Nguyễn Tất Thành (later Hồ Chí Minh) leaves Saigon as a kitchen hand aboard the Amiral Latouche-Tréville, bound for France.
From alpha-particle scattering experiments, Ernest Rutherford proposes that the atom has a small, dense, positively charged nucleus.
Võ Nguyên Giáp, later commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Army, is born in Quảng Bình.
RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage after striking an iceberg; more than 1,500 people die.
Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring premieres in Paris amid uproar in the audience, becoming a landmark of modernist music.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife are shot dead by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, triggering the crisis that leads to the First World War.
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, drawing Europe's powers into a global war that lasts until the armistice of 11 November 1918.