The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed following a collision between the MV Dali container ship and one of the bridge's support pillars, killing 6 people.
An explosion, allegedly caused by a North Korean torpedo, sank the South Korean warship ROKS Cheonan near Baengnyeongdo in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 sailors.
A jury began deliberations in the trial of Jack Kevorkian, an American practitioner of physician-assisted suicide who was charged with murder in the death of a terminally ill patient.
Police in Rancho Santa Fe, California, discovered the bodies of 39 members of the religious group Heaven's Gate who had died in an apparent cult suicide.
The Biological Weapons Convention, the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production of an entire category of weapons, entered into force.
A group of peasant women in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, surrounded trees in order to prevent loggers from felling them, giving rise to the Chipko movement.