Wenchuan earthquake, measuring 7.8 in magnitude occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 87,000, injuring 374,643 and leaving homeless between 4.8 million and 11 million people.
2002
Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ends. With the signing of the Bishkek Protocol a week earlier, Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomats had formalized the ceasefire that went into effect on May 12. The conflict itself remains unsolved.
A Spanish priest attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Juan María Fernández y Krohn opposed the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council and believed that the Pope was a Communist agent. John Paul II escaped with minor injuries.
The world's first programmable, fully automatic computer is presented. The Z3 was designed by German inventor, Konrad Zuse. The original machine was destroyed in an air raid. A replica can be seen at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in UK House of Commons, reasons the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice.