It happened on a… May 11

A French mint produced the first coins of Europe's single currency. The coin is known as the euro.

Garry Kasparov, world chess champion, lost his first ever multi-game match. He lost to IBM's chess computer Deep Blue. It was the first time a computer had beaten a world-champion player.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical “Cats” (based on poetry by T. S. Eliot) directed by Trevor Nunn first premieres in the West End, London.

The creation of the tubeless tire was announced by the B.F. Goodrich Company.

Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging their two companies.

Founding of the Canadian commercial exchange; forerunner of the Montreal Stock Exchange.

“The Diamond Sutra”, the world's oldest surviving and dated printed book is printed in Chinese and made into a scroll.