September 30
- 1399 – Henry IV is proclaimed King of England.
- 1744 – France and Spain defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell'Olmo.
- 1791 – The first performance of The Magic Flute, the last opera by Mozart to make its debut, took place at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria.
- 1791 – The National Constituent Assembly in Paris is dissolved; Parisians hail Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as "incorruptible patriots".
- 1813 – Battle of Bárbula: Simón Bolívar defeats Santiago Bobadilla.
- 1860 – Britain's first tram service begins in Birkenhead, Merseyside.
- 1882 – Thomas Edison's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States.
- 1888 – Jack the Ripper kills his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.
- 1895 – Madagascar becomes a French protectorate.
- 1903 – The new Gresham's School is officially opened by Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood.
- 1906 – The Real Academia Galega, Galician language's biggest linguistic authority, starts working in Havana.
- 1907 – McKinley National Memorial, final resting place of assassinated U.S. President William McKinley and his family, dedicated in Canton, Ohio.
- 1927 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season.
- 1931 – Start of "Die Voortrekkers" youth movement for Afrikaners in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
- 1935 – The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated.
- 1938 – At 2:00 am, Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
- 1938 – The League of Nations unanimously outlaws "intentional bombings of civilian populations".
- 1939 – General Władysław Sikorski becomes commander-in-chief of the Polish Government in exile.
- 1941 – World War II: Holocaust in Kiev, Ukraine: German Einsatzgruppe C complete Babi Yar massacre.
- 1945 – The Bourne End rail crash, in Hertfordshire, England, kills 43
- 1947 – The Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Yemen join the United Nations.
- 1947 – The World Series, featuring the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, is televised for the first time.
- 1949 – The Berlin Airlift ends.
- 1954 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear reactor powered vessel.
- 1955 – Film star James Dean dies in a road accident aged 24.
- 1962 – Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the National Farm Workers Association, which later becomes United Farm Workers.
- 1962 – James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying segregation.
- 1965 – General Suharto rises to power after an alleged coup by the Communist Party of Indonesia. In response, Suharto and his army massacre over a million Indonesians suspected of being communists.
- 1965 – The Lockheed L-100, the civilian version of the C-130 Hercules, is introduced.
- 1966 – The British protectorate of Bechuanaland declares its independence, and becomes the Republic of Botswana. Seretse Khama takes office as the first President.
- 1967 – BBC Radio 1 is launched and Tony Blackburn presents its first show; the BBC's other national radio stations also adopt numeric names.
- 1968 – The Boeing 747 is rolled out and shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory.
- 1970 – Jordan makes a deal with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for the release of the remaining hostages from the Dawson's Field hijackings.
- 1972 – Roberto Clemente records the 3,000th and final hit of his career.
- 1975 – The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight.
- 1977 – Because of US budget cuts and dwindling power reserves, the Apollo program's ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down.
- 1979 – The Hong Kong MTR commences service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka. Kwun Tong Line).
- 1980 – Ethernet specifications are published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.
- 1982 – Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six people in the Chicago area. Seven are killed in all.
- 1986 – Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed details of Israel's covert nuclear program to British media, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy by the Israeli Mossad.
- 1990 – The Dalai Lama unveils the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Canada's capital city of Ottawa.
- 1993 – An earthquake hits India's Latur and Osmanabad district of Marathwada (Aurangabad division) in Maharashtra state leaving tens of thousands of people dead and many more homeless.
- 1994 – Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground closes after eighty-eight years of service.
- 1999 – Japan's second worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tōkai-mura, northeast of Tokyo.
- 2004 – The first images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat are taken 600 miles south of Tokyo.
- 2004 – The AIM-54 Phoenix, the primary missile for the F-14 Tomcat, is retired from service. Almost two years later, the Tomcat is retired.
- 2005 – The controversial drawings of Muhammad are printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
- 2009 – The 2009 Sumatra earthquakes occur, killing over 1,115 people.
June 16
- 1487 – Battle of Stoke Field, the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses.
- 1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, recognizes Philip II of Spain as her heir and successor.
- 1745 – British troops take Cape Breton Island, which is now part of Nova Scotia, Canada.
- 1745 – Sir William Pepperell captures the French Fortress Louisbourg in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia during the War of the Austrian Succession.
- 1746 – War of Austrian Succession: Austria and Sardinia defeat a Franco-Spanish army at the Battle of Piacenza.
- 1755 – French and Indian War: the French surrender Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians.
- 1774 – Foundation of Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
- 1779 – Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins.
- 1795 – First Battle of Groix otherwise known as Cornwallis' Retreat.
