Events in History in 2022

Events 1 - 200 of 615

Desmond Tutu's Funeral

Jan 1 State Funeral in Cape Town, South Africa, for anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu

  • Jan 2 Israel becomes one of the first countries to offer a fourth vaccine dose against COVID-19 amid an Omicron surge
  • Jan 2 Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok resigns in a televised address amid political deadlock after a rejection of his deal with the military by pro-democracy forces

Omicron Surge

Jan 2 US epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci says focus should be on hospitalizations not case numbers amid huge surge in Omicron COVID-19 cases. Cases up 202%, hospitalizations up 30% in US. [1]

  • Jan 3 America records one million new COVID-19 cases for the first time, Omicron accounting for an estimated 95% of these [1]
  • Jan 3 Apple becomes the first US company to be worth $3 trillion in value, after tripling its price in under four years [1]

Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty

Jan 3 Elizabeth Holmes, founder of blood-testing start-up Theranos is found guilty on four counts of fraud in San Jose, California [1]

  • Jan 4 Canadian government announces US$31.5 billion settlement to fix and compensate for Indigenous child welfare system, largest in its history [1]
  • Jan 4 Toyota becomes the first foreign automaker to top US sales, beating GM in 2021, partly due to supply issues [1]
  • Jan 5 Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards pardons Homer Plessy for buying whites-only train ticket in 1892 (resulted in U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson 1896) [1]
  • Jan 5 State of emergency declared across Kazakhstan amid unrest and protests against fuel price rises, 164 killed in three days
  • Jan 7 First successful transplant of a pig's heart into a human when genetically modified pig's heart inserted into a 53 year old man in Baltimore, Maryland [1]
  • Jan 7 Three men convicted of murdering black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Feb 2020, sentenced to life in prison in a Georgia court
  • Jan 8 The United Kingdom passes 150,000 COVID-19 deaths, the first country in Europe and the seventh globally [1]
  • Jan 9 At least 200 people killed and 10,000 displaced by armed bandits in northwestern Nigerian state of Zamfara, after military raids on their hideouts, amid continuing struggle for order in the region [1]
  • Jan 9 Fire in a Bronx, New York, residential high rise kills 17 and injures 63
  • Jan 10 Crytocurrency Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, now one of the world's richest billionaires, with net worth of $96 billion according to Bloomberg

Maya Angelou Quarter

Jan 10 The US Mint issues quarter coins commemorating poet Maya Angelou, first black woman to be depicted [1]

  • Jan 10 US reports 1.34 million new COVID-19 infections, a global record, with Omicron variant accounting for an estimated 95% of cases [1]
  • Jan 11 Quebec announces it will impose a healthcare tax on unvaccinated adults who are accounting for 50% of ICU cases (scrapped Feb 2022) [1]
  • Jan 11 WHO warns more than half of Europe could catch COVID-19 within weeks, warning of a "west-to-east tidal wave" [1]

Partygate

Jan 12 UK PM Boris Johnson admits he attended a "bring your own booze" staff party in May 2020 during the country's first lockdown [1]

  • Jan 13 Australian equals hottest temperature on record of 50.7C (123.26F) in Onslow, Western Australia
  • Jan 13 Britain's Prince Andrew stripped of his military titles and royal patronages by Buckingham Palace, amid continuing sexual assault allegations

Sirhan Sirhan's Release Blocked

Jan 13 California Governor Gavin Newsom blocks Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan's release on parole after 53 years in jail [1]

