October 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 70 days remain until the end of the year.
1383 – The male line of the Portuguese House of Burgundy becomes extinct with the death of King Fernando, leaving only his daughter Beatrice. Rival claimants begin a period of civil war and disorder 1721 – The Russian Empire is proclaimed by Tsar Peter I after the Swedish defeat in the Great Northern War.
1739 – The War of Jenkins' Ear begins with the first attack on La Guaira.
1746 – The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) receives its charter
1777 – American Revolutionary War: American defenders of Fort Mercer on the Delaware River repulse repeated Hessian attacks in the Battle of Red Bank
1790 – Northwest Indian War: Native American forces defeat the United States, ending the Harmar Campaign
1797 – André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump, from 3,300 ft above Paris.
1836 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas
1844 – The Millerites (followers of Baptist preacher William Miller) anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day becomes known as the Great Disappointment.
1877 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners
1879 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb; the bulb lasted 13 1⁄2 hours before burning out.
1883 – The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Charles Gounod's Faust
1907 – A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company sets events in motion that will spark the Panic of 1907
1934 – In East Liverpool, Ohio, FBI agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.
1941 – World War II: French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer.
1943 – World War II: In the second firestorm raid on Germany, the British Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless.
1946 – More than 2,200 engineers and technicians from eastern Germany are forced to relocate to the Soviet Union, along with their families and equipment.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval 'quarantine' of the Communist nation.
1975 – The Soviet uncrewed space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus
1983 – Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons
1999 – Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity
2012 – Cyclist Lance Armstrong is formally stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after being charged for doping
2014 – Michael Zehaf-Bibeau attacks the Parliament of Canada, killing a soldier and injuring three other people.
2019 – Same-sex marriage is legalized, and abortion is decriminalized in Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland Assembly not being restored.