On This Day in History: October 22

Pioneering balloonist André-Jacques Garnerin became the modern world's first successful parachutist by jumping from a hydrogen balloon over Paris More

President John F. Kennedy alerts the American people to the Cuban missile crisis, declaring a naval blockade to prevent further missile shipments to the island country 90 miles (145 km) off the coast of the U.S. The crisis brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. Expand +

Chandrayaan-1, India's first lunar mission, was launched on October 22, 2008. The mission, using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard the spacecraft, found water molecules on the lunar surface, both as hydroxyl and water confirming the presence of water ice in permanently shadowed regions at the lunar poles.

WikiLeaks, a website founded by Julian Assange, released thousands of U.S. documents provided by Chelsea Manning, relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan including field reports on civilian casualties and the treatment of prisoners, These "war logs" were made available to the public after by WikiLeaks and also released by some News organizations like The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and The New York Times. Expand +

Canada's Parliament Hill in Ottawa is attacked by a lone gunman, resulting in the death of a soldier and the attacker.