  • Jan 13 Landmark conviction of former Syrian intelligence officer Anwar Raslan for state-sponsored crimes against humanity in Koblenz, Germany [1]
  • Jan 15 Oil spill at La Pampilla refinery off Peruvian coast after waves from the Tongan eruption cause almost 12,000 barrels to leak into the sea [1]
  • Jan 15 Underwater volcano Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai violently erupts with 20km ash plume, sending tsunami over nearby Tonga, with shock waves heard in New Zealand [1]
  • Jan 18 France records a record 464,769 new COVID-19 cases with other European countries also registering record numbers amid Omicron's spread [1]
  • Jan 18 Indonesia's parliament approves bill to relocate its capital to Borneo and announces new city's name will be Nusantara, (meaning archipelago) [1]
  • Jan 18 Microsoft says it is buying Activision Blizzard, publisher of online games "Call of Duty", "World of Warcraft" and "Candy Crush" for $70 billion - biggest-ever gaming and tech takeover [1]
  • Jan 19 5G cellphone service launches in the US with airlines claiming it could interfere with airplane technologies
  • Jan 19 Major report on antimicrobial resistance shows 4.95m deaths worldwide associated with drug-resistant bacteria, making untreatable infections now a leading cause of death [1]
  • Jan 19 UK PM Boris Johnson eases Omicron COVID-19 restrictions, saying the current wave of infections has peaked
  • Jan 20 19-year-old aviator Zara Rutherford becomes the youngest woman to fly solo around the world landing at Kortrijk-Wevelgem Airport, Belgium [1]
  • Jan 21 Yemen detention centre in Saada held by rebel Houthis bombed killing more than 70 people [1]
  • Jan 24 19 die in a fight and a fire at a nightclub in Sorong city, West Papua, Indonesia [1]
  • Jan 24 At least 34 people killed and 65,000 left homeless after two different tropical storms batter Madagascar and Mozambique with Madagascar's capital Antananarivo particularly affected [1]
  • Jan 24 Coup in Burkina Faso as military announce on TV they have overthrown President Roch Kaboré after his failure to stem an Islamic insurgency [1]
  • Jan 25 Australian government buys the copyright to the Aboriginal flag designed by artist Harold Thomas for A$20 million (US$14m) [1]
  • Jan 25 People smuggling boat reported to have capsized in the Florida Straits with the loss of 38 lives
  • Jan 26 US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announces his retirement

Biden Supreme Court Pledge

Jan 27 US President Joe Biden pledges to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court

  • Jan 30 Kurdish-led militia and American forces regain control of Sinaa prison in Hasaka, Syria, after a week-log assault by ISIS fighters, with the loss of 500 lives [1]
  • Jan 30 Portugal's ruling Socialist party headed by Prime Minister António Costwin wins an unexpected outright majority in country's snap election
  • Jan 31 British government report finds "a failure of leadership" led to parties taking place in Downing Street when UK under strict lockdown, amid a police investigation [1]
  • Jan 31 Online word puzzle Wordle bought for “low seven figure sum” by The New York Times
  • Feb 1 60 people killed in attack by militants on Plaine Savo camp for displaced persons in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo [1]
  • Feb 1 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, 'Nobel Prize for Engineering' awarded to Masato Sagawa for inventing the neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnet [1]
  • Feb 2 More than one million Afghans have fled the country for Iran since October due to the country's economic crisis, according to immigration authorities threatening a new migrant crisis [1]
  • Feb 3 Austria brings into force its vaccine mandate for all, first country in Europe to do so
  • Feb 3 ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi blows himself and his family up during a raid by US Special Forces in Syria [1]
  • Feb 4 Cyclone Batsirai strikes Madagascar less than a month after Cyclone Ana, causing widespread damage, killing at least 92 people and displacing 91,000 [1]
  • Feb 5 Body of five-year old Moroccan boy Rayan Oram retrieved from the well he fell down four days previously after huge rescue effort [1]
  • Feb 5 Sanaz Toossi's play "English" premieres off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2023) [1]
  • Feb 6 Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declares a state of emergency over a trucker protest against a covid vaccination mandate on the US-Canada border [1]

Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee

Feb 6 Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking seventy years on the throne [1]

  • Feb 7 European security facing its most dangerous moment since the Cold War, amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to EU foreign policy chief [1]

Macron Meets Putin

Feb 7 French President Emmanuel Macron meets with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow amid build-up of Russian troops on border with Ukraine

