Tony Blair's, Labour Party, wins the UK's general election for a third consecutive time.

Wolfenstein 3D was released. This was the first-ever first-person shooter computer game which has spawned hundreds if not thousands of similar games.

British SAS soldiers storm the Iranian embassy in London after a six day siege. Embassy personnel were taken hostage six days before by a team of armed Iranians who opposed Ayatollah Khomeini and demanded freedom for the southern Iranian province of Khuzestan.

A coup d'etat was carried out in Paraguay by General Alfredo Stroessner. He remained in power for 35 years, which makes his the second longest rule in Latin America in the 20th century, after that of Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on the island of Saint Helena.

German political philosopher, Karl Marx, was born in Trier, Germany. The merger of Marxist thought with Leninism had formed the official state ideology of the Soviet Union.