February 23

What happened that day?

• 2017: The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army captures Al-Bab from ISIL.
• 2012: A series of attacks across Iraq leave at least 83 killed and more than 250 injured.
• 2010: Unknown criminals pour more than 2.5 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.
• 2008: A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam, marking the first operational loss of a B-2.
• 2007: A train derails on an evening express service near Grayrigg, Cumbria, England, killing one person and injuring 88. This results in hundreds of points being checked over the UK after a few similar accidents.
• 1999: Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
• 1998: In the United States, tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42 people.
• 1991: In Thailand, General Sunthorn Kongsompong leads a bloodless coup d'état, deposing Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan.
• 1987: Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• 1983: The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.
• 1981: In Spain, Antonio Tejero attempts a coup d'état by capturing the Spanish Congress of Deputies.
• 1980: Iran hostage crisis: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament will decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
• 1974: The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
• 1966: In Syria, Ba'ath Party member Salah Jadid leads an intra-party military coup that replaces the previous government of General Amin al-Hafiz, also a Baathist.
• 1954: The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
• 1945: World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is annihilated in a raid by 379 British bombers.
• 1945: World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań. The city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.
• 1945: World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined Filipino and American forces.
• 1945: World War II: The 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, free the captives of the Los Baños internment camp.
• 1945: World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag.
• 1944: The Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.
• 1943: Greek Resistance: The United Panhellenic Organization of Youth is founded in Greece.
• 1943: A fire breaks out at Saint Joseph's Orphanage, County Cavan, Ireland, killing 35 children and one adult.
• 1942: World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the coastline near Santa Barbara, California.
• 1941: Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
• 1934: Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.
• 1927: German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time.
• 1927: U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill by Congress establishing the Federal Radio Commission (later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission) which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
• 1917: First demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The beginning of the February Revolution (March 8 in the Gregorian calendar).
• 1909: The AEA Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.
• 1905: Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world's first service club.
• 1903: Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".
• 1900: Second Boer War: During the Battle of the Tugela Heights, the first British attempt to take Hart's Hill fails.
• 1898: Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing "J'accuse", a letter accusing the French government of antisemitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
• 1887: The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.
• 1886: Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.
• 1885: Sino-French War: French Army gains an important victory in the Battle of Đồng Đăng in the Tonkin region of Vietnam.
• 1883: Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law.
• 1870: Reconstruction Era: Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
• 1861: President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 1854: The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.
• 1847: Mexican-American War: Battle of Buena Vista: In Mexico, American troops under future president General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• 1836: Texas Revolution: The Siege of the Alamo (prelude to the Battle of the Alamo) begins in San Antonio, Texas.
• 1820: Cato Street Conspiracy: A plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers is exposed.
• 1778: American Revolutionary War: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.
• 1739: At York Castle, the outlaw Dick Turpin is identified by his former schoolteacher. Turpin had been using the name Richard Palmer.
• 1554: Mapuche forces, under the leadership of Lautaro, score a victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Marihueñu in Chile.
• 1455: Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
• 532: Byzantine emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople - the Hagia Sophia.
• 303: Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.