The Junkers Ju 287, the first jet with forward-swept wings, made its first flight.
Source
Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, was given political asylum by Ecuador.
Edwin Prescott was awarded a patent for the vertical loop Roller Coaster.
Queen Victoria of Britain sent the first-ever transatlantic telegraph to US President James Buchanan.
NASA launched its Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers mission (AMPTE) from the Cape Canaveral launch pad.
More than 1,200 tin homes were destroyed after a fire broke out in the Chalantika slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