- 1815 – Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, two days before the Battle of Waterloo.
- 1816 – On this Sunday night during the Year Without a Summer, Lord Byron's reading aloud of Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori, inspired his challenge that each guest write a ghost story, which culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein (1818), John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre (1819), and Lord Byron writing the poem Darkness (1816).
- 1836 – The formation of the London Working Men's Association gives rise to the Chartist Movement.
- 1846 – The Papal conclave of 1846 concludes. Pope Pius IX is elected Pope beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy (not counting St. Peter).
- 1858 – Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
- 1858 – Battle of Morar takes place during the Indian Mutiny.
- 1871 – The University Tests Act allows students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests, except for courses in theology.
- 1883 – The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England kills 183 children.
- 1891 – John Abbott becomes Canada's third Prime Minister.
- 1897 – A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
- 1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
- 1903 – Roald Amundsen commences the first east-west navigation of the Northwest Passage by leaving Oslo, Norway.
- 1904 – Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
- 1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called "Bloomsday".
- 1911 – IBM founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
- 1911 – A 772 gram stony meteorite strikes the earth near Kilbourn, Wisconsin damaging a barn.
- 1915 – Foundation of the British Women's Institute.
- 1922 – General election in the Irish Free State: a large majority goes to the pro-Treaty Sinn Féin.
- 1924 – The Whampoa Military Academy is founded.
- 1925 – The most famous Young Pioneer camp of the Soviet Union, Artek, is established.
- 1930 – Sovnarkom establishes decree time in the USSR.
- 1933 – The National Industrial Recovery Act is passed.
- 1940 – World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Premier of Vichy France.
- 1940 – A Communist government is installed in Lithuania.
- 1958 – Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising are executed.
- 1961 – Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Soviet Union.
- 1963 – Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 Mission – Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
- 1967 – Monterey Pop Festival begins
- 1972 – Red Army Faction member Ulrike Meinhof is captured by police in Langenhagen.
- 1972 – The largest single-site hydro-electric power project in Canada is inaugurated at Churchill Falls, Labrador.
- 1976 – Soweto uprising: a non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd.
- 1977 – Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
- 1989 – Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, is reburied in Budapest.
- 1997 – The Dairat Labguer massacre in Algeria; 50 people are killed.
- 2000 – Israel complies with UN Security Council Resolution 425 after 22 years of it issuance, which calls on Israel to completely withdraw from Lebanon. Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon, except the disputed Sheba Farms.
June 8
- 68 – The Roman Senate proclaims Galba as emperor.
- 218 – Battle of Antioch: Elagabalus defeats with support of the Syrian legions the forces of emperor Macrinus. He flees, but is captured near Chalcedon and later executed in Cappadocia.
- 793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England.
- 1191 – Richard I arrives in Acre (Israel) thus beginning his crusade.
- 1405 – Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, are executed in York on Henry IV's orders.
- 1690 – Siddi general Yadi Sakat, razes the Mazagon Fort in Mumbai.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Trois-Rivières – American attackers are driven back at Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
- 1783 – The volcano Laki, in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.
- 1789 – James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives; by 1791, ten of them are ratified by the state legislatures and become the Bill of Rights; another is eventually ratified in 1992 to become the 27th Amendment.
- 1794 – Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France.
- 1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Cross Keys – Confederate forces under General Stonewall Jackson save the Army of Northern Virginia from a Union assault on the James Peninsula led by General George B. McClellan.
- 1887 – Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator.
- 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
- 1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.
- 1928 – Second Northern Expedition: The National Revolutionary Army captures Peking, whose name is changed to Beiping ("Northern peace").
- 1941 – World War II: Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese imperial submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.
- 1948 – Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.
- 1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
- 1949 – George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
- 1950 – Sir Thomas Blamey becomes the only Australian-born Field Marshal in Australian history.
- 1953 – Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado hits Flint, Michigan, and kills 115.
- 1953 – The United States Supreme Court rules that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.
- 1959 – The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
- 1966 – One of the XB-70 Valkyrie prototypes is destroyed in a mid-air collision with a F-104 Starfighter chase plane during a photo shoot. NASA pilot Joseph A. Walker and United States Air Force test pilot Carl Cross are both killed.
- 1966 – Topeka, Kansas is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita Scale: the first to exceed US$100 million in damages. Sixteen people are killed, hundreds more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.
- 1967 – Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.
- 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy's funeral takes place at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.
- 1972 – Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running down a road after being burned by napalm.
- 1982 – Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: 56 British servicemen are killed by Argentine air attack on two landing ships : RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.
- 1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.
- 1987 – New Zealand's Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987
- 1992 – The first World Ocean Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- 1995 – Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
- 2004 – The first Venus Transit in modern history takes place, the previous one being in 1882.
