The 2010 Haiti earthquake occurs killing at least 230,000 and destroying the majority of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Comet McNaught reaches perihelion becoming the brightest comet in more than 40 years.

The French warship Clemenceau reaches Egypt and is barred access to the Suez Canal. Greenpeace activists board the ship.

Turkey releases Mehmet Ali Ağca from jail after he served 25 years for shooting Pope John Paul II.

A stampede during the Stoning the Devil ritual on the last day at the Hajj in Mina, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362 Muslim pilgrims.

Deep Impact launches from Cape Canaveral on a Delta 2 rocket.

The world's largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.

Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.

A new constitution, providing for freedom to form political parties, is approved by a referendum in Mali.

Gulf War: An act of the U.S. Congress authorizes the use of military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

Space Shuttle program: Congressman Bill Nelson lifts off from Kennedy Space Center aboard Columbia on mission STS-61C as a Mission Specialist.

The UN Security Council votes 11-1 to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate (without voting rights).

The Harrisburg Seven: The Reverend Philip Berrigan and five others are indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, D.C.

Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian civil war.

Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.

Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.

Rebels in Zanzibar begin a revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution and proclaim a republic.

World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.

Hattie W. Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.

Finland's "Mosaic Confessors" law went into effect, making Finnish Jews full citizens.

The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to give women the right to vote.

The Rocky Mountain National Park is formed by an act of U.S. Congress.

The University of the Philippines College of Law is formally established; three future Philippine presidents are among the first enrollees.

A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet (which included amongst its members H. H. Asquith, David Lloyd George, and Winston Churchill) embarks on sweeping social reforms after a Liberal landslide in the British general election.

13 crew members and 5 apprentices are rescued off the coast of England by the Lynmouth Lifeboat.

Ito Hirobumi begins his third term as Prime Minister of Japan.

The National Trust is founded in the United Kingdom.

Kwang-su becomes emperor of China.

Yohannes IV is crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city in over 200 years.

The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.

The Palermo rising takes place in Sicily against the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The organizational meeting that led to the creation of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.

Mission Santa Clara de Asís is founded in what is now Santa Clara, California.

The first public Colonial American museum opens in Charleston, South Carolina.

Treaty of Toledo signed by King Francis I of France and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Gustav I of Sweden crowned king of Sweden.

Basiliscus becomes Byzantine Emperor, with a coronation ceremony in the Hebdomon palace in Constantinople.