A car ramming attack at a Lapu-Lapu Day festival kills 11 people and injures at least 30 in Vancouver, Canada.
Nursultan Nazarbayev is re-elected President of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote, one of the biggest vote shares in Kazakhstan's history.
Cedar Revolution: Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country (Syrian occupation of Lebanon).
Robert Steinhäuser kills 16 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany before committing suicide.
China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at Nagoya Airport in Japan, killing 264 of the 271 people on board.
South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.
The Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on mission STS-55 to conduct experiments aboard the Spacelab module.
Fifty-five tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak's end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado.
The deadliest known tornado strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless.
People's Daily publishes the April 26 Editorial which inflames the nascent Tiananmen Square protests.
The Chernobyl disaster occurs in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.
The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force.
The magnitude 5.1 Tashkent earthquake affects the largest city in Soviet Central Asia with a maximum MSK intensity of VII (Very strong). Tashkent is mostly destroyed and 15–200 are killed.
A new government is formed in the Republic of the Congo, led by Ambroise Noumazalaye.
Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form the United Republic of Tanzania.
In Libya, amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allows for female participation in elections.
NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
The British space programme launches its first satellite, the Ariel 1.