History Events on February 23

The Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.

#Soviet_Union

Second Boer War: During the Battle of the Tugela Heights, the first British attempt to take Hart's Hill fails.

#Second_Boer_War

Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law.

#Alabama

Sino-French War: French Army gains an important victory in the Battle of ??ng ??ng in the Tonkin region of Vietnam.

#Sino-French_War

Atlas Air Flight 3591 crashes into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, killing all three people on board.

#Atlas_Air_Flight_3591

World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined Filipino and American forces.

#Philippines

Iran hostage crisis: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament will decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.

#Iran_hostage_crisis

International Organization for Standardization is founded.

#International_Organization_for_Standardization

Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".

#Cuba

The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.

#French_Riviera

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.

#Mexican-American_War

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.

#Grayrigg_derailment

Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of aluminium from the electrolysis of aluminium oxide, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.

#Charles_Martin_Hall

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.

#Syria

President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

#Abraham_Lincoln

The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.

#Orange_Free_State

The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.

#Symbionese_Liberation_Army

In Thailand, General Sunthorn Kongsompong leads a bloodless coup d'état, deposing Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan.

#Thailand

German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time.

#Theoretical_physics

A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam, marking the first operational loss of a B-2.

#United_States_Air_Force

Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing J'Accuse…!, a letter accusing the French government of antisemitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus.

#Émile_Zola

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.

#Calvin_Coolidge

World War II: The 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, free the captives of the Los Baños internment camp.

#11th_Airborne_Division_(United_States)

Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.

#Kurds

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.

#Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is annihilated in a raid by 379 British bombers.

#Pforzheim

Cato Street Conspiracy: A plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers is exposed.

#Cato_Street_Conspiracy

Mapuche forces, under the leadership of Lautaro, score a victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Marihueñu in Chile.

#Mapuche

Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.

#Gutenberg_Bible

World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the coastline near Santa Barbara, California.

#World_War_II

Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.

#Leopold_III_of_Belgium

The AEA Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.

#AEA_Silver_Dart

Greek Resistance: The United Panhellenic Organization of Youth is founded in Greece.

#Greek_Resistance

World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Pozna?. The city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.

#Nazi_Germany

The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.

#United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency

Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.

#Plutonium

First demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The beginning of the February Revolution (March 8 in the Gregorian calendar).

#Saint_Petersburg

American Revolutionary War: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.

#American_Revolutionary_War

A fire breaks out at Saint Joseph's Orphanage, County Cavan, Ireland, killing 35 children and one adult.

#County_Cavan

Texas Revolution: The Siege of the Alamo (prelude to the Battle of the Alamo) begins in San Antonio, Texas.

#Texas_Revolution

Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.

#Roman_emperor

At York Castle, the outlaw Dick Turpin is identified by his former schoolteacher. Turpin had been using the name Richard Palmer.

#York_Castle

The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army captures Al-Bab from ISIL.

A series of attacks across Iraq leave at least 83 killed and more than 250 injured.

Unknown criminals pour more than 2?1?2 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.

In the United States, tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42 people.

Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

In Spain, Antonio Tejero attempts a coup d'état by capturing the Spanish Congress of Deputies.

The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world's first service club.

Reconstruction Era: Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.

Byzantine emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.