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On August 22, 1572, the Huguenot admiral Gaspard de Coligny survived an assassination attempt in Paris, triggering a spiral of violence. Two days later, on the night of Saint Bartholomew, King Charles IX ordered the massacre of thousands of Protestants. It was one of the bloodiest episodes of the French Wars of Religion.

On August 22, 1970, the Soviet probe Luna 16 returned to Earth with 101 grams of lunar soil collected automatically, without a human crew. It was the first uncrewed mission to bring samples from another world. The Soviet achievement came exactly one year after the Apollo 11 astronauts had brought back lunar samples for the first time.

On August 22, 1991, the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev definitively collapsed when the putsch leaders were arrested and the Soviet president returned to Moscow. The three days of failed coup had irreversibly accelerated the disintegration of the USSR. Four months later, on December 25, Gorbachev officially dissolved the Soviet Union.