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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.
Bombardment of Yeonpyeong: North Korean artillery attack kills two civilians and two marines on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea.
The Maguindanao massacre occurs in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, Philippines.
MS Explorer, a cruise liner carrying 154 people, sinks in the Antarctic Ocean south of Argentina after hitting an iceberg near the South Shetland Islands. There are no fatalities.
A series of bombings kills at least 215 people and injures 257 others in Sadr City, making it the second deadliest sectarian attack since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is elected president of Liberia and becomes the first woman to lead an African country.
The Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, the largest religious building in Georgia, is consecrated.
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.
Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.
The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Gunmen hijack EgyptAir Flight 648 en route from Athens to Cairo. When the plane lands in Malta, Egyptian commandos storm the aircraft, but 60 people die in the raid.
Iran-Contra affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
The 6.9 Mw Irpinia earthquake shakes southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing 2,483-4,900, and injuring 7,700-8,934.
The Geneva Frequency Plan of 1975 goes into effect, realigning many of Europe's longwave and mediumwave broadcasting frequencies.
Apneist Jacques Mayol is the first man to reach a depth of 100 m undersea without breathing equipment.
Sixty Ethiopian politicians, aristocrats, military officers, and other persons are executed by the provisional military government.
Representatives of the People's Republic of China attend the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, for the first time.
The BBC broadcasts the first episode of An Unearthly Child (starring William Hartnell), the first story from the first series of Doctor Who, 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".
The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of the United Kingdom to that of Australia.
Pilot Felix Moncla and Lieutenant Robert Wilson disappear while in pursuit of a mysterious craft over Lake Superior.
French naval bombardment of Hai Phong, Vietnam, kills thousands of civilians.
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: 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.
An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden discovers an Italian garrison at Walwal, well within Ethiopian territory. This leads to the Abyssinia Crisis.
Edwin Hubble's discovery, that the Andromeda "nebula" is actually another island galaxy far outside of our own Milky Way, is first published in The New York Times.
Heber J. Grant succeeds Joseph F. Smith as the seventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.
Johan Alfred Ander becomes the last person to be executed in Sweden.
King William III of the Netherlands dies without a male heir and a special law is passed to allow his daughter Princess Wilhelmina to succeed him.
The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Magear Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.
The Manchester Martyrs are hanged in Manchester, England, for killing a police officer while freeing two Irish nationalists from custody.
American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins: Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and counter-attack Confederate troops.
The start of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in what was then the Danish West Indies.
John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.
The Second War of Kappel results in the dissolution of the Protestant alliance in Switzerland.
First campaign of the Ottoman Empire against the Kingdom of Imereti (modern western Georgia). Ottoman armies sack the capital Kutaisi and burn Gelati Monastery.
Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London. He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV of England.
Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile.
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