Today is Sunday, Feb. 23, the 54th day of 2025. There are 311 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Feb. 23, 1945, during World War II, U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima captured Mount Suribachi, where they raised two American flags. (The second flag-raising was captured in an iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press.)
Also on this date:
In 1836, the siege of the Alamo by Mexican troops began in San Antonio, Texas.
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an agreement with Cuba to lease the area around Guantanamo Bay to the United States.
In 1942, the first shelling of the U.S. mainland during World War II occurred as a Japanese submarine fired on an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California.
In 1980, American Eric Heiden completed his sweep of the five men’s speed skating events at the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York, by winning the men’s 10,000-meter race in world record time; Heiden was the first athlete to win five gold medals in a single Winter Olympics.
In 2011, in a major policy reversal, the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage.
In 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was fatally shot on a residential Georgia street; a white father and son had armed themselves and pursued him after seeing him running through their neighborhood. (Greg and Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were convicted of murder, aggravated assault and other charges and were sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2021, golfer Tiger Woods was seriously injured when his SUV crashed into a median and rolled over several times on a steep road in suburban Los Angeles.
In 2023, a federal judge handed singer R. Kelly a 20-year prison sentence for his convictions that include producing child sexual abuse materials and federal sex trafficking charges., but said he would serve nearly all of the sentence simultaneously with a 30-year sentence imposed a year earlier on racketeering charges.
Today’s birthdays: Football Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff is 82. Actor Patricia Richardson is 74. Singer Howard Jones is 70. Japanese Emperor Naruhito is 65. Actor Kristin Davis is 60. Business executive Michael Dell is 60. TV personality-business executive Daymond John is 56. Actor Niecy Nash is 55. Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland is 54. Country singer Steve Holy is 53. Actor Kelly Macdonald is 49. Rapper Residente, born René Juan Pérez Joglar, is 47. Actor Josh Gad is 44. Actor Emily Blunt is 42. Actor Aziz Ansari is 42. Actor Dakota Fanning is 31.
