Comet Hale-Bopp: Observers in China, Mongolia and eastern Siberia are treated to a rare double feature as an eclipse permits Hale-Bopp to be seen during the day.

Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade. Two people are killed and tanks are deployed in the streets.

Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position.

A strike forces financially-troubled Eastern Air Lines into bankruptcy.

The Hanafi Muslim Siege: In a thirty-nine hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.

Forty-two people die in the 1976 Cavalese cable-car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date.

Trans World Airlines Flight 553, a Douglas DC-9-15, crashes in a field in Concord Township, Ohio following a mid-air collision with a Beechcraft Baron, killing 26.

The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

A magnitude 8.3 earthquake in the Andreanof Islands, Alaska triggers a Pacific-wide tsunami causing extensive damage to Hawaii and Oahu.

Soviet military suppresses a mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.

McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the ''See It Now'' episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy", produced by Fred Friendly.

World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days.

Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies.

Pink's War: The first Royal Air Force operation conducted independently of the British Army or Royal Navy begins.

Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico.

The Westmoreland County Coal Strike, involving 15,000 coal miners represented by the United Mine Workers, begins.

Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adowa.

American Civil War: The {{USS|Monitor}} and {{Ship|CSS|Virginia}} fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.

National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Mexican-American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz.

Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, ''Nabucco'', receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.

Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí.

Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.

After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually committed suicide.

David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.

The fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover Brazil which lies within boundaries granted to Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

Augsburg becomes an Imperial Free City.

Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa.