From Historynet: Today in History February 23

303             Emperor Diocletian  orders the general persecution of Christians in Rome.

1516          The Hapsburg Charles I  succeeds 

Ferdinand  in Spain.

1540          Spanish explorer 

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado  begins his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest.

1574          The 5th War of Religion breaks out in France.

1615          The Estates-General in Paris is dissolved, having been in session since October 1614.

1778          Baron von Steuben  joins the Continental Army at Valley Forge.

1821          Poet John Keats  dies of tuberculosis at the age of 25.

1836          The Alamo is besieged by Santa Anna .

1846          The Liberty Bell tolls for the last time, to mark 

George Washington's  birthday.

1847          Forces led by Zachary Taylor  defeat the Mexicans at the Battle of Buena Vista.

1854          Great Britain officially recognizes the independence of the Orange Free State.

1861          Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union.

1885          John Lee  survives three attempts to hang him in Exeter Prison, as the trap fails to open.

1898          Writer Emile Zola  is imprisoned in France for his letter J'accuse in which he accuses the French government of anti-semitism and the wrongful imprisonment of 

army captain Alfred Dreyfus .

1901          Britain and Germany agree on a boundary between German East Africa and Nyasaland.

1904          Japan guarantees Korean sovereignty in exchange for military assistance.

1916          Secretary of State Lansing  hints that the U.S. may have to abandon the policy of avoiding "entangling foreign alliances".

1921          An airmail plane sets a record of 33 hours and 20 minutes from San Francisco to New York.

1926          President Calvin Coolidge  opposes a large air force, believing it would be a menace to world peace.

1936          In Russia, an unmanned balloon rises to a record height of 25 miles.

1938          Twelve Chinese fighter planes drop bombs on Japan.

1942          A Japanese submarine shells an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California, the first Axis bombs to hit American soil.

1944          American bombers strike the Marianas Islands bases, only 1,300 miles from Tokyo.

1945          Eisenhower  opens a large offensive in the Rhineland.

1945          U.S. Marines plant an American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

1946          Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita  is hanged in Manila, the Philippines, for war crimes.

1947          Several hundred Nazi organizers are arrested in Frankfurt by U.S. and British forces.

1950          New York's Metropolitan Museum exhibits a collection of Hapsburg art. The first showing of this collection in the U.S.

1954          Mass innoculation begins as Salk's  polio vaccine is given to children for first time.

1955          Eight nations meet in Bangkok for the first SEATO council.

1960          Whites join Negro students in a sit-in at a Winston-Salem, N.C. Woolworth store.

1964          The U.S. and Britain recognize the new Zanzibar government.

1967          American troops begin the largest offensive of the war, near the Cambodian border.

1972          Black activist Angela Davis  is released from jail where she was held for kidnapping , conspiracy and murder.

1991          French forces unofficially start the Persian Gulf ground war by crossing the Saudi-Iraqi border.