Georgia launches a military offensive against South Ossetia to counter the alleged Russian invasion, starting the South Ossetia War.

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run.

Second Chechen War began.

The United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.

U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.

Rioting in New York City's Tompkins Square Park.

Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.

''The Washington Star'' ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.

Several tornadoes struck the city of Woodstock, Ontario, Canada and the surrounding communities.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal.

Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.

Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center {{Convert|1368|ft|m}} in the air.

California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during in an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.

Vietnam War: the People's Republic of China agrees to give North Vietnam an undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.

Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan.

The infamous first party between Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and motorcycle gang the Hells Angels takes place at Kesey's estate in La Honda, California introducing psychedelics to the gang world and forever linking the hippie movement to the Hell's Angels.

Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world's oldest tree, is cut down.

Vietnam War: the U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.

Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent.

The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design and is still in use.

Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.

The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).

Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, {{Convert|7000|km|mi}} journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).

World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

World War II: Alsace Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich.

The Simele massacre: The Iraqi Government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Sumail. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day.

The last lynching in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana. Two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed.

The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

Anna Månsdotter becomes the last woman in Sweden to be executed, for the 1889 Yngsjö murder.

The opening of the Poor Man's Palace in Manchester.

Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.

U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Law of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

United States troops destroy the Miami town of Kenapacomaqua near the site of present-day Logansport, Indiana in the Northwest Indian War.

The United States War Department is established.

George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.

The Battle of Gangut: the first important victory of the Russian Navy.

The brigantine ''Le Griffon'', commissioned by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.

The Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.

The Visconti of Milan's fleet is destroyed by the Venetians on the Po River.

Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence.

Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.

The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Constantinople.