Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle became the first rocket to successfully fly to space and then return to Earth for a controlled, vertical landing.
Arab Spring: After 11 months of protests in Yemen, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.
Rose Revolution: Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze resigns following weeks of mass protests over flawed elections.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 125.
The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury announces in a statement that he is HIV-positive. He dies the following day.
Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m (330 ft) undersea without breathing equipment.
Representatives of the People's Republic of China attend the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, for the first time.
The first episode of Doctor Who ("An Unearthly Child") is broadcast by the BBC, which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama.
French President Charles de Gaulle declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals".
World War II: The Lotta Svärd Movement is disbanded under the terms of the armistice treaty in Finland after the Continuation War.
World War II: The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed. It will eventually be rebuilt in 1961 and be called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
World War II: Tarawa and Makin atolls fall to American forces.
World War II: Romania becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
World War II: HMS Rawalpindi is sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
Edwin Hubble's discovery, that the Andromeda "nebula" is actually another island galaxy far outside our own Milky Way, is first published in The New York Times.
Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States, signs the Willis–Campbell Act into law, prohibiting doctors from prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.
Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.
Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character on stage.