On This Day in History

The first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Lugano, Switzerland.

Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbited the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.

United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with African American author James Baldwin in an unsuccessful attempt to improve race relations.

On the Kola Peninsula in Russia, drilling began on the Kola Superdeep Borehole, which eventually reached a depth of 12,262 metres (40,230 ft), making it the deepest borehole ever drilled and the lowest artificial point on Earth.

In a wine competition in Paris (wine bottle pictured), French judges shocked the wine industry by rating California wines higher than French ones.

A stationary front began over the central Caribbean Sea, leading to severe floods that over two weeks killed dozens of people in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act of 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, was enacted.

The Israel Defense Forces began Operation Solomon, a covert operation to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel (evacuees pictured).

An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film that has been credited for raising international public awareness of climate change and re-energizing the environmental movement, was released.

A gunman involved in Islamic extremism opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people.

An 18-year old gunman shot and killed nineteen students and two teachers in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

A suicide bombing targeting a shuttle train in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan, kills at least 47 people.