IBM introduces the IBM PC, whose architecture becomes the de facto standard for personal computers for decades.
ARPANET officially switches to the TCP/IP protocol suite, often regarded as the birth of the modern Internet.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign US-brokered accords, leading to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty.
NASA launches Voyager 1 to study Jupiter and Saturn; it later becomes the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.
NASA's Viking 1 lander touches down on Mars and returns the first images from the planet's surface.
Hundreds of thousands of people flee Vietnam by sea after 1975; many die at sea and others are resettled, mostly in Western countries.
North Vietnamese forces enter the Independence Palace; the Republic of Vietnam surrenders, ending the Vietnam War.