Africa hosts the FIFA World Cup for the first time. The 19th association football world cup was opened in Johannesburg, South Africa. The winner of this historic edition was Spain.

Christopher Cockerell first presents the hovercraft. The amphibious air-cushion vehicle first crossed the English Channel just weeks after Cockerell first demonstrated his prototype, the SR.N1. The scheduled “flights” between Dover (U.K.) and Calais (France) were discontinued in 2000.

More than 80 people die in the Le Mans car race disaster. In one of history's worst car racing accidents, Pierre Levegh's Mercedes crashed into a crowd of spectators and burst into flames.

China launches the 1938 Yellow River flood. In what Steven Dutch, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin, called “the world's largest act of environmental warfare in history”, the Chinese government created the flood to halt invading Japanese forces.

The first predecessor of the bicycle is demonstrated. Using his revolutionary Laufmaschine, also known as Draisine, a two-wheeler without pedals, German inventor Karl Drais completed a 14 km test run in less than an hour, presenting a viable alternative to transportation by horse.