According to the History Channel’s “This Day In History,” February 23rd has often been a good day for a variety of reasons. These are my personal faves:

February 23, 1861: Abraham Lincoln arrives in Washington, D.C. And not a moment too soon. Southern states were seceding from the Union; civil war was imminent. Lincoln, about to be inaugurated as President on March 4th, was under threat of assassination and had to sneak into Washington protected by a cadre of Pinkerton security guards. The country needed a leader who could see them through the hard times ahead, and for once, Fate delivered the right person at the right moment.

A man of the people — born in poverty, self-educated, he studied history and the law before entering politics. He knew the value of hard work, he was scrupulously honest, and he loved his country. He didn’t live in a gilded palace, whining because he wasn’t universally loved. Instead, he visited nearby battlefields, gave hope and strength to his troops at Gettysburg, and freed a race of downtrodden people from the oppression of slavery.

The day that Abraham Lincoln arrived safely in Washington was a very good day indeed.

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February 23, 1940: Woody Guthrie writes “This Land Is Your Land.” Born in Oklahoma in 1912, Guthrie was a troubadour who chose a life of traveling around the American West, where he chronicled the lives of ordinary, hard-working Americans. He left home at the age of 15, traveled by freight train, found employment as a migrant farm worker, and lived among other migrants and hobos. Eventually arriving in California, he began his musical career on local radio shows, but continued to perform among the homeless victims of the Great Depression.

Woody Guthrie was not a scholar or a politician; he never became president, and didn’t bring an end to war. But he created music that expressed his love of America and the American people — music that continues to inspires us some 85 years later.

We could use more Woody Guthries in our lives today.

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February 23, 1945: U.S. flag raised on Iwo Jima. World War II was struggling toward its end, but the battle for the Pacific was still raging when U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima finally took the island’s most strategic position — Mount Suribachi — and raised the American flag on its crest. Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal was there to record the event, and one of the three pictures he took became the most reproduced photograph in history and the inspiration for the Iwo Jima Memorial that now stands in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital.

One cannot look at that statue without feeling the indomitable spirit of the fighting men and women who brought, not only the United States, but the entire free world through those hellish years of global war. It was love of country and unity that carried the troops up Mount Suribachi that day, and to ultimate victory over the tyranny of Adolph Hitler and Emperor Hirohito.

And on this February 23, 2025, we can only hope that the same spirit will carry us through the hard times ahead.

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February 23, 1954: Children receive first polio vaccine. I remember the years of my childhood, when we kids weren’t allowed to go to the movies, to a swimming pool, or anywhere there might be crowds of people in the summertime, because it was “polio season.” And when the development of an anti-polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk was announced to the world, our mother made sure we were first in line for our shots.

There were no anti-vaxxers in those days . . . no nay-sayers, no snake-oil salesmen promoting the ingestion of cleaning fluid to fight off a virus, no one saying medical research was a waste of government money. Instead, people cheered each and every advance in preventive medicine . . . and millions of lives were saved.

How fortunate that Dr. Salk was around in 1954. Would that he were still here in 2025.

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Those were four great days from the dim, distant past — days worth reliving, if only in memory.

But today isn’t over yet, at least in my part of the world. Maybe this February 23rd will still bring us some good news.

Ya think?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/23/25