Italian Red Brigades kidnap former Italian Premier Aldo Moro for release of imprisoned comrades. Moro was murdered and his body found on 9 May 1978.

At a masquerade ball, a disgruntled Captain Jacob Johan Ankarstroem shoots Swedish King Gustav III near the heart with a bullet composed of lead and carpet tacks. The king dies twelve days later, and as punishment the Captain is decapitated, drawn, and quartered.

More than 150 and perhaps as many as 500 Jews, secured in Clifford's Tower at York, die from suicide and massacre after they are sieged by townspeople under Richard Malebys. Malebys was a nobleman who owed money to the Jews; after their siege all records relating to moneylending were destroyed. It is the largest massacre of Jews in the history of the United Kingdom.

Figure skater Tonya Harding arrested for obstruction of prosecution during the fallout from the Nancy Kerrigan figure skate clubbing.

The CIA's station chief in Beirut, William Buckley, is kidnapped by the Islamic Jihad and later murdered.

Italian Red Brigades kidnap former Italian Premier Aldo Moro for release of imprisoned comrades. Moro was murdered and his body found on 9 May 1978.

Soldiers of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade Americal Division massacre over 300 civilian men, women, and children in the village of My Lai in South Vietnam.

Erik Estrada's birthday.

At a masquerade ball, a disgruntled Captain Jacob Johan Ankarstroem shoots Swedish King Gustav III near the heart with a bullet composed of lead and carpet tacks. The king dies twelve days later, and as punishment the Captain is decapitated, drawn, and quartered.

More than 150 and perhaps as many as 500 Jews, secured in Clifford's Tower at York, die from suicide and massacre after they are sieged by townspeople under Richard Malebys. Malebys was a nobleman who owed money to the Jews; after their siege all records relating to moneylending were destroyed. It is the largest massacre of Jews in the history of the United Kingdom.

St. Urho's Day, Patron saint of Finnish vineyard workers. Attributed to him is the miracle of banishing grasshoppers from Finland which he accomplished with a few choice Finnish phrases, thereby saving the season's grape crop. But in reality a bunch of very drunk people made this up in 1956.