22 APRIL
1792 Uriah Phillips Levy (April 22, 1792 â March 26, 1862) was a naval officer, real estate investor, and philanthropist. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 and the first Jewish Commodore of the United States Navy. He was instrumental in helping to end the Navy’s practice of flogging, and during his half-century-long service prevailed against the antisemitism he faced among some of his fellow naval officers.
1816 Charles Denis Sauter Bourbaki (22 April 1816, â 22 September 1897, Bayonne) was a French general. In 1836 joined the Zouaves, becoming lieutenant of the Foreign Legion in 1838 and aide-de-camp to King Louis Philippe. In 1857 he was made general of division, commanding in 1859 at Lyon. In 1870 the Emperor Napoleon III entrusted him with the command of the Imperial Guard, He received the command of the Northern Army, but was recalled on 10 November and transferred to the Army of the Loire. In command of the hastily trained and ill-equipped Army of the East, In July 1871, he again took the command at Lyon and subsequently became military governor. In 1881, owing to his political opinions, he was placed on the retired list.
1818 Cadwallader Colden Washburn (April 22, 1818 â May 14, 1882) was an American businessman, politician, and soldier who founded a mill that later became General Mills. A member of the Washburn family of Maine, he was a U.S. Congressman and governor of Wisconsin, and served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
1865 Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 â July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine, was an American Confederate soldier who attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward as part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, he later served in Mosby’s Rangers before working with the Confederate Secret Service in Maryland. John Wilkes Booth recruited him into a plot to kidnap Lincoln and turn the president over to the Confederacy, but then decided to assassinate Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson instead, and assigned Powell the task to kill Seward.
1906 Eddie Albert Apr 22, 1906 – May 26, 2005) Prior to WW2, he toured Mexico as a clown and high-wire artist, but was actually working for Army intelligence to take pictures of U-boats before World War II. He enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and was discharged a short year later so that he would be able to accept an officer position in the Naval Reserve. During the Battle of Tarawa, Albert earned a Bronze Star with Combat “V”. He fought in the first wave of combat that lasted for three days. After most of the shooting was over, he was sent back to the site of the battle to salvage any equipment he could find. Because of coral reefs in the area, Marines weren’t able to land directly on the beach and had to get off their boats 500 yards from shore. Enemy combatants started picking them off, and soon the waters were filled with over 100 wounded and many more dead. Albert disregarded his mission to grab equipment and began pulling marines to safety. He took 47 in total, and oversaw the rescue of 30 more.
1914 Michael Wittmann (22 April 1914 â 8 August 1944) was a German Waffen-SS tank commander during the Second World War. He is known for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a Tiger I tank, Wittmann destroyed up to fourteen tanks and fifteen personnel carriers, along with two anti-tank guns, within the space of fifteen minutes. The news was picked up and disseminated by the Nazi propaganda machine and added to Wittmann’s reputation in Germany.
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