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HISTORY & TIMELINE
23 February

A journey through
23 February in history

From Diocletian’s edict against the Christians in 303 to the brightest supernova in centuries in 1987, 23 February has seen persecution, discovery and a famous flag on a volcanic hill. This timeline follows the date across seventeen centuries.

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I
EARLIEST RECORDS

Ancient & Early History

The earliest worthwhile records and events connected with this date.

303
Bust of Diocletian found at Nicomedia (today İzmit), in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.Bust of Diocletian found at Nicomedia (today İzmit), in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.Image: Yair-haklai · CC BY-SA 4.0
culture · Asia

Diocletian opens the Great Persecution

On 23 February 303, the Roman festival of the Terminalia, the emperor Diocletian had the church at Nicomedia, his capital in Asia Minor, torn down and its scriptures burned. An edict published there the same day ordered churches destroyed and Christian books handed over, and stripped Christians of legal rights. It began the Great Persecution, the last and harshest attempt by Rome to suppress Christianity, which went on in parts of the empire for about a decade.

Source: World History Encyclopedia: Diocletian ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1903
The US naval base at Guantánamo Bay in 1916.The US naval base at Guantánamo Bay in 1916.Image: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain
politics · Americas

The United States leases Guantánamo Bay

An agreement leasing land at Guantánamo Bay and Bahía Honda to the United States for coaling and naval stations was signed by Cuba’s president on 16 February 1903 and by President Theodore Roosevelt on 23 February. The United States recognised Cuba’s ultimate sovereignty but took complete control of the areas. No end date was set, and the lease can be ended only by agreement of both countries. The base at Guantánamo is still American, and Cuba’s government has long called it illegal.

Source: Yale Law School, Avalon Project: Agreement between the United States and Cuba for the lease of lands for coaling and naval stations, 23 February 1903 ↗
1905
A stone marker bearing the Rotary wheel and Paul Harris's name, photographed in 2009.A stone marker bearing the Rotary wheel and Paul Harris’s name, photographed in 2009.Image: Yusuke Kawasaki from Tokyo, Japan · CC BY 2.0
culture · Americas

The first Rotary club meets in Chicago

On 23 February 1905 the Chicago lawyer Paul Harris met three friends, Gustavus Loehr, Silvester Schiele and Hiram Shorey, in Loehr’s office, Room 711 of the Unity Building. They formed a club where men from different professions could meet, make friends and do business. Harris suggested the name Rotary because meetings rotated between members’ offices. The idea spread across the United States and then the world, and Rotary International now has well over a million members.

Source: Rotary International: Our history ↗
1941
Gilman Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, where plutonium was identified in Room 307.Gilman Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, where plutonium was identified in Room 307.Image: Gabriel Classon (gabeclasson on Flickr) · CC BY 2.0
science · Americas

Plutonium is identified at Berkeley

On 23 February 1941, in Room 307 of Gilman Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, Glenn Seaborg, Arthur Wahl and Joseph Kennedy showed by chemical tests that they had made a new element, number 94. It was later named plutonium, after the planet Pluto. Plutonium became a fuel for nuclear weapons and reactors; the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 used it. Seaborg shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Edwin McMillan for work on elements heavier than uranium, and Room 307 is now a National Historic Landmark.

Source: National Park Service: Gilman Hall, University of California ↗
1944
Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, who oversaw the deportation in person.Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, who oversaw the deportation in person.Image: Unknown, presumed official · Public domain
world · Europe

Stalin deports the Chechen and Ingush peoples

On 23 February 1944 Soviet security troops began rounding up the entire Chechen and Ingush peoples of the North Caucasus, accusing them of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Within about a week nearly half a million people had been loaded on to trains and sent to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Many thousands died on the journey and in the harsh first years of exile; estimates of the share who perished run from a quarter to a half. The survivors were allowed to return only in the late 1950s, after Stalin’s death.

Source: Sciences Po, Mass Violence and Resistance Research Network: The massive deportation of the Chechen people ↗
1945
The first flag raised on Mount Suribachi, at 10.20 on 23 February 1945, photographed by Staff Sergeant Louis Lowery.The first flag raised on Mount Suribachi, at 10.20 on 23 February 1945, photographed by Staff Sergeant Louis Lowery.Image: Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery, USMC, staff photographer for "Leatherneck" magazine · Public domain
world · Asia

Marines raise the flag on Iwo Jima

On the fifth day of the battle for Iwo Jima, 23 February 1945, a patrol of US Marines climbed Mount Suribachi, the volcano at the island’s southern tip, and raised a small American flag on its summit at 10.20 in the morning. A few hours later a larger flag replaced it. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal’s picture of the second raising won a Pulitzer Prize and became one of the most famous images of the war, the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in Virginia. The fighting on the island went on for another month.

Source: National Archives: Photograph of flag raising on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945 ↗
1958
Juan Manuel Fangio at a race in Kristianstad, Sweden, in August 1955.Juan Manuel Fangio at a race in Kristianstad, Sweden, in August 1955.Image: Bjørn Fjørtoft · CC BY 4.0
sport · Americas

Rebels kidnap Fangio in Havana

On the evening of 23 February 1958, the eve of the Cuban Grand Prix, the five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio was taken at gunpoint from the lobby of the Hotel Lincoln in Havana by members of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, who wanted to embarrass the Batista government. His captors treated him politely, and he listened to the race on the radio. He was released the next night to the Argentine embassy, and he later said he bore his captors no grudge.

Source: Motor Sport Magazine: When Fangio was kidnapped in Cuba ↗
1981
Bullet holes left in the ceiling of Spain's Congress of Deputies by the 1981 coup attempt, photographed in 2015.Bullet holes left in the ceiling of Spain’s Congress of Deputies by the 1981 coup attempt, photographed in 2015.Image: Benjamín Núñez González · CC BY-SA 4.0
politics · Europe

A coup attempt fails in Spain’s parliament

On the evening of 23 February 1981, during the vote to confirm Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as prime minister, Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero burst into Spain’s Congress of Deputies with a group of Civil Guards, fired shots into the ceiling and held the government and deputies hostage for about 18 hours. In the early hours King Juan Carlos, in uniform, spoke on television in support of the constitution and ordered the army to back the democratic government. The coup collapsed, and Spain’s young democracy, only six years on from Franco’s death, came through it.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Antonio Tejero ↗
1987
The remnant of Supernova 1987A in a combined image from the ALMA, Hubble and Chandra telescopes, 2014.The remnant of Supernova 1987A in a combined image from the ALMA, Hubble and Chandra telescopes, 2014.Image: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. Angelich. Visible light image: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. X-Ray image: The NASA Chandra X-Ray Observatory · CC BY 4.0
science · Global

Supernova 1987A lights up the southern sky

On 23 February 1987 light from an exploding star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy near our own, reached Earth. At Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, Ian Shelton spotted it on a photographic plate and Oscar Duhalde saw it with his own eyes. It was the first supernova visible to the naked eye since 1604, and the closest seen since the telescope was invented. Astronomers have watched it ever since, following its shock wave and the dust forming in its wreckage.

Source: European Southern Observatory: SN 1987A’s twentieth anniversary ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 23 February, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

EXPLORED THE DEEPER STORY?

Return to the highlights of 23 February

Discover the lighter side of the date with famous birthdays, culture, firsts and lives remembered.

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