TODAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 23RD

1821 – John Keats, English poet (b. 1795) dies.

1836 – Texas Revolution: The Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.

1847 – Mexican–American War: Battle of Buena Vista – In Mexico, American troops under future president General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

1848 – John Quincy Adams, American politician, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767) dies.

1850 – César Ritz, Swiss businessman, founded The Ritz London Hotel and Hôtel Ritz Paris (d. 1918) is born.

1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

1870 – Reconstruction Era: Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.

1883 – Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law.

1896 – The Tootsie Roll is invented.

1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".

1918 – Richard Girnt Butler, American engineer, founded the Aryan Nations (d. 2004) is born.

1927 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill by Congress 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.

1942 – World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the California coastline near Santa Barbara.

1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

1955 – Flip Saunders, American basketball player and coach (d. 2015) is born.

1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.

1981 – Charles Tillman, American football player, Chicago Bears & Carolina Panthers is born.

1998 – In the United States, tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42.

2008 – A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam. It is the first operational loss of a B-2.