Milestones: February 5, 2024

February 5, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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VICTORIOUS ROME — THE ROMAN REPUBLIC ON FEB. 5, 146 B.C.E. finally saw victory over its enemy, Carthage, a regional power in North Africa. This was the end to a series of wars, called the Punic Wars. They spanned more than a century, led to the destruction of Carthage, and resulted in Rome’s ascendancy as the Western Mediterranean region’s dominant power. The three Punic Wars, from 264 B.C.E. to 146 B.C.E. began as Rome expanded to what is now Spain and to Greece and Sicily.

Before the Punic Wars, Rome was the dominant force on the Italian peninsula. Rome’s victories during that century made it dominant throughout the Western Mediterranean, which it would remain for five centuries, before and after the birth of Christ.

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MEDGAR EVERS’ KILLER FINALLY CONVICTED — IT TOOK MORE THAN THREE DECADES, BUT THE PERISTENCE OF SLAIN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER MEDGAR EVERS’ WIDOW FINALLY GOT HIS KILLER CONVICTED, ON FEB. 5, 1994. White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith on this date was convicted in Evers’ murder. On June 12, 1963, Beckwith shot Evers down in his own driveway, with his wife, Myrlie, and the couple’s three small children inside. Also, Beckwith, who made his living selling fertilizer, was prosecuted for murder the year after, two juries of white men deadlocked and refused to convict him. A later trial resulted in a hung jury. Myrlie Evers, who would later become the first woman chair of the NAACP, was finally granted another prosecution of Beckwith. Forensic evidence presented at the third trial included a riflescope from the murder weapon, bearing Beckwith’s fingerprints, as well as new witnesses who testified that Beckwith had bragged about committing the crime.

A racially diverse jury in February 2024 handed Beckwith a life sentence.

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PACKING THE COURTS — AMID TALK OVER RECENT YEARS OF ‘PACKING THE COURTS’ (expanding the number of justices to at least 15) the idea is not new. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 5, 1937, announced his plan to do the very same thing with the idea of increasing its efficiency. Critics quickly accused him of trying to “pack the court” with liberals loyal to him and his New Deal policies. However, it was the Justices themselves who made Roosevelt’s proposal unnecessary. They joined the liberal side, upholding in a narrow majority the constitutionality of both the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act. The justices opined that the rebound and growth of the national economy now warranted federal regulation.

During his time as President, FDR nominated several Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Stanley F. Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, James F. Byrnes, Robert H. Jackson and Wiley Blount Rutledge. He also elevated sitting Justice Harlan F. Stone to chief justice.

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SLUGGER BROKE BABE RUTH’S RECORD — HENRY LOUIS AARON JR., BORN ON FEB. 5, 1934, later broke Babe Ruth’s legendary record of 714 home runs. Known as Hank, he began his professional baseball career in 1952 in the Negro League and joined the Milwaukee Braves of the major league in 1954, eight years after Jackie Robinson had integrated baseball. Becoming an indispensable player, Aaron won the National League batting title in 1956. He and the Braves beat Mickey Mantle and the heavily favored New York Yankees in the World Series the following year. In 1959, Aaron won his second league batting title.

Upon his retirement in 1976, Hank Aaron had accumulated 755 career home runs. He became one of baseball’s first Black executives, working with the Atlanta Braves. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.

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FAVORED ‘GRADUAL EMANCIPATION’ — JOHN WITHERSPOON, WHO WOULD BECOME THE ONLY CLERGYMAN AND COLLEGE PRESIDENT TO SIGN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, WAS BORN IN SCOTLAND ON FEB. 5, 1723. Witherspoon was a prominent 18th-century intellectual associated with the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Emigrating to the U.S. in 1768, he also became influential in Princeton (College of New Jersey later becoming Princeton University) and in the fledgling United States.

Rev. Witherspoon was also a slaveholder who favored “gradual emancipation” over complete abolition. In Scotland, he had baptized an enslaved man, Jamie Montgomery, warning the new convert that he was being liberated from sin, not from slavery. But considering his baptism to be freedom from both sin and slavery, Montgomery fled to the American colonies aboard a ship.

See previous milestones, here.