After a brutal siege lasting nearly three years, Roman legions under Scipio Aemilianus finally overran and razed Carthage, slaughtering or enslaving its population and salting the earth of its fields, according to later legend. The destruction ended over a century of rivalry between Rome and Carthage and left Rome as the unchallenged power of the Mediterranean.
Cervantes' tale of the delusional knight-errant and his squire Sancho Panza hit Madrid's bookstalls on January 16, 1605, and sold out almost instantly. Its blend of satire, romance, and psychological depth broke from the chivalric romances it mocked, and it became one of the best-selling books in history. Cervantes, then 57 and largely broke, had no idea he'd written a cornerstone of Western literature.
With Nebraska's ratification on January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment achieved the three-fourths majority of states needed to become law, banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors. The amendment took effect a year later, on January 17, 1920, ushering in the era of speakeasies, bootleggers, and organized crime empires built on illegal booze.
Japanese naval aircraft and troops moved against the densely populated Chapei district of Shanghai amid rising tensions between Chinese nationalists and Japanese forces occupying parts of the city. The clashes foreshadowed the January 28 Incident, a brutal month-long battle that killed thousands of civilians and previewed the devastation Shanghai would suffer again in 1937.
On January 16, 1969, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 docked in orbit, marking the first time two crewed spacecraft joined together in space, and the first transfer of crew between vehicles in orbit. Cosmonauts Alexei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov spacewalked from Soyuz 5 into Soyuz 4, demonstrating techniques essential for future space stations.
After months of mass protests, strikes, and bloodshed, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left Iran on January 16, 1979, ostensibly for medical treatment and vacation, but never to return as ruler. His departure paved the way for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's triumphant return from exile weeks later and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, reshaping the Middle East for generations.
At 7:00 p.m. EST on January 16, 1991 (early morning January 17 in Iraq), coalition forces launched Operation Desert Storm, unleashing waves of airstrikes on Baghdad and Iraqi military targets. The assault followed Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and months of failed diplomacy. CNN's live broadcast from a Baghdad hotel made it the first war watched in real time worldwide.