Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord to ensure Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho. Together with Shimon Peres, the two leaders received the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. A year later, Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist.

The Grammy is presented for the first time. It is one of the most prestigious awards in the music industry. Winners of the first edition included Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Mancini, and Frank Sinatra.

Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize. The American author was awarded the prestigious accolade for his novel The Old Man and the Sea. The story about a fisherman and his battle with a large marlin also earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The United States takes over the construction of the Panama Canal. French engineers had begun digging a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in 1881, but they had to abandon the project after about 22,000 lives had been lost to accidents and disease.

King Charles II of England commissions the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The observatory was built on the prime meridian. The mean solar time at this location is the basis for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).