  • Feb 8 Horn of Africa with 13 million people now facing humanitarian crisis amid drought where the rainy season has failed three years in a row, according to UN World Food Program [1]
  • Feb 9 Nearly four million bottles of beer destroyed in large crackdown on alcohol in northern Nigerian state of Kano, where alcohol prohibited under Sharia law [1]
  • Feb 11 Australia lists the koala as endangered for the first time in Queensland, New South Wales and ACT after a steep decline in numbers [1]
  • Feb 12 French forces say they have killed 40 fighters in air attacks in Burkina Faso linked to deadly attacks on Benin border [1]
  • Feb 13 Canadian police arrest truckers who have protested a vaccine mandate for blocking Ambassador's Bridge, between Detroit and Windsor, for a week at the busiest land border crossing in North America [1]
  • Feb 14 The megadrought affecting the American Southwest is now considered the worst for 1,200 years according to scientists [1]
  • Feb 15 Floods and landslides after the heaviest rain in a century in Petrópolis, Brazil, leaves 146 people dead with 191 missing [1]
  • Feb 17 28,000 women apply for 30 jobs driving trains after they are advertised for women in Saudi Arabia for the first time [1]
  • Feb 18 Scientific study says the sudden drop in emissions due to COVID-19 shutdowns caused the record rainfall in eastern China in 2020 that killed hundreds [1]
  • Feb 18 Storm Eunice [Zeynep/Nora] moves across Europe and the UK with gusts of 120mph, killing at least 17, cutting off power to millions [1]
  • Feb 20 Britain's 95-year-old Queen Elizabeth II tests positive for COVID-19
  • Feb 20 Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam (Gerd), Africa's controversial and biggest-ever hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, begins generating electricity [1]
  • Feb 21 60 people die in an explosion at an unregulated gold mine near Gaoua, Burkina Faso [1]
  • Feb 21 Australia's international border reopens to vaccinated tourists after 704 days, nearly two years [1]
  • Feb 21 Colombia's Constitutional Court, its highest court, decriminalizes abortion [1]
  • Feb 21 Russian leader Vladimir Putin recognises Russia-backed separatists in two Ukrainian regions, ordering in troops for "peacekeeping functions" [1]
  • Feb 22 Three white men convicted of killing black jogger Ahmaud Arbery found guilty of federal hate crimes, in Georgia [1]
  • Feb 22 US President Joe Biden announces new sanctions against Russia, saying its latest moves in Ukraine amount to "the beginning of a Russian invasion" [1]
  • Feb 24 Russian leader Vladimir Putin announces the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine to "demilitarize" the country moments before Russia launches a full-scale pre-dawn invasion by land, air and sea, with bombings in several cities amid international condemnation [1] [2]
  • Feb 24 Zahir Zakir Jaffer sentenced to death in Islamabad, Pakistan for the rape, murder and beheading of Noor Muqaddam after she refused to marry him, highlighting violence towards women in the country [1]
  • Feb 26 'Rain bomb' due to a slow-moving low pressure trough begins major flooding in south-east Queensland, Australia, leaving at least seven people dead [1]
  • Feb 26 Scientists publish findings into "lost" continent Balkanatolia, that linked southern Europe with Asia, providing passageway for animal migrations 35 to 38 million years ago [1]
  • Feb 27 Countries sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine; EU closes its airspace to Russian planes, Russian banks excluded from worldwide Swift payment system, Sweden sends arms to Ukraine
  • Feb 27 EU warns Russian invasion of Ukraine means Europe facing major humanitarian crisis, 18 million Ukrainians displaced with four million refugees fleeing the country
  • Feb 28 Russia shells the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, while a 40 mile Russian military convoy approaches capital city of Kyiv
  • Feb 28 UN Landmark climate change report warns climate change outpacing human efforts to adapt, with best-case scenario rise of 1.5C, 14% of species face "very high risk of extinction" [1]
  • Mar 1 Cargo ship carrying 4,000 luxury Volkswagen Group cars sinks off the Portuguese Azores archipelago, two weeks after it caught fire [1]
  • Mar 1 US President Joe Biden's says Vladimir Putin has "badly miscalculated" by invading Ukraine in his State of the Union address [1]
  • Mar 2 UN states agree to create legally binding plastic pollution treaty (tbc 2024) after talks in Nairobi, Kenya - hailed most significant environmental deal since 2015 Paris climate accord [1]
  • Mar 3 Russian forces seize the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe
  • Mar 4 Four-ton rocket debris crashes into the far side of the moon, unconfirmed booster from China's Chang'e 5-T1 mission in first unintentional collision with the moon [1]
  • Mar 4 Suspected suicide bomb attack on a shia mosque in Pakistani city of Peshawar kills at least 56 and injures 190 [1]

