Shenzhou 1: The People's Republic of China launches its first Shenzhou spacecraft.

Vincent van Gogh's ''Portrait of the Artist Without Beard'' sells at auction for $71.5 million USD.

Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Lt. Gen. Maurice Baril of Canada arrives in Africa to lead a multi-national policing force in Zaire.

In Great Britain, the first National Lottery draw is held. A £1 ticket gave a one-in-14-million chance of correctly guessing the winning six out of 49 numbers.

Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the ''Girl You Know It's True'' album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.

Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic publicly declares that Serbia is under attack from Albanian separatists in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.

Pennzoil wins a $10.53 billion USD judgment against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.

Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.

San Juanico Disaster: A series of explosions at the PEMEX petroleum storage facility at San Juan Ixhuatepec in Mexico City starts a major fire and kills about 500 people.

Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.

Transportes Aéreos Portugueses Boeing 727 crashes in Madeira Islands, killing 130.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement.

Jaime Ornelas Camacho takes office as the first President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Portugal.

Football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.

Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.

The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.

National Review publishes its first issue.

Télé Monte Carlo, Europe's oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.

US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of NATO-Europe

Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.

World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling $14 billion USD in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.

Holocaust: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lemberg (Lviv), western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.

World War II: Battle of Stalingrad

World War II: Battle between HMAS ''Sydney'' and HSK ''Kormoran''. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.

Notorious Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow commit first robbery, the first of a large series of robberies and other criminal acts.

Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn Pictures.

A meteorite lands near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.

American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the military cemetery ceremony at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The second Canadian railway line, the Montreal and Lachine Railway, is opened.

Warsaw University is established.

The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to resolve some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.

Christopher Columbus goes ashore on an island he first saw the day before. He names it San Juan Bautista (later renamed Puerto Rico).

The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land, begins.