Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

February 23

1987
Supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud is sighted by Ian Shelton.

1987
Supernova SN1987a: The light from this supernova reaches the 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.

1954
Inoculation of children with the Salk anti-polio vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

1945
World War II: The American flag is raised on Iwo Jima by U.S. Marines. The Pulitzer-winning photo of this event was taken by Joe Rosenthal.

1915
Nevada passes its "easy" divorce bill requiring only six months residence.

1874
Tennis: The game is patented by its inventor Major Walter C. Wingfield of Great Britain.

1861
Civil War: Texas becomes the 7th state to secede from the Union.

1944
Johnny Winter, American albino blues guitarist. Music: Silver Train (1973).

1939
Peter Fonda, American actor. Film: Easy Rider (1969).

1929     d. 1980
Elston Gene Howard, 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).

1884     d. 1967
Casimir Funk, Polish-born American chemist. He discovered vitamins (1912) and coined the word "vitamin."

1883     d. 1949
Victor Fleming, American director. Film: The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone With the Wind (1939, Oscar).

1883
Karl Jaspers, German philosopher, promoter of the philosophy of existentialism.

1868     d. 1963
William Edward Burghardt DuBois, 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).

1850     d. 1918
Cesar Ritz, Swiss hotelkeeper, founded the world famous hotels in London, Paris, New York, etc.

1685     d. 1759
George Frederick Handel, German composer. Music: The Messiah (1742). (Source: An Almanac of the Christian Church)

1680     d. 1767
Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, French governor of Louisiana (1701-13, 1718-26, 1733-43) and founder of New Orleans (1717).

1998     b. 1923
Philip Abbott, actor. TV: The FBI (Arthur Ward).

1995     b. 1916
James Herriot (James Alfred Wight), Scottish veterinarian. His book All Creatures Great and Small (1972) was the basis for the popular BBC series.

1965     b. 1890
Stan Laurel (Arthur Stanley Jefferson), British-born American comedian, actor. He made over 200 films with his partner Oliver Hardy.

1957     b. 1889
John F. Mahoney, American physician. He developed penicillin treatment for syphilis (1943). This virtualy eliminated tertiary syphilis of the brain, once a leading cause of insanity throughout the world.

1934     b. 1857
Sir Edward Elgar, English composer, famous for his "Pomp and Circumstance" marches.

1855     b. 1777
Karl Friedrich Gauss, 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.

1848     b. 1767
John Quincy Adams, 6th U.S. President (1825-29), son of the 2nd president John Adams.

1821     b. 1795
John Keats, English poet. Writings: Endymion (1818) and Eve of St. Agnes (1820).

1730     b. 1649
Benedict XIII, religious leader, 245th Pope (1724-30).

1447     b. ????
Eugene IV, Italian religious leader, 207th Pope (1431-47).

1072     b. 1007
Saint Peter Damian, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal, patron saint of doctors. Know as a reformer, he opposed the sale of Church sacraments and marriage of clergy.

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