Today in history

Today is Thursday, April

22, the 112th day of 2021. There are 253 days left in the year.

In 1864, Congress authorized the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.

In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.

In 1915, the first full-scale use of deadly chemicals in warfare took place as German forces unleashed chlorine gas against Allied troops at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium during World War I; thousands of soldiers are believed to have died.

In 1952, an atomic test in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television as a 31-kiloton bomb was dropped from a B-50 Superfortress.

In 1970, millions of Americans concerned about the environment observed the first “Earth Day.”

In 1994, Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at a

New York hospital four days after suffering a stroke; he was 81.

In 2000, in a dramatic pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a custody dispute, from his relatives’ home in Miami; Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.

In 2004, Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who’d traded in a multi-million-dollar

NFL contract to serve in Afghanistan, was killed by friendly fire; he was 27.