Today:
146 BCE: The Third Punic War ended as Roman forces completed the final destruction of Carthage, securing Roman dominance over the Mediterranean.
1783: Great Britain formally proclaimed a cessation of hostilities with the United States, marking a major step toward the end of the American Revolutionary War.
1789: George Washington was unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the Electoral College.
1861: Delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederate States of America, setting the stage for the American Civil War.
1899: The Philippine-American War began following an exchange of gunfire between American soldiers and Filipino nationalists near Manila.
1932: The first Winter Olympics to be held in the United States opened in Lake Placid, New York.
1945: The Yalta Conference began in the Crimea, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met to discuss the post-war reorganization of Germany and Europe.
1948: Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka) officially gained its independence from British rule.
1974: Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California, by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
2004: Mark Zuckerberg and his co-founders launched the social networking website “TheFacebook” (now Facebook) from a Harvard University dorm room.