On This Day: April 22

Updated April 21, 2012, 2:28 pm

On April 22, 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
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On April 22, 1904, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American nuclear physicist who headed the country’s atomic bomb development project, was born. Following his death on Feb. 18, 1967, his obituary appeared in The Times.

Go to obituary » | Other birthdays »

 

On This Date

By The Associated Press

1509	Henry VIII became king of England following the death of his father, Henry VII.
1864	Congress authorized the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.
1870	Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in Simbirsk, Russia.
1954	The televised Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.
1970	Earth Day was observed for the first time.
1983	The West German news magazine Stern announced the discovery of personal diaries purportedly written by Adolf Hitler that turned out to be a hoax.
1993	The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1994	Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at age 81 in New York City, four days after suffering a stroke.
2000	Armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez from his relatives’ home in Miami; the 6-year-old boy was reunited with his father.
2004	Pro football player Pat Tillman, who’d traded in a multimillion-dollar contract to serve as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan, was killed by friendly fire.
2005	Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers to kill Americans. (He was later sentenced to life in prison.)
2010	The Deepwater Horizon oil platform, operated by BP, sank into the Gulf of Mexico two days after a massive explosion that killed 11 workers.

Current Birthdays

By The Associated Press

Actress-talk show host Sherri Shepherd turns 45 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini

Director John Waters turns 76 years old today.

AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

1926	Charlotte Rae, Actress (“Facts of Life”), turns 86
1932	Estelle Harris, Actress (“Seinfeld”), turns 80
1937	Jack Nicholson, Actor, turns 75
1946	John Waters, Director, turns 66
1950	Peter Frampton, Rock musician, turns 62
1951	Paul Carrack, Rock singer, musician (Squeeze, Mike and the Mechanics), turns 61
1954	Joseph Bottoms, Actor, turns 58
1959	Ryan Stiles, Actor (“Whose Line is It Anyway?”), turns 53
1961	Byron Allen, TV host, comedian (“Real People”), turns 51
1966	Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Actor (“Grey’s Anatomy”), turns 46
1971	Eric Mabius, Actor, turns 41
1986	Amber Heard, Actress, turns 26

 

Historic Birthdays

J. Robert Oppenheimer 4/22/1904 – 2/18/1967 American physicist; headed the Manhattan Project.Go to obituary »

53	Isabella I 4/22/1451 – 11/26/1504 Spanish Queen (1474-1504) ; sponsored Columbus’s voyage to the New World
47	Henry Fielding 4/22/1707 – 10/8/1754 English novelist and playwright
80	Immanuel Kant 4/22/1724 – 2/12/1804 German Enlightenment philosopher
51	Germaine de Stael 4/22/1766 – 7/14/1817 French-Swiss literary critic and novelist
91	Emily Davies 4/22/1830 – 7/13/1921 English pioneer in securing university education for women
54	Vladimir Ilich Lenin 4/22/1870 – 1/21/1924 Russian leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) and first head of the Soviet state
76	Martyn Green 4/22/1899 – 2/8/1975 English singer and actor; Gilbert and Sullivan star
82	Dorothy Alexander 4/22/1904 – 11/17/1986 American ballet dancer, choreographer and founder of the Atlanta Ballet
83	Yehudi Menuhin 4/22/1916 – 3/12/1999 American violin virtuoso
57	Charles Mingus 4/22/1922 – 1/5/1979 American jazz performer, composer and pianist