Virgin Galactic launches its founder, Richard Branson, into space, the first company ever to do so.
Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán escapes from the maximum security Altiplano prison in Mexico, his second escape.
The Islamist militia group Al-Shabaab carries out multiple suicide bombings in Kampala, Uganda, killing 74 people and injuring 85 others.
In Johannesburg, Spain defeat the Netherlands 1–0 after extra time to win their first FIFA World Cup title.
Mumbai train bombings: 209 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.
Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec begins.
Italy defeats West Germany 3–1 to win the FIFA World Cup.
America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated in 1968, is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.
First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
Project Apollo: At a press conference, NASA announces lunar orbit rendezvous as the means to land astronauts on the Moon, and return them to Earth.
France legislates for the independence of Dahomey (later Benin), Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) and Niger.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.
World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily: German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.
The Northern Rhodesian Labour Party holds its first congress in Nkana.
World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of the French State.
Eric Liddell won the gold medal in 400m at the 1924 Paris Olympics, after refusing to run in the heats for 100m, his favoured distance, on a Sunday.
A truce in the Irish War of Independence comes into effect.
Former president of the United States William Howard Taft is sworn in as 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the only person ever to hold both offices.