A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport. See 2006 Hawaii Earthquake.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.

Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet is arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges.

Eighty-four people are killed and more than 180 injured as 47,000 football fans attempt to squeeze into the 36,000-seat ''Estadio Mateo Flores'' in Guatemala City.

The Skye Bridge is opened.

The Million Man March occurs in Washington, D.C.

Anti-Nazi riot breaks out in Welling in Kent, after police stop protesters approaching the British National Party headquarters.

Luby's massacre: George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20 in Luby's Cafeteria.

Great Storm of 1987: Hurricane force winds hit much of the South of England killing 23 people.

Ron Arad, Israeli Weapons System Officer, is captured by Lebanese Shi'ite militia Amal.

Reinhold Messner becomes the first person to summit all 14 Eight-thousanders.

Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wanda Rutkiewicz is the first Pole and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Pope John Paul II is elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave.

The Australian Coalition opposition parties using their senate majority, vote to defer the decision to grant supply of funds for the Whitlam Government's annual budget, sparking the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.

Rahima Banu, a 2-year old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.

The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.

Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invokes the War Measures Act.

United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off the USA's team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.

Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin are inaugurated as General Secretary of the CPSU and Premier, respectively.

The People's Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon.

Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and Cuba begins.

The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi.

Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a "temporary cease-fire", effectively ending the Greek Civil War.

The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic are established.

Nuremberg Trials: Execution of the convicted Nazi leaders of the Main Trial.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is founded in Quebec City, Canada.

Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto is established.

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.

World War II: First attack on British territory by the German Luftwaffe.

Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.

The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

Margaret Sanger founds Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.

The Captain of Köpenick fools the city hall of Köpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.

The Partition of Bengal in India takes place.

The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.

Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.

Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England's first residential college for women.

The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is "discovered".

John Brown leads a raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.

William TG Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.

Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.

Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London is burnt to the ground.

The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.

The Battle of Wattignies ends in a French victory.

Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.

George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.

Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War.

Carlo Gesualdo, composer, Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, murders his wife, Donna Maria d'Avalos, and her lover Fabrizio Carafa, the Duke of Andria at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples.

Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman.

Magister militum Ricimer defeats Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the Western Roman Empire.