On This Day - February 23, 2026

In the United States, service organizations have been providing communities with volunteer support for generations. These are the people who organize pancake breakfasts to raise money for those in need. They rise early in the morning or start days ahead to make sure holiday parades go off without a hitch. Each year, their planning and fundraising mean children in need get the items they need when school starts. The very first organization of its kind started when four businessmen met on this day in 1905. Paul P. Harris, Gustavus Loehr, Silvester Schiele, and Hiram E. Shorey met for lunch and established the Rotary Club in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Initially, their goal was to exchange ideas, but it grew into something larger than themselves. Soon, they began to serve and improve their communities.

It may have been a "Great Scott!" moment when chemists Dr. Glenn Seaborg, Arthur C. Wahl, and Joseph W. Kennedy first isolated and produced plutonium-94. However, Seaborg also discovered several other elements, including americium, berkelium, and californium. We're sure Dr. Emmett Brown would have appreciated an element named deloreanium.

Every summer during the 1940s and into the 1950s, parents worried about their children contracting a disease that caused muscle pain and weakness, extreme fatigue, headaches, paralysis, breathing problems, and even death. Polio peaked in the summertime and those who survived the worst of the disease required treatment in iron lungs or lived with life-long disabilities. But then two vaccines came along. Dr. Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine, and inoculation using inactive poliovirus. The second developed by Albert Sabin was an oral vaccine and used a weakened version of the virus. On this day in 1954, the first group of children received Salk's vaccine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania beginning the downward decline of the virus and ultimate elimination of it in the United States.

What do E.T., Supernatural, "Billie Jean," "Maria Maria" and the years 1983 and 2000 have in common? They all belong to two phenomenal music artists who poured all their immense ability into collaborating on tremendously ambitious projects and reaped the big rewards. In 1983, Michael Jackson brought home a record 8 Grammy Awards, most of them from his album, Thriller. On this day in 2000, Carlos Santana repeated the feat by bringing home 8 Grammys from his album Supernatural. Santana and Rob Thomas collaborated on the song Smooth which earned them both Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Thomas was awarded a third Grammy for Smooth - Song of the Year.