On July 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln informs his chief advisors and cabinet that he will issue a proclamation to free enslaved people, but adds that he will wait until the Union Army has achieved a substantial military victory to make the announcement. Attempting to stitch together a nation mired in a bloody civil war, […]

On July 22, 1916, a massive parade held in San Francisco, California, to celebrate Preparedness Day, in anticipation of the United States entrance into World War I, is disrupted by the explosion of a suitcase bomb, which kills 10 bystanders and wounds 40 more. It would be considered the worst terrorist act in the city’s […]

Outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, notorious criminal John Dillinger—America’s “Public Enemy No. 1″—is killed in a hail of bullets fired by federal agents. In a fiery bank-robbing career that lasted just over a year, Dillinger and his associates robbed 11 banks for more than $300,000, broke jail and narrowly escaped capture multiple times, and killed seven […]

On July 22, 1942, the systematic deportation of Jewish people from the Warsaw ghetto begins, as thousands are rounded up daily and transported to a newly constructed concentration/extermination camp at Treblinka, in Poland. On July 17, Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS, arrived at Auschwitz, the concentration camp in eastern Poland, in time to […]

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, police officers spot Tracy Edwards running down the street in handcuffs, and upon investigation, they find one of the grisliest scenes in modern history: Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment. Edwards told the police that Dahmer had held him at his apartment and threatened to kill him. Although they initially thought the story was dubious, the officers […]

On July 22, 2005, March of the Penguins, a French-made documentary about emperor penguins in Antarctica, opens in theaters across the U.S. March of the Penguins went on to win numerous awards, including an Oscar, and became one of the highest-grossing documentaries in movie history. March of the Penguins followed the yearlong reproductive cycle of […]

Weighing in at a healthy 8 pounds, 6 ounces, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (more informally known as Prince William and Kate Middleton), is born on July 22, 2013, at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, England. The new prince’s birth had been a highly anticipated event, with reporters camping out […]