February 23 Birthday
On February 23, 1836, General Antonio López de Santa Anna's army arrived at San Antonio de Béxar and began the siege of the Alamo. The mission was defended by approximately 200 men, including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Travis. Travis sent a letter calling for reinforcements that ended with "Victory or Death." No reinforcements came. The siege lasted thirteen days. On March 6, Santa Anna's forces breached the walls and killed every defender. "Remember the Alamo" became the battle cry of the Texas Revolution, which culminated in Texan independence six weeks later at the Battle of San Jacinto. The Alamo is a shrine of Texas identity, but the revolution was driven in part by Mexico's abolition of slavery in 1829, which the American settlers in Texas resented. February 23, 1945: Five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised an American flag on Mount Suribachi, the highest point on Iwo Jima. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the moment. The photograph was wired to the US within seventeen hours and appeared on the front page of every major American newspaper the next morning. It was the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize in the same year it was taken. Three of the six flag-raisers were killed in the subsequent fighting. The photograph became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington. The flag-raising was actually the second on Suribachi that day — the first flag was too small and a larger one was ordered. Rosenthal almost missed the second raising. On February 23, 1954, the first mass polio vaccination of children began in Pittsburgh. Dr. Jonas Salk had developed the vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh using killed poliovirus. The first children to receive it were students at Arsenal Elementary School. Salk tested the vaccine on himself, his wife, and his three sons before the trials. The nationwide trial involved 1.8 million children — the largest medical experiment in history. When the results were announced in 1955, the vaccine was declared "safe, effective, and potent." Salk refused to patent the vaccine. When asked who owned the patent, he said, "Well, the people, I would say. Could you patent the sun?" W.E.B. Du Bois, born this day in 1868, was the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard. He wrote The Souls of Black Folk (1903), which contained the prophetic line: "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." He co-founded the NAACP and edited its magazine, The Crisis, for twenty-four years. He died in Ghana on August 27, 1963, the night before the March on Washington. He was ninety-five. People born on February 23 fall under the zodiac sign of Pisces. The birthstone is Amethyst and the birth flower is Violet. Historical events on February 23 include 1836: Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas, 1945: US Marines raise American flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, 1954: First mass polio vaccination of children begins in Pittsburgh. Famous people born on February 23 include W.E.B. Du Bois (1868), Peter Fonda (1940), Kumail Nanjiani (1978).