The Human Genome Project is completed. The project dedicated to mapping the genes of the human genome was started in October 1990.

The Soviet Union agrees to withdraw from Afghanistan. Soviet troops had invaded the country in 1979 to support the communist rulers. They were defeated primarily by the Mujahideen, who were groups of militant Islamists sponsored by the CIA.

The heaviest hailstones ever recorded hit Bangladesh. The lumps of ice weighed about 1 kg (2.2 lb). At total of 92 people reportedly died as a result.

Doomed passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The subsequent sinking of the world's largest ocean liner of the time resulted in more than 1500 deaths. It was one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, wanted to revive the Confederate cause, mere days after their surrender to the Union Army, bringing the American Civil War to an end. Lincoln died the next day.