February 23rd...
1633: Samuel Pepys (FRS, MP, JP) was born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, London, to John Pepys, a tailor, and Margaret Pepys (née Kite), daughter of a Whitechapel butcher. Pepys was the fifth in a line of eleven children, but the oldest survivor.
He would go on to become the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, where his influence and reforms would be important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy, though e would become most famous (posthumously) as a diarist.
1802: In a terrible blizzard in three Salem East Indiamen, the 'Brutus', the 'Ulysses', and the 'Volusia', went aground in the shallow waters off Cape Cod. The crew members of the latter two vessels were fortunate enough to be rescued by local inhabitants. The seamen on the 'Brutus' were not so lucky as nine of the 14 crew members perished.
The 'Friendship', a replica of an 18th century Salem East Indiaman.
Docked in Salem Harbour, across from the Customs House.
1814: During the 'War of 1812', while cruising off Cape Sable, HMS 'Epervier' captures the American privateer-brig 'Alfred', of Salem. 'Alfred', which mounted 16 long 9-pounders and had a crew of between 94 to 108 men, surrendered without a fight.
1886: After several years of intensive work, Charles Martin Hall produces the first samples of man-made aluminum, assisted in the project by his older sister Julia Brainerd Hall.
1904: The United States acquires control of the Panama Canal Zone, for $10 million, plus annual payments of $250,000 (as provided in the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, 1903). After the U.S. formally takes control of the French property relating to the canal, construction resumes later in 1904.
Construction of the Panama Canal in 1904.
1918: SS 'Florizel', a passenger liner and flagship of the Bowring Brothers' Red Cross Line of steamships, was one of the first ships in the world specifically designed to navigate icy waters. During its last voyage, from St. John's to Halifax and on to New York, it sunk after striking a reef at Horn Head Point, Cape Race near Cappahayden, Newfoundland, Canada, with the loss of 94 including Betty Munn, a three-year-old girl, in whose memory a statue of Peter Pan was erected at Bowring Park in St. John's.
Passenger Liner SS 'Florizel' arriving St. John's Harbour sometime between 1909 and 1918.
1942: The Imperial Japanese Navy's submarine 'I-17', under the command of Commander Nishino Kozo, surfaces and shells the oil refinery near Santa Barbara. The shelling does only minor damages to a pier and an oil well derrick, but creates "invasion" fears along the West Coast.
Speculation now exists that the attack was 'revenge' for a humiliating incident involving Nishino Kozo from before the war, when as skipper of an oil tanker, he had refueled there.
1980: The Greek tanker 'Irenes Serenade', loaded with 102,660 tonnes of Iraqi crude oil (Kirkuk Blend), en route from Syria to Trieste, explodes whilst refueling in Navarino Bay, Greece. As fire consumes the vessel, a burning oil slick two miles long by half a mile wide spread from the vessel and continued to burn, until the following morning when the tanker sank off Pylos Harbour, close to Sfakteria Island. All but two crew members were rescued. Fishing gear on the jetty was destroyed in the fire and the hillside of Sfakteria Island was scorched to a height of 30 metres. The bunkering installation on the island was also damaged as a result of the fire.