- 2007 – Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.
- 2008 – The Akihabara massacre takes place in the Akihabara shopping quarter in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Tomohiro Katō drives a two-ton truck into a crowd before leaving the truck and attacking people with a knife.
June 2
- 455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks
- 1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city. The second siege would later start on June 7.
- 1615 – First Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
- 1676 – Franco-Dutch War: France ensured the supremacy of its naval fleet for the remainder of the war with its victory in the Battle of Palermo.
- 1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.
- 1763 – Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.
- 1774 – Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act is enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters are not provided.
- 1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: A Franco-Spanish fleet recaptures Diamond Rock, an uninhabited island at the entrance to the bay leading to Fort-de-France, from the British.
- 1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.
- 1848 – The Slavic congress in Prague begins.
- 1855 – The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
- 1866 – Fenian raids: Fenians are victorious in both the Battle of Ridgeway and the Battle of Fort Erie.
- 1876 – Hristo Botev, a national revolutionary of Bulgaria, is killed in Stara Planina
- 1886 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.
- 1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his newest invention: the radio.
- 1909 – Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
- 1910 – Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.
- 1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.
- 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
- 1925 – Because of a lineup revision by Miller Huggins, Wally Pipp is replaced by Lou Gehrig at first base for the New York Yankees, beginning a streak of 2,130 consecutive games played, topped only by Cal Ripken, Jr. in 1995. Exactly 16 years later to the day, in 1941, Gehrig dies from Amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
- 1941 – World War II: German paratoopers murder Greek civilians in the village of Kondomari.
- 1946 – Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum, Italians vote to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After the referendum the king of Italy Umberto II di Savoia is exiled.
- 1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.
- 1955 – The USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations between both countries, discontinued since 1948.
- 1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.
- 1966 – Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft land on another world.
- 1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado's gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.
- 1967 – Protests in West Berlin against the arrival of the Shah of Iran turn into riots, during which Benno Ohnesorg is killed by a police officer. His death results in the founding of the terrorist group Movement 2 June.
- 1979 – Pope John Paul II first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.
- 1983 – After an emergency landing because of an in-flight fire, twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane's doors open. Because of this incident, numerous new safety regulations are put in place.
- 1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12. Petersburg, Indiana, is the hardest-hit town in the outbreak, with 6 deaths.
- 1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.
- 1997 – In Denver, Colorado, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- 1999 – The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time.
- 2003 – Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
- 2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!
- 2008 – Al-Qaeda detonates a suicide car bomb at the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.
- 2010 – Derrick Bird goes on a killing spree in Cumbria, killing 13 and injuring 11, see Cumbria shootings.
May 24
- 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
- 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
- 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign.
- 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library.
- 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
- 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
- 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are intentionally excluded.
- 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday.
- 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.
- 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
- 1830 – Mary Had a Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.
- 1830 – The first revenue trains in the United States begin service on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Baltimore, Maryland and Ellicott's Mills, Maryland.
- 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.
- 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland to inaugurate the first telegraph line.
- 1846 – Mexican-American War: General Zachary Taylor captures Monterrey.
- 1856 – John Brown and his men murder five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia.
- 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
- 1895 – Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted.
- 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
- 1901 – Seventy-eight miners die in the Caerphilly pit disaster in South Wales.
- 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
- 1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.
- 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
- 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field.
- 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
- 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks the then pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
- 1943 – Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
- 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later.
- 1956 – Conclusion of the Sixth Buddhist Council on Vesak Day, marking the 2,500 year anniversary after the Lord Buddha's Parinibbāna.
- 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland
- 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
- 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
- 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
- 1961 – Cyprus enters the Council of Europe.
- 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
- 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
- 1968 – FLQ separatists bomb the U.S. consulate in Quebec City.
- 1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.
- 1973 – Earl Jellicoe resigns as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.
- 1976 – The London to Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
- 1976 – The Judgement of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
- 1980 – The International Court of Justice calls for the release of United States embassy hostages in Tehran, Iran. The hostages would not be freed until the following January.
- 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War.
- 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted.
- 1989 – Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, is awarded £600,000 in damages (later reduced to £60,000 on appeal) after winning a libel action against Private Eye.
- 1990 – A car carrying American Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney explodes in Oakland, California, critically injuring both.
- 1991 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
- 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
- 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
- 1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
- 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
- 2001 – Mountain climbing: 15-year-old Sherpa Temba Tsheri becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.
- 2001 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel, kills 23 and injures over 200
- 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
- 2004 – Communications in North Korea: North Korea bans mobile phones.
