February 22 is the 53rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 312 days remaining until the end of the year (313 in leap years).

• 1797 – The Last Invasion of Britain begins near Fishguard, Wales.

• 1819 – By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.

• 1853 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1856 – The Republican Party opens its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

• 1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861
• 1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.
• 1909 – The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.

• 1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.

• 1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.

• 1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3.

• 1983 – The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

• 1994 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.

• 1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.

• 1997 – In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.

• 2011 – An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 people.