A mass stabbing at a school in Nantes, France, leaves 1 person dead and 3 others wounded.
A building collapses near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,134 people and injuring about 2,500 others.
Violence in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture, of China's Xinjiang results in death of 21 people.
WikiLeaks starts publishing the Guantanamo Bay files leak.
Bombings in the Egyptian resort city of Dahab kill 23 people and injure about 80.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is passed into law.
A Douglas DC-3 ditches in Botany Bay after takeoff from Sydney Airport. All 25 people on board survive.
An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.
STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.
Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.
Blair Peach, a New Zealand teacher, dies after being knocked unconscious during an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a National Front election meeting in Southall, London.
China launches Dong Fang Hong I, becoming the fifth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster.
The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President.
Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission.
Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily".
Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño overthrows the triumvirate that had been in power since the coup d'état against Juan Bosch.
Marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in London.
Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.
The Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemns colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.
Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
World War II: The SBS launches a raid against the garrison of Santorini in Greece.
Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.
Benny Rothman leads the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.
The Treaty of Berlin is signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledge neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.
Thorvald Stauning becomes premier of Denmark (first term).
The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation.
World War I: First tank-to-tank combat, during the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. Three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs.
Easter Rising: Irish rebels, led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, launch an uprising in Dublin against British rule and proclaim an Irish Republic.
Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for the crew of the sunken Endurance.
The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian genocide.
The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society.
The Woolworth Building, a skyscraper in New York City, is opened.
Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts aboard the sloop Spray.
American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
Russo-Turkish War: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
The great fire in Surat city of India caused more than 500 deaths and destruction of more than 9,000 houses.
The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".
French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris.
The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published.
Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre-Dame de Paris.
Battle of Mühlberg. Duke of Alba, commanding Spanish-Imperial forces of Charles I of Spain, defeats the troops of Schmalkaldic League.
Traditional reckoning of the Fall of Troy marking the end of the legendary Trojan War, given by chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria Eratosthenes, among others.
Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th dynasty).