In 1865, the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
 

In 1963, poet Robert Frost died in Boston.
 

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members: flight commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee; pilot Michael J. Smith; Ronald E. McNair; Ellison S. Onizuka; Judith A. Resnik; Gregory B. Jarvis; and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
 

In 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft at Cape Kennedy, Fla.
 

In 1950, India officially proclaimed itself a republic as Rajendra Prasad took the oath of office as president.
 

In 1965, Winston Churchill died in London at age 90.
 

In 1973, President Nixon announced an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War.
 

In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died at age 54.
 

In 1981, Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
 

 

In 1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had gotten there first.

In 1893, Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.

In 1991, the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

In 1967, the first Super Bowl was played as the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeated the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League, 35-10.

In 1943, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opened a wartime conference in Casablanca.

In 1990, Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation's first elected black governor as he took the oath of office in Richmond.

In 1915, the United States House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.

In 1935, aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.

In 1946, the first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London.

In 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his 14 points for peace after World War I.

In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.

In 1919, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60.

In 1965, President Johnson outlined the goals of his "Great Society" in his State of the Union address.

In 1959, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state.

In 1905, Japanese Gen. Nogi received from Russian Gen. Stoessel at 9 o'clock P.M. a letter formally offering to surrender, ending the Russo-Japanese War.

In 1959, Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista.