New Zealand becomes a nuclear-free zone. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 barred any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering the country. New Zealand was the first country to legislate towards a nuclear-free zone in the 1950s.

Nick Út takes his famous “napalm girl” photo. The Pulitzer Prize-winning image officially entitled “The Terror of War” depicts nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. It has become one of the best-known symbols for the indescribable sufferings in armed conflicts.

George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell's nightmarish description of a totalitarian society set in the year 1984 is one of the most significant works of English literature and one of the best-known novels of all time. The phrase, Big Brother is watching you, stems from this work.

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is premiered. The cantata, especially Orff's breathless rendition of the medieval poem O Fortuna, has been featured in countless works of popular culture, including The Simpsons, Last of the Mohicans, and Jackass: The Movie.

Herman Hollerith patents his punch card calculator. The U.S. data processing pioneer, one of the grandfathers of the technology company IBM, used his revolutionary machine to process the large amount of data collected during the U.S. census of 1890/1891.