This Day in History: Aug. 22

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This Day in History: August 22

Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on August 22.

On this day, Aug. 22 ...

1902: Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to ride in a car in public.

Also on this day:

• 1787: Inventor John Fitch demonstrates his steamboat on the Delaware River to delegates from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
• 1851: The schooner America outraces more than a dozen British vessels off the English coast to win a trophy that came to be known as the America's Cup.
• 1864: The International Committee of the Red Cross is founded in Geneva, Switzerland.
• 1932: The British Broadcasting Corp. conducts its first experimental television broadcast, using a 30-line mechanical system.
• 1986: Kerr-McGee Corp. agrees to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit.
• 1986: The Rob Reiner-directed coming-of-age film "Stand By Me" goes into wide release by Columbia Pictures.
• 1989: Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton is shot to death in Oakland, Calif.
• 1992: On the second day of the Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho, an FBI sharpshooter kills Vicki Weaver, the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver. (The sharpshooter later would say he was targeting the couple’s friend Kevin Harris and didn’t see Vicki Weaver).
• 1996: President Bill Clinton signs welfare legislation ending guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanding work from recipients.

Roy Moore (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

• 2003: Alabama's chief justice, Roy Moore, is suspended for refusing to move a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse.
• 2004: Two paintings by Edvard Munch, "The Scream" and "Madonna," are stolen in a brazen daylight heist in front of staff and visitors at the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway.
• 2012: Russia and Vanuatu join the World Trade Organization.

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• 2019: In a major blow to state-by-state progressive efforts to effectively replace the Electoral College with a nationwide popular vote, a federal appeals court rules that presidential electors in the Electoral College have the absolute right to vote for presidential candidates of their choice.