Four simultaneous prison riots leave at least 62 people dead in Ecuador.
Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American citizen, is shot and murdered by three white men after visiting a house under construction while jogging at a neighborhood in Satilla Shores near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia.
Atlas Air Flight 3591, a Boeing 767 freighter, crashes into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, killing all three people on board.
Parliamentary elections are held in Djibouti.
The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army captures Al-Bab from ISIL.
A series of attacks across Iraq leave at least 83 killed and more than 250 injured.
Unknown criminals pour more than 2+1⁄2 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.
A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam, marking the first operational loss of a B-2.
A train derails on an evening express service near Grayrigg, Cumbria, England, killing one person and injuring 88. This results in hundreds of points being checked over the UK after a few similar accidents.
An Ariane 4 rocket is launched from the Guiana Space Centre carrying Intelsat 904.
Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.
An avalanche buries the town of Galtür, Austria, killing 31.
In the United States, tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42 people.
In Thailand, General Sunthorn Kongsompong leads a bloodless coup d'état, deposing Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan.
Saddam Hussein begins the Anfal genocide against Kurds and Assyrians in northern Iraq.
Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.
In Spain, Antonio Tejero attempts a coup d'état by capturing the Spanish Congress of Deputies.
Iran hostage crisis: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament will decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
Operation Lam Son 719: South Vietnamese General Do Cao Tri was killed in a helicopter crash en route to taking control of the faltering campaign.
In Syria, Ba'ath Party member Salah Jadid leads an intra-party military coup that replaces the previous government of General Amin al-Hafiz, also a Baathist.
Five-time Argentine Formula One champion Juan Manuel Fangio is kidnapped by rebels involved in the Cuban Revolution, on the eve of the Cuban Grand Prix. He was released the following day after the race.
The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
General elections are held in the United Kingdom.
International Organization for Standardization is founded.
American Airlines Flight 009 crashes near Rural Retreat, Virginia, killing 17.
World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is annihilated in a raid by 379 British bombers.
World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań. The city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.
World War II: The 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, free all 2,147 captives of the Los Baños internment camp, in what General Colin Powell later would refer to as "the textbook airborne operation for all ages and all armies".
World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by combined Filipino and American forces.
World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag.
The Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.
The Cavan Orphanage fire kills thirty-five girls and an elderly cook.
Greek Resistance: The United Panhellenic Organization of Youth is founded in Greece.
World War II: Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the coastline near Santa Barbara, California.
Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill by Congress establishing the Federal Radio Commission (later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission) which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his uncertainty principle for the first time.
First demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The beginning of the February Revolution (March 8 in the Gregorian calendar).
The AEA Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.
Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world's first service club.
Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".
Second Boer War: During the Battle of the Tugela Heights, the first British attempt to take Hart's Hill fails.
Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing J'Accuse...!, a letter accusing the French government of antisemitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.
Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of aluminium from the electrolysis of aluminium oxide, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister, Julia Brainerd Hall.
Sino-French War: French Army gains an important victory in the Battle of Đồng Đăng in the Tonkin region of Vietnam.
Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law.
Reconstruction Era: Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
The official independence of the Orange Free State, South Africa is declared.
Mexican–American War: Battle of Buena Vista: In Mexico, American troops under future president General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
Texas Revolution: The Siege of the Alamo (prelude to the Battle of the Alamo) begins in San Antonio, Texas.
Cato Street Conspiracy: A plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers is exposed and the conspirators arrested.
American Revolutionary War: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help train the Continental Army.
Berbice slave uprising in Guyana: The first major slave revolt in South America.
J. S. Bach leads his Tafel-Music Shepherd Cantata for the birthday of Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels.
Traditionally the date of publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type.
Empress Wu Zetian abdicates the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty.
Khosrow II, Shahanshah of the Sasanian Empire, is overthrown.
Byzantine emperor Justinian I lays the foundation stone of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.
Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.