The world's first country-wide total tobacco ban goes into effect. Bhutan banned the cultivation, harvesting, production, and sale of tobacco and tobacco products. It is still legal in the South Asian country to smoke in a private setting, but obtaining tobacco products legally is close to impossible.

South African police kill hundreds of protesting schoolchildren. An estimated 20,000 youth were protesting against the introduction of Afrikaans as the languages of instruction in their schools when police officers started firing into the crowd. The “Soweto uprising” is today commemorated on Youth Day each year.

The Monterey Pop Festival opens. The three-day concert event featured historic performances by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Ravi Shankar, and Janis Joplin.

Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space. The Soviet cosmonaut completed 48 orbits on board the spaceship “Vostok 6” before returning safely to Earth. The former textile worker was declared “Hero of the Soviet Union” and received the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace.

Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho is premiered. The horror-thriller starring Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles has become one of the classics of the genre. The shower scene is one of the best-known murder scenes in the history of film.