22nd of May

Today is the 142nd day of the year, with only 223 days remaining.

334 BC - The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Granicus.

1807 AD - A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

1819 - The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.  The ordeal is completed June 20 when they arrive in Liverpool, England.

1843 - Thousands of people and their cattle head west via wagon train from Independence, Missouri to what would later becomes the Oregon Territory.  It is part of the Great Migration.  They follow what is known as the Oregon Trail.

1856 - Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the Senate, for a speech the latter had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas.

1872 - President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.

1906 - The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine."

1915 - Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail crash near Gretna Green, Scotland.  The event kills 227 people and injures 246, it is the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy junction.

1942 - Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps as a flight instructor.

1947 - In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry Truman signs an act into law that will later be called the Truman Doctrine.  The act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece, each battling an internal Communist movement.

1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the goals of his Great Society social reforms to bring an "end to poverty and racial injustice in America."

1980 - Namco releases the highly influential arcade game, Pac-Man.

1990 - Microsoft releases the Windows 3.0 operating system.

1992 - After 30 years, 66-year-old Johnny Carson hosts The Tonight Show for the last time.

1998 - A federal judge rules that United States Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the scandal, involving President Bill Clinton.

2002 - In Washington, D.C., the remains of the missing Chandra Levy are found in Rock Creek Park.

2002 - A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry, of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing ot the 16th Street Baptist Church.

2003 - In Fort Worth, Texas, Annika Sorenstam becomes the first woman to play the PGA Tour in 58 years.