High school instructor Pamela Smart, accused of manipulating her student-lover into killing her husband, was convicted in Exeter, N.H., of murder-conspiracy.
A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, found former tanker captain Joseph Hazelwood innocent of three major charges in connection with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but convicted him of a minor charge of negligent discharge of oil.
Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment and sent it to be ratified by the states. The amendment would fail to get the required 38 states to ratify it.
The Beatles release their first album. Please Please Me, which included the hit single “Love Me Do” is regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.
The laser is patented. Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow received the first patent for their device, although Gordon Gould had previously filed a patent application for a similar contraption, which was turned down.
In what is generally regarded as the first public display of a movie projected onto a screen, Auguste and Louis Lumiere showed their first movie – the one-minute "Employees Leaving the Lumiere Factory" – to an invited audience in Paris.
The first Stanley Cup championship game was played. The Montreal Amateur Athletic Association (which won the cup unchallenged the previous year) triumphed over the Ottawa Capitals.
British Parliament, led by Charles Grey, passes the Reform Act, introducing wide-ranging changes to electoral system of England and Wales, increasing electorate from about 500,000 voters to 813,000.