Today in History.....February 23

On this day in …

* 1836, the siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio

* 1847, U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican Gen.
Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico

* 1861, President-elect Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office, an assassination plot having been foiled in Baltimore

* 1870, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union

* 1981, an attempted coup began in Spain as 200 members of the Civil Guard invaded the Parliament, taking lawmakers hostage. (However, the attempt collapsed 18 hours later.)

* 1997, scientists in Scotland announced they had succeeded in cloning an adult mammal, producing a lamb named "Dolly." (Dolly, however, was later put down after a short life marred by premature aging and disease.)

* 1996, the Iraqi News Agency reported that Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid and his brother Saddam Kamel al-Majid, a pair of defectors who were also the sons-in-law of Saddam Hussein, were killed by clan members after returning to their homeland

* 2001, President Bush opened a two-day summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered an indefinite moratorium on civilian visitors operating military equipment, a possible factor in the collision of a U.S.
submarine collision with a Japanese fishing boat

* 2005, a jury was selected in Santa Maria, Calif., to decide Michael Jackson's fate on charges that he'd molested a teenage boy at his Neverland Ranch. (Jackson was later acquitted.) ALSO:
President Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed to turn down the volume on their disagreements about Iraq and Iran