Kursk, an Oscar-class submarine of the Russian Navy, suffered an on-board explosion and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise, killing 118 people.
Near Faith, South Dakota, American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson found one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, nicknamed Sue (pictured).
Japan Air Lines Flight 123 (aircraft involved pictured) crashed into Mount Takamagahara in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 of 524 people on board, including singer Kyu Sakamoto, in the world's worst single-aircraft aviation disaster.
An official administrative history of the Manhattan Project, written by American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth, was released to the public days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
World War II: In Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy, the Waffen-SS and the Brigate Nere murdered about 560 local villagers and refugees and burned their bodies.