Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest spree killing in modern American history. Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 and injures 23 before committing suicide.

The super liner {{RMS|Queen Mary 2}} embarks on her first trans-Atlantic crossing, linking the golden age of ocean travel to the modern age of ocean travel.

The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union.

The ''Katina P.'' runs aground off of Maputo, Mozambique and 60,000 tons of crude oil spill into the ocean.

The "Doctor of Death", Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide.

Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.

Queen Elizabeth II launches the Royal Yacht {{Ship|HMY|Britannia}}.

Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War" to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Texas City Disaster: An explosion on board a freighter in port causes the city of Texas City, Texas, to catch fire, killing almost 600.

Syria gains independence.

More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship ''Goya'' is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.

The United States Army liberates Nazi ''Sonderlager'' (high security) prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).

The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin.

Allied forces started bombimng of Belgrade,killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter.

Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD.

World War II: The Italian convoy ''Duisburg'', directed to Tunisia, is attacked and destroyed by British ships.

Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians throws the only Opening Day no-hitter in the history of Major League Baseball, beating the Chicago White Sox 1-0.

During the Communist St Nedelya Church assault in Sofia, 150 are killed and 500 are wounded.

The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.

Gandhi organizes a day of "prayer and fasting" in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Amritsar Massacre by the British.

Lenin returns to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland.

Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

The University of Queensland is founded, with the names of the members of the first Senate published in the Queensland Government Gazette.

In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.

American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg

American Civil War: A bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia becomes law.

American Civil War: The Battle at Lee's Mills in Virginia.

The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up.

The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.

Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor

The University of Münster in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany is founded.

The Battle of Culloden is fought between the French-supported Jacobites and the British Hanoverian forces commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.

Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.

Martin Luther's first appearance before the Diet of Worms to be examined by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the other estates of the empire.

The Serbian Empire is proclaimed in Skopje by Dusan Silni, occupying much of the Balkans.

Bari falls to Robert Guiscard, ending Byzantine rule in Italy.

Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt.