1. On May 22, 1863, Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant captured the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, a Confederate stronghold, after a 47-day siege. The victory gave the Union control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.

2. In 1963, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi on May 22. Evers had been working to register African American voters and desegregate schools, and his death became a rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement.

3. On May 22, 1934, notorious gangster John Dillinger and his gang robbed a bank in Tupelo, Mississippi. The heist was one of several committed by Dillinger's gang during their crime spree in the early 1930s.

4. In 1997, a tornado outbreak struck Mississippi on May 22, causing widespread damage and killing nine people. The deadliest tornado in the outbreak hit the town of Amory, Mississippi, killing three and injuring dozens more.

5. On May 22, 1964, civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were arrested by police in Neshoba County, Mississippi, while investigating the burning of a black church. The three men were later released and then kidnapped and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their deaths became known as the "Mississippi Burning" case and helped to galvanize support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.