Environmental Protection Agency was created later that year, and Congress went on to pass the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. Earth Day grew far beyond the U.S. border, too. On its 20th anniversary in 1990, more than 200 million people in 141 countries took part. Few one-day events have had such a long afterlife.
More events on April 22
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1370 | Construction began on the Bastille in Paris, the fortress later used as a state prison. |
| 1500 | Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral sighted the coast of what is now Brazil. |
| 1616 | Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, died in Madrid. |
| 1876 | Boston beat Philadelphia 6 to 5 in the first National League baseball game. |
| 1889 | At noon, part of Indian Territory opened to settlers, and thousands raced in to claim land in the Oklahoma land rush. |
| 1915 | German forces released chlorine gas against Allied lines at Ypres, Belgium, opening the Second Battle of Ypres. |
| 1954 | The televised Army-McCarthy hearings began, eventually leading to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s downfall. |
| 1978 | Bob Marley headlined the One Love Peace Concert in Kingston, Jamaica, aimed at easing political violence. |
| 1983 | The German magazine Stern announced it had found Hitler’s diaries. They were quickly exposed as forgeries. |
| 1994 | Richard Nixon, the only U.S. president to resign, died four days after suffering a stroke. |
| 2004 | Former NFL player Pat Tillman, who had enlisted in the Army, was killed in Afghanistan. Investigators later found it was friendly fire. |
| 2016 | More than 170 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change. |
Born on April 22
- 1724: Immanuel Kant, German philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia.
- 1870: Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and first head of the Soviet state (April 10, Old Style).
- 1904: J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist who led the Los Alamos laboratory during the atomic bomb project.
- 1937: Jack Nicholson, American actor known for playing unconventional outsiders.
Sources
- The first Earth Day, History.com
- This Day in History: April 22, History.com
- On This Day: April 22, Britannica
- Immanuel Kant, Britannica
- Vladimir Lenin, Britannica
- J. Robert Oppenheimer, Britannica
- Jack Nicholson, Britannica
