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. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
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Images
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Glenn T. Seaborg
Robert Jenkinson, the Earl of Liverpool
Rudolf Diesel
Marine Corps War Memorial
Button of plutonium metal above a calcium chloride salt cake
Werner Heisenberg
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Mashramani in Guyana | refimprove |
| 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. | needs more footnotes |
| 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 |
| 1893 – Rudolf Diesel received a patent for the diesel engine. | refimprove sections |
| 1944 – In response to an insurgency in Chechnya, the Soviet Union began the forced deportation of native Chechen and Ingush populations of North Caucasus to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. | expansion |
Eligible
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: The United States Army used heavy artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army at the Battle of Buena Vista near Saltillo, Coahuila.
- 1903 – The Cuban–American Treaty was finalized, allowing the United States to lease Guantánamo Bay from Cuba in perpetuity for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations.
- 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.
- 1941 – Plutonium was first chemically identified by chemist Glenn T. Seaborg and his team at the University of California, Berkeley.
- 1945 – Second World War: In an Allied bombing run on Pforzheim, Germany, approximately 31% of the town's population were killed and 83% of its buildings were destroyed.
- 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization, responsible for worldwide industrial and commercial standards, was founded.
- 1987 – Light from the supernova SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud reached the Earth.
- 2007 – A Virgin Trains Pendolino express train from London Euston to Glasgow Central derailed near Grayrigg, Cumbria, UK, killing one person and injuring 22.
February 23: Clean Monday (Eastern Christianity, 2015); National Day in Brunei (1984); Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia and several other former Soviet republics
- 1739 – The identity of English highwayman Dick Turpin was uncovered by his former schoolteacher, who recognised his handwriting, leading to Turpin's arrest.
- 1885 – Sino-French War: France gained an important victory in the Battle of Đồng Đăng in the Tonkin region of what is now Vietnam.
- 1909 – The Silver Dart (pictured) was flown off the ice of Bras d'Or Lake on Cape Breton Island, making it the first controlled powered flight in Canada.
- 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 as the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial.
- 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.
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