Tiger Woods becomes the youngest ever golfer to win the Masters Tournament. The then 21-year old sportsman was also the first person of African heritage to win a major golf title. Tiger Woods is considered one of the most successful golfers of all time.

An oxygen tank explodes on Apollo 13, leaving the spacecraft crippled. The emergency prompted Jack Swigert's famous quote “Houston, we've had a problem”. The crew managed to return to Earth safely.

Mikis Theodorakis is freed. The Greek composer and politician was interned in the concentration camp of Oropos by the right-wing military junta. The solidarity movement demanding his release included Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, and Harry Belafonte.

The world's first satellite navigation system is launched. Transit 1B was primarily used by the U.S. Navy to update the navigation systems aboard their Polaris submarines.

British troops massacre around 400 unarmed civilians in India. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd, in his own words “to punish the Indians for disobedience.” The Indian independence movement grew considerably after the Amritsar massacre.