Two fuel trains collide in Ryongchon, North Korea. 150 people die as a result of the accident.

The Big Number Change took place in the United Kingdom, in order to expand the available pool of telephone numbers that were nearing exhaustion in the 90's.

American politician, Richard Nixon, died at the age of 81. He was the 37th President of the United States, who resigned in the face of imminent impeachment related to the Watergate hotel scandal.

The web browser Mosaic version 1.0 was released. It was developed by the "National Center for Supercomputing Applications". Later on the leader of the development team, Marc Andreessen, along with Jim Clark went ahead to form Mosaic Communications, later renamed to Netscape Communications Corporation.

The Blues Brothers appeared for the first time on the Saturday Night Live television show.

Earth Day was celebrated for the first time. Earth day aims to celebrate and create awareness about the earth's fragile environment.

British musician, Peter Frampton, was born in Beckenham, Kent.

American actor, Jack Nicholson, was born in New York City. He has appeared in a multitude of films over his career and has been awarded 2 academy awards. His first major break in the film industry was that of the movie Easy Rider.

American physicist, Robert Oppenheimer, was born in New York City. He was a theoretical physicist who was the director of the Manhattan Project and the development of the first nuclear weapons, during the Second World War. He later assumed Albert Einstein's old position of senior professor of theoretical physics in Princeton University.

The Oklahoma land rush took place. Over 50,000 potential settlers were poised on all four borders of the territory. Despite assurances to the contrary by the US Army, most of the land was already marked by settlers who had sneaked in before the opening of the rush.

Russian revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin, was born in Simbirsk, Russia. He was the leader of the Bolshevik party and the first Premier of the Soviet Union.

German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, died at the age of 78. He was one of the great thinkers of his time and one of the last philosophers of the Enlightenment movement.