Today's Highlight in History:
On Feb. 23, 1945, U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima captured Mount Suribachi, where they raised the American flag twice. (The second flag-raising was captured in the iconic photograph below, taken by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press.)
In 1633, English diarist Samuel Pepys was born in London.
In 1685, composer George Frideric Handel was born in Germany.
In 1822, Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city.
In 1836, the siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.
In 1848, the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, died in Washington, D.C. at age 80, two days after suffering a stroke on the floor of the House of Representatives.
In 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office, following word of a possible assassination plot in Baltimore.
In 1870, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union.
In 1903, the United States was granted a lease "in perpetuity" on Guantanamo Bay by Cuban officials.
In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission.
In 1942, the first shelling of the U.S. mainland occurred as a Japanese submarine fired on an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, Calif., causing little damage.
In 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh.
In 1970, Guyana became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations.
In 1981, an attempted coup began in Spain as 200 members of the Civil Guard invaded the Parliament, taking lawmakers hostage. (However, the attempt collapsed 18 hours later.)
In 1982, Canada, Japan and the Common Market nations of Europe joined the United States in economic and diplomatic sanctions against Poland and the Soviet Union to protest imposition of martial law in Poland.
In 1990, former Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte died at age 64.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush announced that the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forces had begun. Military forces in Thailand overthrew the elected government and imposed martial law.
In 1994, Bosnia's warring Croats and Muslims signed a cease-fire agreement. The Croats agreed to pull back from the Muslim city of Mostar, which had been under siege.
In 1995, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 4,000 for the first time -- at 4,003.33.
In 1996, two sons-in-law of Saddam Hussein, who had fled Iraq to exile in Jordan, returned after being pardoned and told they'd be safe back home. The next day, they were killed -- within hours of an Iraqi government announcement that their wives, Saddam's daughters, were granted divorces.
In 1997, scientists in Scotland announced they had cloned an adult mammal, producing a lamb named Dolly. Also in 1997, a gunman identified as a Palestinian teacher killed a tourist from Denmark and wounded six other people on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York City before turning the gun on himself.
In 1998, 42 people were killed, and some 2,600 houses and businesses were damaged or destroyed by tornadoes in central Florida.
In 1999, a jury in Jasper, Texas, convicted white supremacist John William King of murder in the dragging death of an African-American man, James Byrd Jr.; King was sentenced to death two days later. Serbs agreed in principle to give limited self-rule to majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, thereby avoiding for the time being threatened NATO air strikes, but the two sides failed to conclude a deal for ending their yearlong conflict during talks in Rambouillet, France. The first of two avalanches that claimed 38 lives over two days struck in Austria.
In 2003, Israeli attacks on Hamas-related facilities in Gaza and the West Bank over the past week left at least 40 Palestinians dead.
In 2004, the Army canceled its Comanche helicopter program after sinking $6.9 billion into it over 21 years. Education Secretary Rod Paige likened the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, to a "terrorist organization" during a private White House meeting with governors. (Paige later called it a poor choice of words, but stood by his claim the NEA was using "obstructionist scare tactics.")
In 2005, a jury was selected in Santa Maria, Calif. to decide Michael Jackson's fate on charges that he'd molested a teenage boy at his Neverland Ranch. (Jackson was later acquitted.) President George W. Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed to turn down the volume on their disagreements about Iraq and Iran. Official efforts to identify victims from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York ended, leaving more than 1,000 bodies unidentified. Also in 2005, the death toll from the heavy snowfall and avalanches in Kashmir reached 300.
In 2006, the snow-covered roof of a Moscow market collapsed, killing at least 60 people and injuring more than two dozen others.
In 2008, a Sri Lanka military attack on a Tamil Tiger rebel camp left 51 dead as violence in the Asian country intensified. Also in 2008, Japanese officials called for a crackdown on reported increases in crime and disorderly conduct by U.S. military personnel living off base in Okinawa. Alleged offenses included rape, drunken driving, trespassing and counterfeiting. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other US officials held daylong meetings with Australian leaders in Canberra. Former United Auto Workers president Douglas A. Fraser died in Southfield, Mich., at age 91.
In 2009, President Barack Obama pledged to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he'd signed the previous week. U.S. stocks dived for the fifth consecutive day with major indexes falling to their lowest level since 1997. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 3.4 percent and the Standard and Poor's 500 lost 3.5 percent.
Today's Birthdays: Actor Peter Fonda is 70. Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff is 67. Author John Sandford is 66. Singer-musician Johnny Winter is 66. Country-rock musician Rusty Young is 64. Actress Patricia Richardson is 59. Rock musician Brad Whitford (Aerosmith) is 58. Singer Howard Jones is 55. Rock musician Michael Wilton (Queensryche) is 48. Country singer Dusty Drake is 46. Actress Kristin Davis is 45. Tennis player Helena Sukova is 45. Actor Marc Price is 42. Actress Niecy Nash is 40. Rock musician Jeff Beres (Sister Hazel) is 39. Country singer Steve Holy is 38. Rock musician Lasse Johansson (The Cardigans) is 37. Actress Emily Blunt is 27. Actor Aziz Ansari is 27. Actress Dakota Fanning is 16.
Others Born On This Date Include: Mayer Amschel Rothschild, European banker and founder of the Rothschild financial dynasty (17440; writer and philosopher W.E.B. DuBois (1868); film director Victor Fleming, "Gone With The Wind," "Wizard of Oz," (1883); journalist-author William Shirer ( 1904); & Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay on the flight that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (1915).
Today In Entertainment February 23
In 1957, Porter Wagoner joined the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1965, Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy, died in Santa Monica, California. He was 74.
In 1970, Canada's music awards, known as the Junos, were presented for the first time. The Guess Who won "Best Group."
In 1978, at the 20th annual Grammy Awards, The Eagles won Record of the Year for "Hotel California." "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac won the Album of the Year award.
In 1979, Dire Straits began its first tour of North America.
In 1983, the band Toto won six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for "Toto IV."
In 1988, Michael Jackson kicked off his first solo US tour in Kansas City.
In 1993, actor Anthony Hopkins was knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
In 1994, a judge in Los Angeles dismissed a suit brought by Martha Raye against Bette Midler. Raye had said Midler stole her life story for the movie "For the Boys."
In 1995, singer Melvin Franklin of The Temptations died of complications following a brain seizure in Los Angeles. He was 53.
In 1996, actress Halle Berry and Atlanta Braves outfielder David Justice announced they were ending their three-year marriage.
In 2000, Carlos Santana won eight Grammy awards, including album of the year for "Supernatural," tying the record for most trophies in one night, set by Michael Jackson's "Thriller" in 1983.
In 2003, Norah Jones won five Grammys, one for every category in which she was nominated, including album of the year for "Come Away With Me," tying the record for a female artist that has since been broken by Beyonce. The Grammys show opened with Simon and Garfunkel, the first time they had performed together in a decade.
In 2004, the finale of "Sex and the City" aired.
In 2005, French film star Simone Simon, in her 90s, died in Paris.
Thought for Today: "If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror." — Francois Rabelais, French satirist (1494-1553).
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