This is a list of selected February 23 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
-
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima -
Glenn T. Seaborg -
Button of plutonium metal above a calcium chloride salt cake -
Robert Jenkinson, the Earl of Liverpool -
Marine Corps War Memorial -
Werner Heisenberg -
AEA Silver Dart -
Remnant of supernova 1987A -
Scene of the Grayrigg derailment
.jpg)
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| National Day in Brunei (1984); | refimprove section |
| Mashramani in Guyana | refimprove |
| Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia and several other former Soviet republics | refimprove section |
| 1820 – British authorities arrested the conspirators of the Cato Street Conspiracy, an attempt to murder Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and all the British cabinet ministers. | refimprove |
| 1836 – Battle of the Alamo | Save for March 6 |
| 1861 – President-elect of the United States Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, thwarting an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore. | refimprove section |
| 1885 – Sino-French War: France gained an important victory in the Battle of Đồng Đăng in the Tonkin region of what is now Vietnam. | unreferenced section |
| 1903 – As part of a lease agreement with Cuba, the United States assumed control of part of Guantánamo Bay to operate coaling and naval stations, including Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. | both refimprove |
| 1909 – The Silver Dart took off from the ice of Bras d'Or Lake on Cape Breton Island in the first controlled powered flight in Canada. | a few {cn} + an {unreliable source inline} tags |
| 1927 – German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg wrote a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli in which he described his uncertainty principle for the first time. | refimprove section |
| 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization, responsible for worldwide industrial and commercial standards, was founded. | primary sources |
| 1991 – The government of Thai prime minister Chatichai Choonhavan was deposed in a bloodless coup by General Sunthorn Kongsompong. | refimprove |
| 2005 – France passed a law requiring lycée teachers to teach students "the positive role" of French colonialism, creating so much public opposition that it was repealed within a year. | unreferenced section |
| 2007 – A Virgin express train derailed near Grayrigg in North West England, killing one person and seriously injuring thirty others. | refimprove |
| 2014 – Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych left to Russia, marking the end of the Euromaidan protests and the start of the Crimean crisis. | multiple issues |
Eligible
- 1739 – The identity of English highwayman Dick Turpin was uncovered by his former schoolmate, who recognised his handwriting, leading to Turpin's trial.
- 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Prussian military officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania as a volunteer for the Continental Army.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: The United States Army used artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army at the Battle of Buena Vista near Saltillo.
- 1941 – Plutonium was first chemically identified by chemist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley.
- 1943 - 35 children and 1 adult employee were killed in a fire at an orphanage in the town of Cavan, Ireland.
- 1945 – Second World War: An Allied bombing run on Pforzheim, Germany, killed approximately 31 percent of its population and destroyed about 83 percent of its buildings.
- 1945 – American photographer Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during the Battle of Iwo Jima, an image that was later reproduced on the Marine Corps War Memorial.
- 1971 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese General Đỗ Cao Trí was killed in a helicopter crash en route to taking control of the faltering Operation Lam Son 719.
- 2008 – A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber crashed on the runway shortly after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in the most expensive crash in U.S. Air Force history.
- 2017 – Syrian civil war: Allied troops led by the Turkish Armed Forces captured the city of al-Bab from the Islamic State.
- Born/died: Herbert II, Count of Vermandois |d|943| Pope Paul II |b|1417| Balthazar Gerbier |b|1592| Nicholas Fuller |d|1620| George Frideric Handel |b|1685| Richard Price |b|1723| George Taylor |d|1781| Edmund Evans |b|1826| César Ritz |b|1850| Zygmunt Krasiński |d|1859| Anna Hofman-Uddgren |b|1868| Johnny Carey |b|1919| Horst Wessel |d|1930| L. S. Lowry |d|1976| Mido |b|1983| Lotika Sarkar |d|2013| James Herriot |d|1995| Julien Ries |d|2013
February 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan (1960)
Aluminium
- 1854 – The Orange River Convention was signed in Bloemfontein, with the United Kingdom agreeing to recognise the independence of the Orange Free State in present-day South Africa.
- 1886 – American inventor Charles Martin Hall discovered an inexpensive method of producing aluminium (sample pictured).
- 1944 – In response to an insurgency in Chechnya, the Soviet Union began the forced deportation of the native Chechen and Ingush of North Caucasus.
- 1987 – SN 1987A, a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, was observed from Earth.
- 2021 – Caused by gang rivalries, riots in four Ecuadorian prisons resulted in the deaths of 79 inmates.
- al-Zafir (b. 1133)
- Allan MacLeod Cormack (b. 1924)
- Edward Elgar (d. 1934)
- Shiena Nishizawa (b. 1997)
More anniversaries: