On this day, Feb. 23
1822 Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city.
1836 The siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.
1861 President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office, following word of a possible assassination plot in Baltimore.
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, Calif., causing little damage.
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 the iconic Associated Press photograph.)
1954 The first mass inoculation of schoolchildren against polio using the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh as some 5,000 students were vaccinated.
1998 42 people were killed, some 2,600 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, by tornadoes in central Florida.
2007 A Mississippi grand jury refused to bring any new charges in the 1955 slaying of Emmett Till, the Black teenager who was beaten and shot after being accused of whistling at a white woman, declining to indict the woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, for manslaughter.
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.
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.)
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.
Today’s birthdays: Football Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff, 80. Author John Sandford, 79. Actor Patricia Richardson, 72. Former NFL player Ed “Too Tall” Jones, 72. Rock musician Brad Whitford (Aerosmith), 71. Singer Howard Jones, 68. Rock musician Michael Wilton (Queensryche), 61. Country singer Dusty Drake, 59. Actor Kristin Davis, 58. Former tennis player Helena Sukova, 58. Actor Marc Price, 55. TV personality/businessman Daymond John (TV: “Shark Tank”), 54. Actor Niecy Nash, 53. Rock musician Lasse Johansson (The Cardigans), 50. Film and theater composer Robert Lopez, 48. Actor Kelly Macdonald, 47. Actor Emily Blunt, 40. Actor Aziz Ansari, 40. Actor Tye White (TV: “Greenleaf”), 37. Actor Dakota Fanning, 29.