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May 22, 1902: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt establishes the Crater Lake National Park in Oregon (at right).

 

May 22, 1960: What is believed to be the most powerful earthquake in history strikes offshore near Valdivia, Chile, registering magnitude 9.5. Tsunami waves from the quake kill hundreds as far away as Japan and the Philippines.

 

May 22, 1968: The nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion is lost at sea 400 miles southwest of the Azores Islands, with 99 sailors and two nuclear weapons on board. The sub is located, but never raised. Theories and investigations abound, some suggesting that the sub could have been attacked and destroyed by the Soviet Navy, or that the Scorpion was lost after an accidental detonation of one of its own weapons.

 

May 22, 2001: Overruling its own scientists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suspends tougher rules on the allowable limits of arsenic in drinking water.

 

May 22, 2011: A massive tornado tears through downtown Joplin Missouri, leveling hundreds of homes and killing over 150 people in the most deadly US tornado since detailed record-keeping began in 1950

 

Photo:anneh632/Flickr

 

This feature is compiled by Peter Dykstra, an MNN contributor and publisher of Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate.