For the first time in its history, NATO attacks a sovereign country. The military alliance bombed Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War - without a UN mandate.

Oil tanker “Exxon Valdez” runs aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The mishap resulted in one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history, killing up to 250,000 seabirds and other wildlife.

Millions watch NASA spacecraft Ranger 9 crash into the Moon. The U.S. space probe broadcast live pictures back to Earth, enabling TV viewers to follow its approach to the Moon and its controlled crash.

Aleksander Popov achieves the world's first radio transmission. The Russian physicist transmitted the words “Heinrich Hertz” from one building of St. Petersburg University to another.

Robert Koch discovers the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis. The German scientist, who is regarded as the father of modern bacteriology, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1905.