On This Day - 22nd April
1662
King Charles II granted a charter to the Royal Society of London, which
became an important centre of scientific activity in England.
1778James Hargreaves, the English inventor of the spinning jenny died. After
he had begun to sell the machines to help support his large family, hand spinners,
fearing unemployment, broke into his house and destroyed a number of jennies,
causing Hargreaves to move from Blackburn to Nottingham in 1768.
1833 The death of Richard Trevithick, Cornish born mining engineer and an early pioneer of steam-powered road and rail transport. This replica of Trevithick's locomotive
(see 
picture) was presented to the Ironbridge museum (Shropshire) in
1990. This statue (see 
picture) of Richard Trevithick is
at York Railway Museum.
1834The South Atlantic island of St Helena was declared a British crown colony.
1838The British steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic
Ocean from England to New York. The voyage took 18 days and 10 hours.
1915The second battle of Ypres started when German troops released clouds
of deadly chlorine gas on British troops. It was the first major gas attack
of World War I.
1916The birth of Yehudi Menuhin, the US born violinist. In 1965 he was granted
a knighthood, but did not receive the title until 1985, when he became a British
citizen.
1930The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
1933Sir Frederick Henry Royce, co-founder of the English car company Rolls-Royce,
died.
1943Britain discontinued printing £1,000 notes.
1945World War II - After learning that Soviet forces had taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admitted defeat in his underground bunker and stated that suicide was his only recourse.
1964British businessman Greville Wynne, imprisoned by the Russians for spying,
was swapped for the Russian spy Gordon Lonsdale, who was jailed by the British
for his role in an espionage ring in 1961.
1969British yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into Falmouth Harbour, completing
the first non-stop solo voyage around the world. He was at sea for 312 days.
His yacht was named Suhaili which means "good wind".
1972Sylvia Cook and John Fairfax became the first people to row across the
Pacific Ocean (the world's largest ocean). They arrived in Australia in their
boat Britannia after being at sea for 362 days.
1996Diana, Princess of Wales personally attended a five-hour heart transplant
operation on a young boy at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex.
2000The Big Number Change took place. It was an update of telephone dialling codes in Britain in response to the rapid growth of telecommunications and the impending exhaustion of numbers.
2013Police confirmed that the search for missing five-year-old April Jones from Machynlleth, Powys had ended, after almost seven months of searching. Mark Bridger denied abducting and murdering April as well as intending to pervert the course of justice but was jailed on 30th May 2013. At the time of her disappearance, ribbons were tied to the railings around the town's clock tower, (see 
picture), on shop doors and pinned to trees.
2014The Conservative party declared that local residents would get new powers to block all new onshore wind farms within six months of a new Conservative government taking office in May 2015. They further promised that no subsidies would be paid to operators of new onshore wind turbines.