A poison gas attack kills 5000 civilians in the Kurdish town of Halabjah. The war crime was in all likelihood executed on the orders of Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein.

In Northern Ireland, an Ulster loyalist kills 3 people at a Provisional IRA funeral. Michael Stone was later convicted of the Milltown Cemetary attack, which was filmed by news crews.

U.S. troops massacre hundreds of unarmed civilians in Vietnam. The 504 victims of the My Lai Massacre included many children and infants.

Alfred Hitchcock's movie Psycho is premiered. The film starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh is an all-time classic of the suspense movie genre.

Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket. The idea for this revolutionary rocket engine first appeared in a book by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.