Typhoon Vamco makes landfall in Luzon and several offshore islands, killing 67 people. The storm causes the worst floods in the region since Typhoon Ketsana in 2009.

The Palestine Liberation Organization confirms the death of Yasser Arafat from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas is elected chairman of the PLO minutes later.

Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman posts the first of three preprint texts with his proof of the Poincaré conjecture. It remains the only of the Millennium Prize Problems in mathematics to be solved. He later refused both the prize money from Clay Mathematics Institute as well as the Fields Medal for his work.

The House of Lords Act is given Royal Assent, restricting membership of the British House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.

The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to become priests.

Space Shuttle Columbia launches from the Kennedy Space Center on STS-5, the first operational mission of the Space Shuttle program.