On This Day, May 22: Ireland is 1st to pass marriage equality in popular vote

In Dublin Castle, Ireland, people celebrated the announcement of the final vote of the same-sex marriage referendum on May 23, 2015, a day after the referendum took place. In history on this day: In 1868, the original “Great Train Robbery” occurred when seven members of the Reno gang stole $98,000 from a railway car in Marshfield, Ind. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt established Crater Lake National Park in southwest Oregon, which is the fifth-oldest national park in the U.S., featuring the remains of Mount Mazama. In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit Moscow. A tornado flattened Saragosa, Texas, in 1987, killing 29 and injuring 121. South Yemen and North Yemen united in 1990 to form the new Yemeni Arab Republic. Johnny Carson ended his nearly 30-year career as host of The Tonight Show in 1992. In 2002, a fourth suspect in the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., was convicted. Annika Sörenstam became the first woman in 59 years to compete in a PGA event in 2003. The deadliest tornado in the U.S. in half a century struck Joplin, Mo., in 2011, resulting in nearly 160 deaths and extensive damage. In 2015, Ireland became the first nation in the world to legalize civil same-sex marriage through a popular vote. In 2017, a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. A fiery crash of Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK-8303 near Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport in 2020 resulted in at least 76 deaths. In 2024, Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced their formal recognition of Palestine as a state separate from Israel to push for a two-state solution to the conflict.