Jesse Owens posthumously receives the Congressional Gold Medal. The African American athlete dominated the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, which were held during the reign of Adolf Hitler's racist nazi regime.

Three Mile Island nuclear power plant experiences a partial meltdown and radioactive leak. The coolant leak was the worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States. A continuous string of nuclear disasters, such as Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011) continue to raise doubts about the security and environmental benefit of nuclear power.

Greek poet Giorgos Seferis speaks out against the military junta. The Nobel Prize laureate issued his now famous statement against Greece's repressive right-wing Regime of the Colonels on the BBC World Service.

Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds is released. The film about a swarm of birds wreaking havoc in Bodega Bay, California has become a classic of the horror movie genre.

The first seaplane in history takes off. French inventor Henri Fabre's Canard (Fabre Hydravion) was the first floatplane to take off from water under its own power. The first flight measured 457 meters.