What Happened On
Jesus Makes the Top 100
February 23, 1974
Sister Janet Mead's recording of The Lord's Prayer makes it onto the Billboard Top 100. It charted for 13 weeks, reaching #4 and going gold. Since the lyrics came from the teachings of Jesus in the Bible, it is the only song to hit the Top 10 in which the lyrics are attributed to Jesus Christ. Mead donated her earnings to charity.
Salk administering the vaccine
Salk administering the vaccine
Polio Vaccine
February 23, 1954
Inoculation of children with Jonas Salk's polio vaccine begins in Pittsburgh. Nation wide testing began two months later. It was the first successful vaccine for the dreaded disease.
Before the vaccine, there were about 15,000 cases of paralysis and 1,900 deaths annually from polio in the U.S.
Salk chose to not patent the vaccine in order to maximize its distribution. When asked who owned the patent, Salk replied, "Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" It is estimated the patent would have been worth billions had it been patented.
First flag raising (left) and the second raising photographed by Rosenthal
First flag raising (left) and the second raising photographed by Rosenthal
Battle of Iwo Jima - Raising of the Flag
February 23, 1945
The famous raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi. There were two American flag raisings on Mount Suribachi that day. Joe Rosenthal's famous Pulitzer-winning photo was of the second flag-raising in which a larger replacement flag was raised by a second group of Marines.
With more than 7,000 U.S. troops killed, the Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the costliest battles of World War II. The battle lasted from February 19th to March 26th.
Major Walter Clopton Wingfield
Major Walter Clopton Wingfield
Tennis
February 23, 1874
The game of Tennis is patented by its inventor Major Walter Clopton Wingfield of Great Britain.
"Termination" of Christianity
February 23, 303
Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered that the Christian church at Nicomedia be razed, its scriptures burned, and its treasures seized. This would be the day they would "terminate" Christianity, in celebration of the feast of the Terminalia, for Terminus, the god of boundaries. Despite these efforts, Christianity became the empire's preferred religion in A.D. 324 under emperor Constantine I.
Supernova SN1987a
February 23, 1987
The light from this supernova in Large Magellanic Cloud reaches Earth. It was 164,000 light years away. The near simultaneous arrival of neutrinos and antineutrinos from the supernova provided the first empirical evidence that matter, antimatter, and photons all react similarly to gravity.
Easy Divorce
February 23, 1915
Nevada passes its "easy" divorce bill requiring only six months residence.
Civil War
February 23, 1861
Texas becomes the 7th state to secede from the Union.
Birthdays
Photo Credit: JohnKadvany
Photo Credit: JohnKadvany
Johnny Winter (John Dawson Winter III)
Born February 23, 1944 d. 2014
American Blues Hall of Fame blues singer/guitarist. He and his younger brother musician Edgar Winter were both born with albinism.
Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters.
Music: Silver Train (1973).
Peter Fonda
Born February 23, 1940 d. 2019
American actor. Film: Easy Rider (1969, producer, co-writer, and as Captain America), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), and Ulee's Gold (1997). He is the son of actor Henry Fonda and the brother of actress Jane Fonda.
Elston Gene Howard
Born February 23, 1929 d. 1980
American baseball player. American League 1963 MVP and the first to use a baseball bat with a weight on the end to warm up in the on-deck circle (1969).
Victor Fleming
Born February 23, 1889 d. 1949
American director. Film: The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939, Oscar).
Photo Credit: Ragesoss
Photo Credit: Ragesoss
Discovered Vitamins
Casimir Funk
Born February 23, 1884 d. 1967
Polish-born American chemist. He discovered vitamins (1912) calling them "vital amines," which later became "vitamins."
After reading that persons who ate brown rice were less vulnerable to beri-beri than those who ate only fully milled rice, Funk isolated the substance responsible, which become known as vitamin B3 (niacin).
Funk believed that more vitamins existed, and proposed the existence of at least four vitamins: one preventing beriberi ("antiberiberi"); one preventing scurvy ("antiscorbutic"); one preventing pellagra ("antipellagric"); and one preventing rickets ("antirachitic").
