Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country's first post-9/11 anti-terrorism raids.
China launches Shenzhou 5, its first crewed space mission.
NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles (180 km) of Jupiter's moon Io.
The United States, under the Clinton administration, returns Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to the island.
Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation.
A coup d'état in Burkina Faso overthrows and kills then President Thomas Sankara.
A coup d'état in El Salvador overthrows President Carlos Humberto Romero and begins the 12 year-long Salvadoran Civil War.
Vietnam War: A draft card is burned during an anti-war rally by the Catholic Worker Movement, resulting in the first arrest under a new law.
FORTRAN, the first modern computer language, is first shared with the coding community.
World War II: Germany replaces the Hungarian government after Hungary announces an armistice with the Soviet Union.
President Lluís Companys of Catalonia is executed by the Francoist government.
Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
The airship Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States.
Airship America is launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.
Napoleon begins his exile on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted of treason.
The Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon makes the first human ascent, piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.
The Battle of Raft Swamp marks the last battle fought in North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War with a Patriot victory. It occurred four days before the British surrender at Yorktown.