Former Formula One driver Takuma Sato wins his first Indianapolis 500, the first Japanese and Asian driver to do so. Double world champion Fernando Alonso retires from an engine issue in his first entry of the event.
Harambe, a gorilla, is shot to death after grabbing a three-year-old boy in his enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, resulting in widespread criticism and sparking various internet memes.
The Arkankergen massacre in Kazakhstan's Alakol District kills 15 people.
Malta votes on the introduction of divorce; the proposal was approved by 53% of voters, resulting in a law allowing divorce under certain conditions being enacted later in the year.
In West Bengal, India, the Jnaneswari Express train derailment and subsequent collision kills 148 passengers.
The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty.
The Iraqi Governing Council chooses Ayad Allawi, a longtime anti-Saddam Hussein exile, as prime minister of Iraq's interim government.
Peter Hollingworth resigns as Governor-General of Australia following criticism of his handling of child sexual abuse allegations during his tenure as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane.
The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site. Cleanup duties officially end with closing ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, New York City.
In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display.
Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of nuclear tests by India with five of its own codenamed Chagai-I, prompting the United States, Japan, and other nations to impose economic sanctions. Pakistan celebrates Youm-e-Takbir annually.
U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud.
The 7.0 Mwβ― Neftegorsk earthquake shakes the former Russian settlement of Neftegorsk with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Total damage was $64.1β300Β million, with 1,989 deaths and 750 injured. The settlement was not rebuilt.
The capital city of Addis Ababa falls to the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, ending both the Derg regime in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Civil War.
An 18-year-old West German pilot, Mathias Rust, evades Soviet Union air defences and lands a private plane in Red Square in Moscow, Russia.
Konstantinos Karamanlis signs the full treaty of the accession of Greece with the European Economic Community.
The Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, is engulfed by fire, killing 165 people inside.
Fifteen West African countries sign the Treaty of Lagos, creating the Economic Community of West African States.
At Brampton Centennial Secondary School, student Michael Slobodian kills two people and injures 13 others before committing suicide.