February 23 is:
Birthday of Samuel Pepys (February 23, 1633), English writer. The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London.
Birthday of George Frederic Handel (February 23, 1685), German opera composer, wrote the Messiah, heard every Easter.
Publication of Federalist Paper #60: Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members written by Alexander Hamilton in 1788. It was suggested that the regulations could be used to promote “some favorite class of men in exclusion of others by confining the places of election to particular districts and rendering it impracticable to the citizens at large to partake in the choice”. Since the house is elected by the people, the senate by the state legislatures, and the electors of the president chosen by the people, “there would be little probability of a common interest to cement these different branches in a predilection for any particular class of electors”.
1836 – The Battle of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.
“This is the last of Earth! I am content!” were the final words spoken by John Quincy Adams , sixth President of the United States. His death on February 23, 1848 was triggered by a cerebral hemorrhage. He collapsed on the floor of the US Capitol Building while he was still serving as the representative of the District of Massachusetts.
1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
1903 – Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”.
1927 – President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill establishing the Federal Radio Commission (later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission) which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
Iwo Jima Day, anniversary of the raising of the American flag atop Mount Suribachi in 1945
1954 – The first mass innoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh.