168 die in the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh, the mastermind behind the attack, was executed on June 11, 2001. The motives for the bombing, which also killed 19 babies and children, remain somewhat unclear.

The first installment of The Simpsons is aired. The hugely popular animated sitcom debuted on the Tracey Ullman Show in the form of one-minute shorts.

The Soviet Union launches the world's first manned space station. Salyut 1 was 23 meters long and offered 100 cubic meters of pressurized space.

Leslie Irvin makes the world's first free-fall parachute jump. The jump was executed to test a new kind of parachute, which was also the first featuring a ripcord. The Hollywood stuntman broke a leg on landing.

The American Revolutionary War begins. The Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and 13 colonies of British North America. The war resulted in U.S. independence.