32 people are killed and 82 are injured when gunmen open fire on a ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack.
Forbes names Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person, for the first time, at $112 billion net worth.
A suicide bomber kills 68 people (including first responders) in Baghdad on the same day that a gunman kills eight students in Jerusalem.
Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashes at the Aguenar – Hadj Bey Akhamok Airport in Tamanrasset, Algeria, killing 102 out of the 103 people on board.
The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers.
Three Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers are shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in Operation Flavius.
The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds, killing 193.
In the United Kingdom, a walkout at Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow signals the start of a strike that lasted almost a year and involved the majority of the country's miners.
The Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown in motion to a national TV audience for the first time by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory.
Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute.
An explosion at the Weather Underground safe house in Greenwich Village kills three.
Cold War: Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.
Premier Tom Playford of South Australia loses power after 27 years in office.
Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali.
Constantine II becomes the last King of Greece.
Ghana becomes the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British.
Georgy Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier of the Soviet Union and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Cold War: The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.
Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.
World War II: Cologne is captured by American troops. On the same day, Operation Spring Awakening, the last major German offensive of the war, begins.
World War II: Soviet Air Forces bomb the evacuated town of Narva in German-occupied Estonia, destroying the entire historical Swedish-era town.
World War II: Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel launches the Battle of Medenine in an attempt to slow down the British Eighth Army. It fails, and he leaves Africa three days later.