Tuesday 22nd of January 1788

Poet George Gordon Byron aka Lord Byron is born in London, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Monday 22nd of January 1849

Writer August Johan Strindberg is born in Sundhetskollegiets hus, Stockholm, Riddarholmen, Södermanland, Sweden.

Friday 22nd of January 1875

Film director and Hollywood pioneer D. W. David Llewelyn Wark Griffith aka The Inventor of Hollywood is born in Crestwood, Kentucky, United States.

Monday 22nd of January 1877

Presumed murderer Gaston Dominici known from L’Affaire Dominici is born in Digne-les-Bains, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

Wednesday 22nd of January 1879

Cubist painter, poet and typographist Francis Picabia is born as Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Friday 22nd of January 1892

Aircraft designer Marcel Dassault is born as Marcel Bloch in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Tuesday 22nd of January 1901

Queen Alexandrina Victoria dies of declining health at the age of 82 in Osborne House, East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.

Queen Victoria's death marked the end of the Victorian Era.

Sunday 22nd of January 1911

SS-Obersturmführer and gynaecologist Rolf Rosenthal is born in Braunschweig, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Sunday 22nd of January 1922

258th Pope Benedictus XV dies of pneumonia at the age of 32 in Palazzo Apostolico, Rome, Vatican City, Lazio, Italy.

Thursday 22nd of January 1925

Cop killer Florencio Lerma aka Martin Flores is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 26 in Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York, United States.

Thursday 22nd of January 1925

Murderer Nicholas Ferranti is executed by Old Sparky at the age of 44 in Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York, United States.

Wednesday 22nd of January 1930

Nora Lake dies of Spontaneous Human Combustion at the age of 42 in Kingston, New York, United States.

Mrs. Lake was found dead on the second floor in a bedroom. Her body was on the floor next to a dresser and a window that overlooked a porch roof. Her face was burned, and there were blisters on her legs but her clothes were not burned. 

Wednesday 22nd of January 1930

Serial killer Daniel Camargo Barbosa aka The Beast of Ecuador aka The Monster of Charquito is born in Anolaima, Cundinamarca, Colombia.

Monday 22nd of January 1934

Actor Bill Wilfred Bailey Bixby known from ‘The Magician’ is born in San Francisco, California, United States.

Friday 22nd of January 1937

Writer Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh is born in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

Monday 22nd of January 1940

Singer Addie Harris aka Micki Harris known from The Shirelles is born in Passaic, New Jersey, United States.

Monday 22nd of January 1940

Actor John Vincent Hurt is born in Chesterfield, East Midlands, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 22nd of January 1946

Impresario, clothes designer and boutique owner Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren is born in London, Stoke Newington, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Tuesday 22nd of January 1957

54-year-old Electrician George P. Metesky aka The Mad Bomber is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut, United States.

Metesky was charged with planting over 30 bombs.

Tuesday 22nd of January 1963

Bandit Teófilo Rojas Varón aka Chispas is killed by a brigade of the Colombian Army at the age of 33 in Calarcá, Quindío, Colombia.

Rojas commanded a group of 65 outlaws and more than 592 murders were attributed to him.

Friday 22nd of January 1965

27-year-old Wiener Aktionist Hermann Nitsch performs his 8. Aktion 'Penisbespülung' in his house in Wien, Wien, Austria.

Wednesday 22nd of January 1969

USSR-cosmonauts Vladimir Shatalov, Boris Volynov, Yevgeny Khrunov and Aleksei Yeliseyev who had just returned with their Soyoez 4 and 5 spacecrafts are injured by 21-year-old Would-be assassin Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin who fired shots into the motorcade while attempting to kill Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

Ilyin assumed the second car carried Brezhnev. Unbeknownst to him this Zil limousine was filled only with cosmonauts from earlier missions: Alexey Leonov, Valentina Tereshkova, Georgy Beregovoy and Andrian Nikolayev.

Monday 22nd of January 1973

176 pilgrims die in Alia Boeing 707-3D3C crash in Kano Airport, Kano, Nigeria.

There were 26 survivors.

Monday 22nd of January 1973

36th President of the United States Lyndon B. Baynes Johnson dies of a heart attack at the age of 65 in Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, United States.

Tuesday 22nd of January 1980

59-year-old Nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident and human rights activist Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov is arrested following his public protests against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 and sent to internal exile in the city of Gorky in Moscow, Central Federal District, Russia.

Saturday 22nd of January 1983

43-year-old Serial killer Richard Fran Biegenwald aka The Jersey Shore Thrill Killer and Dherran Fitzgerald are arrested in 507 Sixth Avenue, Asbury Park, New Jersey, United States.

A search of Biegenwald's home revealed a large cache of weapons and drugs. Police confiscated several pipe bombs, handguns, rifles, shotguns, a machine gun, Rohypnol, chloral hydrate, marijuana, a live puff adder, venom collecting apparatus, and floor plans for several area notable residences and businesses.

Saturday 22nd of January 1983

School shooter Robert Steinhäuser is born in Erfurt, Thüringen, Germany.

Thursday 22nd of January 1987

Treasurer of Pennsylvania Budd Robert Dwyer commits suicide by a shot in his mouth at the age of 48 in 2931 N. Front Street, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States.

Dwyer killed himself in front of the gathered reporters at a press conference with a .357 caliber revolver. Dwyer's suicide was subsequently broadcast to a wide television audience across the state of Pennsylvania. He was about to being sentenced for taking a $300,000 kickback.

Wednesday 22nd of January 1992

Murderer Joe Angel Cordova is executed by lethal injection at the age of 40 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Cordova's last meal request was for fried chicken, french fries, hot sauce, rolls, salad with Thousand Island dressing and ice cream.

Saturday 22nd of January 1994

Actor Telly Aristotelis Savalas known from the TV-series ‘Kojak’ dies of complications of cancer of the bladder and prostate at the age of 72 in Sheraton-Universal Hotel, 333 Universal Hollywood Drive, Universal City, California, United States.

Wednesday 22nd of January 2003

Multiple murderer Robert Andrew Lookingbill is executed by lethal injection at the age of 38 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Lookingbill's last meal request was for fried chicken, French fries, iced tea, apple pie, jalapenos, garlic bread, and vanilla ice cream.

Saturday 22nd of January 2005

Lying in bed with flu and waking up with the haunting ghost of Friedrich Dürrenmatt in Bern, Mittelland, Switzerland.

Tuesday 22nd of January 2008

Actor Heath Andrew Ledger dies as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine at the age of 29 in 421 Broome Street, New York, Manhattan, New York, United States.