Event of Interest

Mar 5 Explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance that sank in 1915, rediscovered in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica in excellent condition [1]

  • Mar 7 Global death toll from Covid-19 passes 6 million according to Johns Hopkins figures, with 57% of the world's population fully vaccinated [1]
  • Mar 7 UN refugee agency says Russian invasion of Ukraine has now led to 1.7 million people fleeing the country, civilian deaths recorded at 406 with 801 injured [1]
  • Mar 8 Florida Senate passes controversial "Parental Rights in Education bill, known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, restricting teachers from discussing gender identity [1]
  • Mar 8 President Joe Biden announces the US is banning Russian oil imports with UK phasing out imports by the end of the year
  • Mar 8 Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon formally apologises to the 4,000 Scots, mostly women, accused of witchcraft between 1563 and 1736 [1]
  • Mar 8 Sydney has wettest start to the year since records began, recording 822 millimetres of rain amid widespread flooding [1]

Event of Interest

Mar 8 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invokes Winston Churchill speaking virtually to the UK parliament "We will not fail. We will fight till the end" [1]

  • Mar 9 Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian city of Mariupol hit a hospital, killing at least three people, as attempts to create a humanitarian corridor out of the city fail [1]

Event of Interest

Mar 9 Stolen notebooks belonging to naturalist Charles Darwin, including his famous 'tree of life' sketch, mysteriously returned after 22 years to Cambridge University Library [1]

Election of Interest

Mar 9 Yoon Suk-yeol elected President of South Korea, defeating sitting President Moon Jae-in [1]

  • Mar 10 True global death toll from COVID-19 estimated at 18.2 million in new study by Washington University [1]
  • Mar 12 Saudi Arabia executes 81 convicted criminals, the country's largest known mass execution in modern times [1]
  • Mar 14 Civilians able to leave heavily bombed Ukranian city of Mariupol for the first time, amid dead toll of 2,500 in the city and a humanitarian crisis [1]
  • Mar 14 Omicron causes the largest outbreak of COVID-19 in China since Wuhan 2020 with 26 million people under lockdown in Changchun and Shenzhen [1]
  • Mar 15 Architectures' Pritzker Prize awarded to Francis Kéré from Burkina Faso [1]
  • Mar 15 Hong Kong amid its worst COVID-19 outbreak records over 4,000 deaths in a few months, largely due to low vaccination, as Omicron hits, forcing it to abandon its covid-zero policy,
  • Mar 16 British-Iranians Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori return to the UK after being detained for five and six years on spying charges [1]
  • Mar 16 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses US Congress remotely pleading for further aid against the Russian invasion [1]
  • Mar 16 US Federal Reserve raises interest rates for the first time since 2018 by a quarter of a point to help ease rising price inflation [1]

Event of Interest

Mar 17 Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari apologies for recent fuel shortages and power outages, including the failure of the national electricity grid and an increase in adulterated fuel [1]

  • Mar 20 Intense fighting in Ukrainian city of Mariupol continues as Russian forces encircle the city, trapping 300,000 people [1]
  • Mar 21 178 wildfires have burnt more than 108,000 acres across southwest Texas according to local fire officials with 23 still active [1]
  • Mar 21 China Eastern Airlines jetliner crashes in mountains in Guangxi region, China, with 132 people on board
  • Mar 21 Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation hearings begin in Washington D.C.

