Abdul Mohmand becomes the first person from Afghanistan to Visit Space. Mohmand, an Afghan Air Force pilot was a crew member of the Soyuz TM-6, a Soviet spacecraft. He was in space for 9 days, which were spent at the Mir Space Station.

Meitnerium is Synthesized for the First time. The radioactive synthetic element with an atomic number of 109 and the symbol Mt was first created at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt, Germany. Named after Austrian physicist and discoverer of nuclear fission, Lise Meitner, the element, which is not found naturally, was discovered by a team headed by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg.

Beatles’ Last Commercial Performance. Popular British rock group, the Beatles, played their last live concert in front of a paying public at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California. The band came together one last time for an unannounced performance in January 1969 on the rooftop of the Apple building in London.

Soviet Union Tests its First Atomic Bomb. Code named Izdeliye 501 or First Lightening, the 22 kiloton atomic bomb was detonated at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan. It is thought that the bomb was a replica of the Fat Man bomb, the plans for which were brought to USSR by spies at the Manhattan project. The US called the Soviet bomb, Joe-1.

Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction. Michael Faraday experimentally demonstrated that a changing magnetic field can induce a voltage in a conductor. The discovery of electromagnetic induction helped in the creation of electric generators, transformers, and even induction cook tops. An English scientist, Faraday was a prolific researcher and inventor. In addition to discovering electromagnetic induction, he also discovered Benzene and electrolysis. The farad, an International System of Units (SI) measurement of a capacitance – the ability of an object to hold an electric charge was named after Faraday.