8 February 554

The Irish-bred race horse Shergar was stolen by gunmen, who demanded a £2 million ransom.

Rhodesian Bush War: Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army cadres in Gwelo attacked Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army troops, killing over 60 of them and starting the 1981 Entumbane uprising.

Denis Sassou Nguesso (pictured) was chosen as the new President of the Republic of the Congo after Joachim Yhombi-Opango was forced from power.

Law enforcement officers in Orangeburg, South Carolina (pictured), fired into a crowd of college students who were protesting segregation, killing three and injuring twenty-seven others.

After taking evasive action to avoid a mid-air collision just after taking off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, Eastern Air Lines Flight 663 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 84 people on board.

The official groundbreaking of the Walk of Fame took place in Hollywood, Los Angeles, in California.

The closing ceremony of the first Olympics held after World War II was held in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Gee Jon became the first person in the United States to be executed by lethal gas.

William D. Boyce established the Boy Scouts of America, expanding the Scout Movement into the United States.

Richard Mentor Johnson became the only person ever to be elected Vice President of the United States by the Senate.

The William III and Mary II of England charter the College of William & Mary, establishing what is now the second-oldest university in the United States.

Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed at Fotheringhay Castle for her involvement in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.

William of Orange founded Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands.

Seventh Crusade: The Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt defeated and captured King Louis IX of France at the Battle of Fariskur.

Honorius declared Constantius III to be his co-emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

A soldier opens fire in a military camp and a shopping center in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, killing 29 people and injuring 58 others before being shot dead by police the next day. It is considered the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history.

A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia, kills 15 Egyptian pilgrims with 130 others injured.

A blizzard kills at least 18 and leaves hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the northeastern United States and parts of Canada.

Over 2 miles (3.2 km) of road are buried after a storm in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of avalanches, killing at least 172 people and trapping over 2,000 others.

An Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 and an Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 collide mid-air near Qods, Iran, killing all 133 people on board both aircraft.

Independent Air Flight 1851 strikes Pico Alto mountain while on approach to Santa Maria Airport in the Azores, killing all 144 passengers on board.

Twenty-three people are killed when a VIA Rail passenger train collides with a Canadian National freight train near the town of Hinton, Alberta, making it one of the worst rail accidents in Canada.

The crew of Skylab 4, the last mission to visit the American space station Skylab, returns to Earth after 84 days in space.

South Vietnamese ground troops launch an incursion into Laos to try to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail and stop communist infiltration into the country.