Event of Interest

Mar 21 Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador inaugurates Felipe Angeles International Airport to serve Mexico City [1]

Event of Interest

Mar 22 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party reaches a deal with opposition New Democratic Party to stay in power till 2025 [1]

  • Mar 22 Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declares a state of emergency after tornadoes tear through New Orleans suburbs, killing at least one person [1]
  • Mar 22 Microplastics found in human blood for first time through new research conducted at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands [1]
  • Mar 23 Abel Prize, mathematics' Nobel equivalent, awarded to American Dennis Sullivan for his work on topography [1]
  • Mar 23 Brian Houston, Australian founder of megachurch Hillsong, resigns after an internal investigation finds he breached their code of conduct with two women
  • Mar 23 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken formally declares that members of Russia armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine [1]
  • Mar 26 US President Joe Biden says of Russian President Vladimir Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power" in unscripted remarks in Poland [1]
  • Mar 27 China announces Shanghai will be locked down in two stages over nine days affecting 25 million people to carry out COVID-19 testing [1]

Event of Interest

Mar 27 Duke and Duchess of Cambridge end an eight-day tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas that highlighted issues of decolonization and calls for slave reparations [1]

  • Mar 27 El Salvador's parliament declares a state of emergency after 62 gang killings in one day [1]
  • Mar 28 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs so called "Don't Say Gay" bill limiting LGBTQ classroom instruction [1]
  • Mar 29 BA.2 version of Omicron is now the dominant form of COVID-19 in America according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention [1]
  • Mar 29 In a major victory for Ukraine, Russia announces it is withdrawing its badly mauled forces from around Ukraine's capital, Kyiv
  • Mar 29 New study of Pluto finds evidence of cryovolcanoes and ice lava from NASA's New Horizons footage 2015 [1]
  • Mar 29 US F.D.A. authorizes a second Pfizer or Moderna booster shot for people over 50 or immunocompromised [1]
  • Mar 29 US President Joe Biden signs the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime after over 200 attempts to pass similar legislation since 1900 [1]
  • Mar 30 Computer's Turing Award won by American programmer Jack Dongarra, whose work paved the way for supercomputers [1]
  • Mar 31 First truly complete sequence of a human genome published by Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium, after breakthroughs in new technology (previously just over 90% coded) [1]
  • Mar 31 US announces it will release 1 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months to drive down prices [1]
  • Apr 1 Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declares a nationwide public emergency after violent protests amid the country's worst economic crisis since independence [1]
  • Apr 2 Ukraine liberates the entire Kyiv region from retreating Russian forces
  • Apr 3 The Taliban government bans cultivation of opium in Afghanistan, with consequences for world supply as it produces 80% [1]
  • Apr 4 Economist Rodrigo Chaves elected President of Costa Rica defeating current president José María Figueres [1]
  • Apr 4 Eon Musk buys 9.2% of Twitter stock, making him the company's largest shareholder [1]
  • Apr 4 Ukrainian government begins a war crimes investigation after 410 civilians found killed after the withdrawal of Russian forces from around Kyiv [1]
  • Apr 5 Shanghai lockdown extended to cover the whole city as COVID-19 cases increase, as China remains one of the last to employ a "zero-Covid" system [1]
  • Apr 5 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urges UN Security Council to act against Russia, accusing Russian military of the worst war crimes since WWII, including execution, rape and torture of civilians [1]
  • Apr 6 Hermits Peak fire, New Mexico's largest wildfire starts in Mora County, as a supposedly controlled burn off by US Forest Service, goes onto displace 100 people, burn 341,000 acres, 62 million trees [1]
  • Apr 6 Military Tribunal in Ouagadougou convicts former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré in absentia, of the 1987 killing of his predecessor Thomas Sankara [1]
  • Apr 6 Scientists claim to have found dinosaur remains killed on the actual day a giant asteroid struck earth 66 million years ago beginning their extinction, at Tanis fossil site, North Dakota [1]
  • Apr 7 Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes the first black woman to be confirmed by the US Senate to the Supreme Court in 53-47 vote [1]
  • Apr 7 Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi transfers power to an eight-member council to negotiate with the Houthis in attempt to end country's seven-year civil war [1]
  • Apr 8 First all-private space flight, Axiom-1 launches to the International Space Station [1]
  • Apr 11 Mayor of Ukrainian city Mariupol says over 10,000 civilians have died in the Russian siege, with the likely death toll twice this, as bodies are " carpeted through the streets” [1]
  • Apr 12 Global COVID-19 known cases pass 500 million, with 5.1 billion (66%) having received at least one vaccine shot [1]
  • Apr 12 Terrorist attack on the New York subway injures 26, 10 by gunfire, with the suspect arrested a day later [1]
  • Apr 12 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologies and is fined for attending parties during COVID-19 lockdown - first premier to be sanctioned for breaking the law [1]
  • Apr 13 At least 448 people killed after heavy rains and flooding in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, "one of the worst weather storms in the history of our country" according to authorities [1]
  • Apr 14 Russian ship Moskva, flagship of its Black Sea fleet, sinks in the Black Sea during the invasion of Ukraine amid conflicting accounts [1]
  • Apr 14 The biggest surge in years of attacks by Arab militants in Israel leaves 14 dead, leading to Israel army operations that kill a further 20 [1]
  • Apr 18 Russia begins a major new offensive in Donbas, during their invasion of Ukraine [1]

