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The Third Punic War, the last of three between Rome and Carthage, came to an end this day in 146 , culminating in the final destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people, and Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean.

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1943: American middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, the “Bronx Bull,” handed Sugar Ray Robinson his first defeat.

1917: Mexico adopted its present constitution.

1900: The first of two Hay-Pauncefote treaties (named for U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Lord Pauncefote) was signed between the United States and Great Britain over control of the proposed Panama Canal.

Hank Aaron

American professional baseball player Hank Aaron, born this day in 1934, was one of the sport's most prolific power hitters, surpassing batting records set by Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Stan Musial, among others.

On this day in 1945, during the final stages of World War II, the Yalta Conference opened with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin meeting to plan the final defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany.

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1974: Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

1932: The United States hosted its first Winter Olympic Games, in Lake Placid, New York.

1902: American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan.

1789: George Washington was elected to serve as the first U.S. president by a unanimous vote in the first electoral college.

1787: Shays's Rebellion, an uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and stringent economic conditions, was defeated by the Springfield militia.

Betty Friedan

"The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions of American women alive."

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Born this day in 1921 was American feminist Betty Friedan, cofounder of the National Organization for Women and author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), which studied the frustrations of modern women in traditional roles.

On this day in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race and intending to ensure, with the Fourteenth Amendment, the civil rights of former slaves.

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1924: Former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson died in Washington, D.C.

1917: Not yet involved in World War I, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after the Germans announced their intention to practice unrestricted submarine warfare.

1913: The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, granting Congress the authority to levy income taxes, was ratified.

1894: The first American steel ship, the Dirigo, was launched from Bath, Maine.

1865: In a personal meeting with Confederate representatives, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln offered liberal pardons in exchange for the South quitting the Civil War, with reunion as a precondition of peace—an offer that was rejected.

1690: Massachusetts issued the first paper money in the American colonies.

1468: German craftsman, inventor, and printer Johannes Gutenberg died in Mainz.

Felix Mendelssohn

"I have grown accustomed to composing in our garden…today or tomorrow I am going to dream there the Midsummer Night's Dream."

Felix Mendelssohn, letter to Fanny Mendelssohn, 1826

One of the most celebrated figures of the early Romantic period, German composer Felix Mendelssohn, born this day in 1809, largely observed Classical models and practices while initiating key aspects of Romanticism.

On this day in 1990, South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress, resulting in the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and marking the beginning of the end of apartheid.

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1943: The Battle of Stalingrad in World War II ended with the surrender of German troops to the Soviets.

1927: American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz was born in Philadelphia.

1912: Frederick Rodman Law performed what was considered the first motion-picture stunt, parachuting from the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

1876: The National League, the oldest existing major-league professional baseball organization in the United States, began play as the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.

1848: The United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

1653: New Amsterdam (New York City) was incorporated as a city.

James Joyce

"I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning."

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Irish novelist James Joyce, born this day in 1882, was noted for his experimental use of language and his exploration of new literary methods in such large works of fiction as Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

On this day in 2003, while returning to Earth from an orbital mission, the U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke up catastrophically at an altitude of about 60 km (40 miles) over Texas, killing all seven crew members.

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1979: The spacecraft Voyager 1 photographed Jupiter from a distance of 32.7 million km (20.3 million miles).

1923: The private army of Blackshirts that had helped Benito Mussolini come to power in Italy was officially transformed into a national militia, the Voluntary Fascist Militia for National Security.

1901: American motion-picture star Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio.

1884: The first of 10 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in London, the final volume being published April 19, 1928.

1820: In a battle fought at Cepeda, Argentina, federalist forces defeated unitarios, who were advocates of strong central government.

Boris Yeltsin

"It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments, every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold."

Boris Yeltsin

Born this day in 1931, Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia from 1990 to 1999, became in 1991 the first popularly elected leader in Russian history and guided his country through a decade of political and economic transition.

On this day in 1606, British provocateur Guy Fawkes—one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, who sought to blow up Parliament and to assassinate King James I for his repression of Roman Catholics—was executed in London.

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1977: The Pompidou Centre, a French national cultural centre named for former president Georges Pompidou, opened in Paris.

1966: The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.

1958: Explorer 1 was the first artificial space satellite orbited by the United States, marking the country's entry into the space race.

1943: German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), his troops surrendering two days later.

Jackie Robinson

"Above anything else, I hate to lose."

Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson—the first African American baseball player in the U.S. major leagues in the 20th century and the league's Rookie of the Year in 1947 and Most Valuable Player in 1949—was born this day in 1919.

Charles I, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1625–49), was viewed as an authoritarian ruler by members of Parliament—whose quarrels with him led to the English Civil Wars—and was executed in London this day in 1649.

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1995: Flooding forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas of the Netherlands.

1948: Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by an orthodox Hindu Brahman.

1933: President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany.

1933: The fictional character the Lone Ranger was introduced on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.

1667: The Truce of Andrusovo ended the Thirteen Years' War between Russia and Poland.

9 : The Roman emperor Augustus dedicated the shrine Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”).

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Born this day in 1882, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only person to win four terms as U.S. president, introduced the New Deal to address the crisis brought on by the Great Depression and led his country during World War II.

On this day in 2002, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, delivering a State of the Union address, described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil” for their attempts to develop nuclear, chemical, or biological weaponry.

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1924: The first machine for rolling ice cream cones was patented by Carl Rutherford Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio.

1919: The Prohibition (Eighteenth) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year.

1900: The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs was organized in Philadelphia.

1880: American actor and comedian W.C. Fields was born in Philadelphia.

1819: British East India Company administrator Sir Stamford Raffles established the port of Singapore.

Oprah Winfrey

"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand."

Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine, April 2003

Oprah Winfrey, born this day in 1954, became one of the wealthiest and most influential women in the United States largely as a result of the tremendous popularity of her Emmy Award-winning television talk show.

On this day in 1986, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its liftoff from Florida, killing all seven aboard, including a schoolteacher who was the first private citizen to fly on a shuttle.

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1915: Congress created the U.S. Coast Guard by combining the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Lifesaving Service.

1881: Russian novelist and short-story writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in St. Petersburg.

1873: French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye.

1457: King Henry VII of England, who succeeded in ending the Wars of the Roses, was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

814: Charlemagne, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, died at Aachen (Germany).

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Baryshnikov, whose elegance, great physical prowess, and unsurpassed leaping ability made him the preeminent male ballet dancer of the 1970s and '80s, was born in Riga, Latvia, this day in 1948.

The Paris accord ending the Vietnam War, America's longest war, was signed this day in 1973, providing for an exchange of prisoners and for the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam.

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1996: Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara led a successful military coup in Niger against the democratically elected government of President Mahamane Ousmane.

1967: U.S. astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee perished in a fire aboard Apollo 1.

1945: The Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, was liberated by Soviet troops.

1944: The Soviet Red Army ousted German and Finnish forces from Leningrad (St. Petersburg), concluding an 872-day siege.

1880: American inventor Thomas Edison patented the incandescent lamp.

1832: Mathematician and novelist Lewis Carroll was born in Daresbury, Cheshire, England.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"In music the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear, but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music and who excelled at all the musical genres of his era, was born this day in 1756.