Portal:Japan/Anniversaries/February/February 23

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
 * 1646 - Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (d. 1709), shogun
 * 1943 - Kin'ya Kitaōji, actor
 * 1951 - Shigefumi Mori, mathematician
 * 1953 - Satoru Nakajima, race car driver
 * 1956 - Brother Tom, singer and entertainer
 * 1960 - Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan
 * 1969 - Miyako Itō, voice actress
 * 1970 - Shoko Aida, singer and actress
 * 1971 - Ryohei Odai, actor and voice actor
 * 1976 - Satoshi Yoneyama, wrestler
 * 1978 - Yuka Motohashi, actress
 * 1986 - Kazuya Kamenashi, singer-songwriter and actor
 * 1993 - Kasumi Ishikawa, table tennis player

Deaths
 * 1946 - Tomoyuki Yamashita (b. 1885), general