On This Day May 22

1992
Johnny Carson hosts his last The Tonight Show. He had been host since 1962.

1977
First woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500: Janet Guthrie qualifies with an average speed of 188.403 mph. She finished 29th of 33 in the actual race on May 27th. (Source: Famous First Facts)

1972
First U.S. president to visit Moscow: Nixon for a week of summit talks with the leaders of the Kremlin.

1947
First ballistic missile: The U.S. successfully launches the Corporal at the White Sands Proving grounds in New Mexico. It had a range of 63 miles.

1943
A Situation of Gravity is published in Liberty Magazine. It was the basis for the movie The Absent Minded Professor (1960).

1891
First public demonstration of Edison's motion picture camera, the Kinetoscope.

1861
Civil War - First Union soldier killed by enemy action: Bailey Brown is killed in West Virginia by Confederate pickets.

1761
First life insurance policy in America is issued, by a Philadelphia company.

1621
First wedding in New England: Governor Edward Winslow marries Susanna White.

1963
Jeremy Gelbwaks, American actor. TV: The Partridge Family (the first Chris). He was replaced after the first season when his real-life family moved.

1942
Theodore Kaczynski, American mathematician, Unabomber. He was convicted of killing three people and wounding 29 others by sending mail bombs over a period of almost eighteen years.

1940
Paul Winfield, American actor. Film: Sounder (1972). TV: King (1978, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and 227 (the landlord).

1938
Susan Strasberg, American actress. Stage: The Diary of Anne Frank (1955, title role).

1938
Richard Benjamin, American actor. TV: He & She (Dick). Film: Portnoy's Complaint (1972).

1920
Thomas Gold, Austrian-born astronomer, established the steady-state theory of the universe.

1908
Horton Smith, American golfer. He won the first Masters tournament (1934), and again in 1936.

1907 d. 1989
Sir Laurence Olivier, British Oscar and Emmy-winning actor. He starred in and directed Hamlet (1948) which won five Oscars and was the first British film to win a Best Picture Oscar. He was knighted in 1947.

1860 d. 1927
Willem Einthoven, Dutch physiologist, his work on the string galvanometer led to the invention of the electrocardiograph, for which he received the 1924 Nobel prize.

1859 d. 1930
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, English physician, author, creator of Sherlock Holmes (1887).

1828 d. 1870
Albrecht von Gräfe, German eye surgeon, regarded as the greatest German ophthalmologist of the 19th century. He was the first to successfully treat glaucoma.

1813 d. 1883
Richard Wagner, German opera composer, the Ring cycle (1876).

1983 b. 1898
Albert Claude, Belgian Nobel-winning biologist, founder of modern cell biology. He was the first to use the electron microscope to study cells (1945).

1885 b. 1802
Victor Marie Hugo, French poet, author. Writings: Les Misérables (1862). He was exiled from France (1851) for his opposition to Louis Napoleon.

1868 b. 1801
Julius Plücker, German mathematician physicist. He discovered that cathode rays are diverted by magnetic fields, the principal upon which TV pictures tubes are made. He also discovered that spectral lines are unique to each chemical, the principal of spectroscopy.

1802 b. 1731
Martha Dandridge Washington, American first lady, wife of Pres. George Washington.

337 b. 280
Constantine I, Roman Emperor (312-337). In 312 he became the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity, after seeing a cross in the heaven bearing the expression "In this sign conquer."

May 22

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