February 23
Subject to Britannica's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Featured Event
© Universal History Archive—University Images Group/Getty Images
Coronado leads expedition to find the Seven Cities of Cíbola
On this day in 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led an expedition north from Mexico in pursuit of the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola. The group, consisting of more than a thousand men, explored much of the southwestern U.S. Smaller parties split from the main group and documented sights such as the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. Cíbola, however, turned out to be nothing but a myth—corresponding, perhaps, to a Zuni Pueblo village between present-day Arizona and New Mexico where Coronado’s men discovered the buildings were made of adobe, not gold. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Born this day in 1868, W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most important African American protest leaders during the first half of the 20th century, helping to create the NAACP in 1909 and editing The Crisis, its magazine, for 24 years.
Famous Birthdays
More on February 23
Camay Sungu—AP/Shutterstock.com
2000
Carlos Santana won eight Grammy Awards for Supernatural, tying the record set by Michael Jackson. His music combined rock, jazz, blues, and Afro-Cuban rhythms with Latin sound. [Test your knowledge of the Grammy Awards.]
© 1934 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc
1965
Stan Laurel, of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, died at the age of 74. Though he played a bumbling, foolish character, Laurel was a major creative force behind Laurel and Hardy. [Watch the duo in a clip from The Flying Deuces.]
Joe Rosenthal/AP
1945
Six U.S. servicemen raised the American flag over Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. The Battle of Iwo Jima, part of the U.S. Pacific campaign against Japan, was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war. [Sort fact from fiction in our World War II quiz.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1870
Mississippi was readmitted to the United States following the American Civil War. The state had seceded from the Union in January 1861. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about U.S. states.]
© The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project—Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-highsm- 27795)
1836
During the Texas Revolution, Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna began a siege of the Alamo, which was captured after 13 days and which became for Texans a symbol of heroic resistance, invoking the phrase “Remember the Alamo!”
© MedioImages/Getty Images
1822
Boston, home to cultural cornerstones such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Museum of Fine Arts, and Harvard University, was granted a charter to become a city. [Watch a time-lapse video of Boston.]
Print Collector—Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1685
Composer George Frideric Handel, a leading figure of late Baroque music, was born in Germany. [Take our classical composers quiz.]