Portal:Japan/Anniversaries/February/February 23

Events

1929 - The "preaching burglar", Tsumatsu Matsukichi, is arrested in Tokyo for a series of robberies where he would enter someone's home, rob them and then scold them about crime prevention and the importance of locking doors.
1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize and become the model for the national USMC War Memorial.
1945 – World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated from Japanese forces by American forces.
1949 - Matsutarō Shōriki becomes Japan's first baseball commissioner.
1957 - Prime Minister Ishibashi Tanzan resigns as prime minister due to health reasons.
1977 - Japan successfully launches its first stationary satellite, the Kiku 2.
1981 - Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit Japan.
1990 - Japan fails in an attempt to launch an NHK broadcast satellite (the BSX) and a private communications satellite (the Superbird B) on an Ariane 44L rocket.

Births

Deaths