SpaceX's Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, launches for the first time. It explodes four minutes into flight.
State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin: Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all charges in the murder of George Floyd by the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota.
For the first time in history, oil prices drop below zero, an effect of the 2020 Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war.
Ten people are killed in a bomb attack on a convoy carrying food supplies to a United Nations compound in Garowe in the Somali region of Puntland.
A 6.6-magnitude earthquake strikes Lushan County, Ya'an, in China's Sichuan province, killing at least 193 people and injuring thousands.
One hundred twenty-seven people are killed when a plane crashes in a residential area near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport near Islamabad, Pakistan.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that lasted six months.
Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
Johnson Space Center shooting: William Phillips barricades himself with a handgun in NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
The Nicoll Highway in Singapore collapsed, killing four workers.
Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 14 people and injure 23 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
Air France Flight 422 crashes after taking off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, killing all 53 people on board.
University of California, Riverside 1985 laboratory raid: Animal Liberation Front rescues 467 animals being tested in a lab at University of California, Riverside in Riverside, California, causing $700,000 in damages to the laboratory in advocation f...
Apollo program: Apollo 16 Lunar Module, commanded by John Young and piloted by Charles Duke, lands on the Moon.
English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech.
South African Airways Flight 228 crashes near J.G. Strijdom Airport in South West Africa (now Hosea Kutako International Airport in Namibia), killing 123 people.
Cold War: Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.
Amethyst incident: The People's Liberation Army attacks HMS Amethyst (F116) travelling to the British embassy in Nanjing during the Chinese Civil War.
The League of Nations officially dissolves, giving most of its power to the United Nations.
World War II: U.S. troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
World War II: Führerbunker: On his 56th birthday Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.
Twenty Jewish children used in medical experiments at Neuengamme are killed in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm school.
The Soviet government creates South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within Georgian SSR.
Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a. The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day.
Nineteen men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War.
Opening day of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League.
Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
U.S. President William McKinley signs a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of war against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum genus, condemning Freemasonry.
The April Uprising begins. Its suppression shocks European opinion, and Bulgarian independence becomes a condition for ending the Russo-Turkish War.
Astronomer Angelo Secchi demonstrates the Secchi disk, which measures water clarity, aboard Pope Pius IX's yacht, the L'Immaculata Concezion.
Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the experiment disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.
American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, attempting to display the value of balloons, makes record journey, flying 900 miles from Cincinnati to South Carolina.
U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
René Caillié becomes the second non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu, following Major Gordon Laing. He would also be the first to return alive.
Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.
France declares war against the "King of Hungary and Bohemia", the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars.
George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration.
The Georgian king, Erekle II, abandoned by his Russian ally Count Totleben, wins a victory over Ottoman forces at Aspindza.
Start of Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War, a new phase in the Burmese Civil War (1740–57).
English Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet, under heavy fire from the shore, at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
Oliver Cromwell dissolves England's Rump Parliament.
The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII.
After an eight-year conflict, Baldwin III of Jerusalem wins sole control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother Melisende.