Karl Jaspers
Born February 23, 1883 d. 1969
German philosopher, promoter of the philosophy of existentialism.
W. E. B. DuBois (William Edward Burghardt DuBois)
Born February 23, 1868 d. 1963
American educator. Co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, 1909). He was the first black to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard (1895).
Quote: "Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."
César Ritz
Born February 23, 1850 d. 1918
Swiss hotelkeeper. "Hotelier to Kings." He founded the world famous Ritz hotels in London, Paris, New York, etc.
George Frederick Handel
Born February 23, 1685 d. 1759
German composer. Music: The Messiah (1742).
Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville
Born February 23, 1680 d. 1767
French governor of Louisiana (1701-13, 1717-18, 1724-28, 1733-43) and founder of New Orleans (1718) and co-founder of Mobile, Alabama (1711). In 1717, after Bienville found a crescent bend in the Mississippi River which he felt was safe from tidal surges and hurricanes he was given permission the following year to build the new capital of the colony there naming it New Orleans.
Paul II
Born February 23, 1417 d. 1471
Italian religious leader, 211th Pope (1464-71).
Deaths
Stan Laurel (Arthur Stanley Jefferson)
Died February 23, 1965 b. 1890
English comedian, actor. He made over 100 films with his partner Oliver Hardy, whom he worked with from 1926 till Hardy's death in 1957.
Moments before his death, Laurel told his nurse that he'd like to go skiing. The nurse replied that she was not aware that he was a skier. "I'm not," said Laurel, "I'd rather be doing that than this!"
First Movie Pie Thrown in the Face
Mabel Normand
Died February 23, 1930 b. 1892
American actress. She tossed the first pie ever thrown in a movie (1913, the silent film A Noise From the Deep, hitting Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle in the face with a custard pie).
Photograph of John Quincy Adams taken in 1843
Photograph of John Quincy Adams taken in 1843
John Quincy Adams
Died February 23, 1848 b. 1767
American politician. 6th U.S. President (1825-29), U.S. House of Representatives (1831-48, Massachusetts), 8th United States Secretary of State (1817-25), U.S. Senator (1803-08, Massachusetts), son of the 2nd president John Adams. According to legend, Adams stored an alligator for the Marquis de Lafayette in the bathroom of the White House's East Room for several months.
His is the oldest existing photograph of a U.S. President. It was taken in 1843, after he left office.
James K. Polk was the first U.S. President of whom a photo still exists that was taken while in office (1849).
William Henry Harrison was the first U.S. president photographed while in office, posing for a photo after delivering his 1841 inaugural speech. However, that photo has been lost.
Katherine Helmond
Died February 23, 2019 b. 1929
American actress. TV: Soap (1977-81, Jessica Tate), Who's the Boss? (1984-92, Mona), and Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2004, Debra's mother). Film: Brazil (1985).
Philip Abbott
Died February 23, 1998 b. 1924
American actor. TV: The FBI (Arthur Ward).
All Creatures Great and Small
James Herriot (James Alfred Wight)
Died February 23, 1995 b. 1916
Scottish veterinarian. His book All Creatures Great and Small (1972) was the basis for the popular BBC series.
John F. Mahoney
Died February 23, 1957 b. 1889
American physician. He developed penicillin treatment for syphilis (1943). This virtually eliminated tertiary syphilis of the brain, once a leading cause of insanity throughout the world.
Pomp and Circumstance
Sir Edward Elgar
Died February 23, 1934 b. 1857
English composer. Famous for his "Pomp and Circumstance" marches, the first four of which were published between 1901 and 1907.
Karl Friedrich Gauss
Died February 23, 1855 b. 1777
German mathematician, astronomer. The magnetic unit of flux density "Gauss" is named for him. He also devised the method of least squares used in statistics.
John Keats
Died February 23, 1821 b. 1795
English poet. Writings: Endymion (1818) and Eve of St. Agnes (1820).
Eugene IV
Died February 23, 1447 b. ????
Italian religious leader, 207th Pope (1431-47).