Microsoft Launches Windows ME. The Millennium Edition was the last of the operating systems of the Windows 9x series.

The Golden Girls Make Their Television Debut. The popular American sitcom about 4 single and older women living together in a Miami, Florida house ran for 6 seasons on NBC. The main characters in the show were played by Beatrice Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White, each of whom won the Emmys for their acting in the show. The series also won 2 Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and 3 Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series.

The Afghan President is assassinated. Nur Muhammad Taraki had taken office less than a year ago when he was killed by gunfire at the behest of Hafizullah Amin. Amin took the seat of the president after the assassination and ruled for only 3 months before he was killed by the Soviets during Operation Storm-333.

First Man-Made Object Successfully Lands on the Moon. Soviet space probe Luna 2 was also the first man-made spacecraft to land on any celestial object. It was launched on September 12, 1959, and lost communications with Earth as it impacted the Moon’s surface east of Mare Serenitatis near the Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus craters.

IBM 305 RAMAC is Released. The 350 RAMAC was the first computer with a disk drive and was primarily targeted towards business that did real-time transactions. RAMAC stood for Random Access Method of Accounting and Control. The RAMAC 350, which was one of the last vacuum tube computers manufactured by IBM, was replaced by the IBM 1401 in the early 1960s.