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The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia sinks off the coast of Italy due to the captain's negligence and irresponsibility. There are 32 confirmed deaths.
An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 800.
Alfredo Ormando sets himself on fire in St. Peter's Square, protesting against homophobia.
Space Shuttle program: Endeavour heads for space for the third time as STS-54 launches from the Kennedy Space Center.
Soviet Union troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, killing 14 people and wounding around 1000 others.
Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia.
A seven-day pogrom breaks out against the Armenian civilian population of Baku, Azerbaijan, during which Armenians were beaten, tortured, murdered, and expelled from the city.
Lee Teng-hui becomes the first native Taiwanese President of the Republic of China.
A month-long violent struggle begins in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of Ali Nasir Muhammad and Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.
A passenger train plunges into a ravine in Ethiopia, killing 428 in the worst railroad disaster in Africa.
Shortly after takeoff, Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 jet, crashes into Washington, D.C.'s 14th Street Bridge and falls into the Potomac River, killing 78 including four motorists.
United States Food and Drug Administration requires all blood donations to be labeled "paid" or "volunteer" donors.
Seraphim is elected Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.
Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo of Ghana are ousted in a bloodless military coup by Colonel Ignatius Kutu Acheampong.
Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom State Prison
Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member when he is appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Coup d'état in Togo results in the assassination of president Sylvanus Olympio
The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol in the Battle of Edchera.
An article appears in Pravda accusing some of the most prestigious and prominent doctors, mostly Jews, in the Soviet Union of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.
World War II: First use of an aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.
The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometers of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.
A plebiscite in Saarland shows that 90.3% of those voting wish to join Nazi Germany.
The 6.7 Mw Avezzano earthquake shakes the Province of L'Aquila in Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between 29,978-32,610.
The first public radio broadcast takes place; a live performance of the operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.
First Italo-Ethiopian War: the war's opening battle, the Battle of Coatit, occurs; it is an Italian victory.
U.S. Marines land in Honolulu, Hawaii from the USS Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom holds its first meeting.
The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the Mexican-American War in California.
Dr. William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British East India Company Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for being the sole survivor of an army of 4,500 men and 12,000 camp followers when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives.
United States President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's defiance of federal authority in the Nullification Crisis.
The design of the Greek flag is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.
War of 1812: British troops capture Fort Peter in St. Marys, Georgia, the only battle of the war to take place in the state.
French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle between a French ship of the line and two British frigates off the coast of Brittany ends with the French vessel running aground, resulting in over 900 deaths.
Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, representative of Revolutionary France, lynched by a mob in Rome
The Bank of Genoa fails after announcement of national bankruptcy in Spain.
Sicut Dudum, forbidding the enslavement of the Guanche natives in Canary Islands by the Spanish, is promulgated by Pope Eugene IV.
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