1. On May 22, 1705, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a law prohibiting the importation of Native Americans into the colony as slaves.

2. In 1746, Yale College's first graduate, James Pierpont, became the minister of New Haven's First Church, a position he held for almost 50 years.

3. On May 22, 1797, Hartford became the second city in the United States to have a public water system. The system used wooden pipes to transport water from a spring to a reservoir, where it was then distributed throughout the city.

4. On May 22, 1861, the First Connecticut Regiment was mustered into service for the Union Army during the Civil War. The regiment played an important role in several battles, including Bull Run and Antietam.

5. In 1987, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state's capital punishment statute was unconstitutional. The ruling stemmed from a case in which a man had been sentenced to death for a crime he committed when he was 16 years old. The court found that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment for a juvenile offender.