A China Southern Airlines passenger jet crashed, resulting in the death of all 141 people on board.

The skeleton of a child 3.18 million years old was discovered in Ethiopia.

A hijacker under the alias Dan Cooper parachuted from a passenger plane over Washington, USA, after he had collected 200,000 USD in ransom. He was never apprehended.

After a coup, Joseph Desire Mobutu, became president of Congo (he renamed the country to Zair in 1971, it was later renamed again to the Democratic Republic of Congo). He would rule the country for 32 years before being overthrown by rebels in 1997.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy was shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas while on a live televised broadcast.

Actress Audrey Hepburn performs in Broadway play, Gigi, for the first time. She was a relatively unknown actresses at the time.

During the course of World War II an American fleet of bomber aircraft performed the first ever bombing of the city of Tokyo.

American gangster, Lucky Luciano, was born in the village of Lercara Friddi, Italy. He is one of the most known gangsters of all time, second in notoriety only to Al Capone, although Luciano's impact on the world of organized crime is considered far more significant than capone's ever was.

The Origin of Species. by Charles Darwin was first published.

Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, was born in Amsterdam. He was one of the most prominent philosophers of the 17th century who was part of the realists movement.