Event of Interest

Apr 18 South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declares a national state of disaster, after floods and mudslides in Durban area result in over 400 deaths and destroy over 4,000 homes [1]

  • Apr 18 US Federal judge rules as "unlawful" Biden administration’s mandate that masks be worn on public transportation [1]
  • Apr 19 US Biden administration restores climate impacts and community say to the National Environmental Policy Act, previously removed by Donald Trump [1]
  • Apr 19 US inflation hits 8.5%, the highest since 1981, driven by a rise in gas prices, rent and food [1]
  • Apr 21 Ex-president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández extradited to the US to face drug trafficking and weapons charges [1]
  • Apr 23 59th Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition opens, with 80 participating. Main exhibition "The Milk of Dreams" curated by Cecilia Aleman. [1]
  • Apr 23 American Simone Leigh is the first Black woman artist to win the main prize at Venice Biennale for her sculpture "Brick House" [1]
  • Apr 23 Venice Biennale's top award, The Golden Lion (Best National Participation) awarded to UK's Sonia Boyce for her work "Feeling Her Way" [1]

Election of Interest

Apr 24 French President Emmanuel Macron wins re-election defeating National Rally's Marine Le Pen, first sitting French president re-elected in 20 years [1]

  • Apr 24 Slovenian populist prime minister Janez Janša defeated by Freedom Movement 's Robert Golob, a party only launched in January 2022 [1]
  • Apr 24 Violent clashes between Arab nomads and members of the Massalit community in Sudan's West Darfur state result in the deaths of at least 168 people [1]

Brontë’s Million Dollar Book of Ryhmes

Apr 25 Charlotte Brontë’s "A Book of Ryhmes" (10cm x 6cm), written when she was 13, sells at auction in New York for $1.25 million to Friends of the National Libraries for the Brontë Parsonage Museum [1]

  • Apr 25 First airport for electric flying cars and large drones, built by Urban-Air Port, begins operations in Coventry, England [1]

Event of Interest

Apr 25 Twitter announces a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk for $44 billion [1]

