What happened on 22 May?

11 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1520 Smallpox decimates the Americas European diseases kill an estimated 90% of indigenous populations over the 16th century.
2. 1887 Born: Jim Thorpe American athlete; multi-sport Olympic gold.
3. 1859 Born: Arthur Conan Doyle Scottish writer; creator of Sherlock Holmes.
4. 1772 Born: Raja Ram Mohan Roy Founder of the Brahmo Samaj reform movement; campaigner against sati.
5. 1762 Rousseau's Émile, or On Education Rousseau's treatise on natural education; banned and burned in Paris.
6. 1455 First Battle of St Albans Yorkist victory over Lancastrian forces; conventional start of the Wars of the Roses.
7. 1967 Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran Nasser shuts Israel's only Red Sea shipping lane — a step Israel has said for a decade means war — and the Arab capitals erupt in celebration as Jordan and Iraq join Egypt's milita
8. 1787 Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded Twelve men — nine Quakers, plus Clarkson and Granville Sharp — meet in a London printing shop and invent the modern pressure campaign: petitions, boycotts, eyewitness evidence, a l
9. 1863 Black soldiers join the Union army Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the War Department creates the Bureau of Colored Troops; nearly 180,000 Black soldiers — most of them formerly enslaved — fight for the Uni
10. 2015 Irish same-sex marriage referendum Ireland becomes the first country to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote, marking deep social change.
11. 1923 Stanley Baldwin's first premiership Baldwin calls a snap election on protective tariffs, loses his majority and lets Labour in.