Portal:United States/Anniversaries/February/February 23

• 1904 – The United States purchases control of the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million.
• 1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club (logo pictured), the world's first service club.
• 1927 – The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
• 1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
• 1991 – Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the first Gulf War.

{{Portal:United States/On this day/Layout

 |month=February
 |day=23
 |events=

• 1778 - American Revolution: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.
• 1836 - The Siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
• 1847 - Mexican–American War: Battle of Buena Vista - In Mexico, American troops under General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• 1861 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after an assassination attempt in Baltimore.
• 1870 - Military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
• 1883 - Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.
• 1904 - For $10 million the United States gains control of the Panama Canal Zone.
• 1905 - [[Chicago] attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world's first service club.
• 1945 - World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten US Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize.
• 1945 - World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by American forces.
• 1975 - In response to the energy crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly two months early in the United States.
• 1980 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
• 1983 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.
• 1991 - Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabia border and enter Iraq, thus starting the ground-phase of the war.
• 1995 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 30.28 to close at 4,003.33, closing above 4,000 for the first time.
• 2005 - Slovakia Summit 2005 begins, marking the first occasion when a sitting American President visits Slovakia; Bush and Putin are in attendance.

 |births=

• 1729 - Josiah Hornblower, American statesman (d. 1809)
• 1809 - William Sprague, American minister and politician from Michigan (d. 1868)
• 1868 - W. E. B. Du Bois, American civil rights leader (d. 1963)
• 1889 - Victor Fleming, American director (d. 1949)
• 1899 - Norman Taurog, American film director (d. 1981)
• 1904 - William L. Shirer, American historian (d. 1993)
• 1915 - Jon Hall, American actor (d. 1979)
• 1915 - Paul Tibbets, US Air Force retired Brigadier General and Pilot of B-29 "Enola Gay" over Hiroshima (d. 2007)
• 1918 - Richard G. Butler, American fascist (d. 2004)
• 1931 - Tom Wesselmann, American collage artist (d. 2004)
• 1932 - Majel Barrett, American actress
• 1937 - Tom Osborne, American football coach and politician
• 1938 - Diane Varsi, American actress (d. 1992)
• 1940 - Peter Fonda, American actor
• 1941 - Ron Hunt, baseball player
• 1943 - Fred Biletnikoff, American football player and coach
• 1944 - John Sandford, American novelist
• 1944 - Johnny Winter, American musician
• 1946 - Rusty Young, American country-rock guitarist (Poco)
• 1947 - John McWethy, American journalist (d. 2008)
• 1948 - Doug Moench, American comic book writer
• 1951 - Ed Jones, American football player
• 1951 - Patricia Richardson, American actress
• 1952 - Brad Whitford, American musician (Aerosmith)
• 1955 - Tom Bodett, American voice actor, radio personality, and writer
• 1961 - Kelly Hansen, American drummer (Summer Lights)
• 1962 - Michael Wilton, American musician (Queensrÿche)
• 1963 - Bobby Bonilla, former baseball player
• 1965 - Kristin Davis, American actress
• 1965 - Michael Dell, American computer manufacturer
• 1965 - Veronica Webb, American supermodel and actress
• 1970 - Niecy Nash, American actress
• 1972 - Steve Holy, American country singer
• 1972 - Rondell White, American baseball player
• 1973 - Jack Case, American artist
• 1974 - Leko, American DJ
• 1975 - Michael Cornacchia, American actor
• 1975 - Robert Lopez, American composer
• 1979 - D-Roc, American rapper (Ying Yang Twins)
• 1981 - Charles Tillman, American football player
• 1986 - Holly Brook, American musician
• 1989 - Evan Bates, American ice dancer
• 1994 - Dakota Fanning, American actress

 |deaths=

• 1781 - George Taylor, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (bc. 1716)
• 1848 - John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767)
• 1944 - Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Flemish-American chemist and inventor of the first synthetic plastic, Bakelite (b. 1863)
• 1973 - Dickinson W. Richards, American physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1895)
• 1974 - Harry Ruby, American composer and writer (b. 1895)
• 1990 - Laura Palmer, Prom queen in home town of Twin Peaks (b. 1990)
• 1995 - Melvin Franklin, American singer (The Temptations) (b. 1942)
• 1997 - Tony Williams, American jazz drummer (b. 1945)
• 1999 - Carlos Hathcock, USMC Sniper, 93 Confirmed Kills (b. 1942)
• 2003 - Robert K. Merton, American sociologist (b. 1910)
• 2003 - Howie Epstein, American bass guitarist (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) (b. 1955)
• 2004 - Carl Anderson, American singer (b. 1945)
• 2004 - Don Cornell, American singer (b. 1919)
• 2007 - Donnie Brooks, American singer (b. 1936)

 |holidays=

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