  • Apr 26 Russia says it will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria, after the countries refused to pay in rubles, escalating the energy supply standoff between Russia and Europe [1]
  • Apr 26 US infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the country is out of the "Pandemic Phase" - for the moment [1]
  • Apr 26 World Bank warns the war in Ukraine will cause the "largest commodity shock" since the 1970s, with large economic and humanitarian effects [1]
  • Apr 27 Italian women footballers finally turn professional after Italian Football Federation changes status of top division (takes effect 1 July) and ends capped amateur salaries [1]
  • Apr 27 SpaceX, launches its Crew Dragon capsule with four astronauts, including Jessica Watkins - becomes 1st black woman to serve extended mission on International Space Station [1]
  • Apr 27 US CDC report finds that more than half of people (57.7%) had antibodies for COVID-19 by February 2022, with 75.2% of children and teenagers [1]

Event of Interest

Apr 28 Russian missiles strike Ukrainian city of Kyiv during a visit by UN Secretary-General António Guterres

  • Apr 29 Six-story building collapses in the Chinese city of Changsha, killing 26, with one woman surviving six days in the rubble [1]
  • Apr 29 World's longest glassed-bottomed bridge, the Bach Long (White Dragon), 632m long, opens in Moc Chau Island mountain park and resort, Vietnam [1]
  • Apr 30 Bach Long Bridge, the world's longest glass-bottom bridge at 632m opens in Moc Chau Island mountain park, Vietnam [1]
  • Apr 30 Jacky Hunt-Broersma sets world record for running 104 consecutive marathons in 104 days, after surviving cancer and with a prosthetic leg. [1]
  • May 1 First of two sets of human remains revealed by receding Lake Mead, US's largest reservoir, near Las Vegas likely linked to mob activity in the 1970s and 80s [1]

Lavrov's anti-Semitic Outburst

May 1 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Adolf Hitler "had Jewish blood" in interview on Italian TV, prompting outrage from Israel [1]

Pelosi Visits Ukraine

May 1 US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leads surprise congressional delegation to Ukraine to met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy [1]

  • May 2 New Zealand reopens its borders to international visitors from more than 60 countries after being closed for two years during the pandemic [1]
  • May 2 US Supreme Court draft opinion leaks suggesting Roe v. Wade about to be overturned published on news website Portico [1]
  • May 3 Heatwave continues across North and Central India disproportionally affecting the poor, with March and April temperatures the hottest ever recorded in 122 years [1]
  • May 3 US government says W.N.B.A. player Brittney Griner has been "wrongfully detained" in Russia, after being taken into custody when drugs were found in her luggage in Feb 2022 [1]
  • May 4 "'World's most dangerous trafficker" Colombian drug kingpin Dairo Antonio Úsuga (known as Otoniel) is extradited to the US for drug charges [1]
  • May 4 First of its kind study of transgender children, by Princeton University, transitioning aged 3-12, found vast majority continue to identify with their new gender five years later [1]
  • May 4 US Federal Reserve makes largest interest rate increase since 2000 (+0.5%), attempting to combat the fastest rate of inflation in four decades [1]
  • May 5 Karine Jean-Pierre appointed White House Press Secretary to President Joe Biden, first Black and out LGBTQ person in the role [1]
  • May 5 Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O'Neill, wins the most seats in Northern Ireland elections for the first time with 27 seats to Democratic Unionist Party's 25 [1]
  • May 5 WHO study of excess deaths worldwide says 15 million more people have died than normal, far above the official COVID-19 death toll of 6 million [1]
  • May 5 Zimbabwe is in the midst of a severe economic crisis with unemployment at 90%, hyperinflation and a falling Zimbabwe dollar, according to economic experts [1]
  • May 6 Explosion at the five-star Hotel Saratoga due to suspected a gas leak in Havana, Cuba kills at least 35 people [1]
  • May 7 Afghan women issued decree to cover their faces in public (hijab reaching head to toe) by Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or her male guardian faces criminal punishment [1]
  • May 8 Pro-Beijing loyalist and sole candidate, John Lee elected Chief Executive of Hong Kong by the city's Election Committee [1]