February 23rd
Today in America's Present Past
1729 | Politician Josiah Hornblower was born.
1778 | War of Independence: Baron von Stuben joins the Continental Army at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
1781 | Founder George Taylor died.
1787 | Activist Emma Willard was born.
1821 | First American pharmacy college opens as the College of Apothecaries in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1836 | Battle of the Alamo starts.
1847 | Mexican-American War: Battle of Buena Vista.
1848 | POTUS: President John Quincy Adams died.
1861 | POTUS: Pinkerton agents foil an assignation plot in Baltimore, Maryland, against President-elect Abraham Lincoln.
1868 | Activist W.E.B. Du Bois was born.
1870 | Statehood: Mississippi is readmitted to the Union.
1883 | The first anti-trust law is enacted in Alabama.
1889 | Film director Victor Fleming was born.
1892 | The first collegiate student government body forms at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
1896 | Entrepreneur Leo Hirshfield introduces the “Tootsie Roll.”
1903 | Cuba and the U.S. signed an agreement providing the U.S. with Guantanamo Bay.
1904 | Historian William L. Shirer was born.
1904 | The U.S. purchased control of the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million.
1905 | The first Rotary Club is formed in Chicago, Illinois.
1915 | “Enola Gay” pilot Paul Tibbets was born.
1927 | POTUS: Republican President Calvin Coolidge signed the Radio Act.
1942 | WWII: Japanese submarines attack Ellwood, California.
1954 | First mass inoculation against polio occurs in Arsenal Elementary School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1957 | Physician John Friend Mahoney died.
1965 | Entrepreneur Michael Dell was born.
1967 | The 25th Amendment to the Constitution is adopted.
1975 | In response to an energy crisis, the U.S. implemented daylight savings two months early.
1979 | Civil Rights: The first African-American General promoted in the USMC, Frank Peterson, Jr.
1983 | Actor Aziz Ansari was born.
1985 | Hosier basketball coach Bobby Knight throws a chair on the court mid-game.
1991 | Gulf War: Republican President George H.W. Bush gives Iraq 24 hours to withdraw from Kuwait.