In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Nixon becomes the first president in US history to resign from office.
On this day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon resigns in the wake of the Watergate burglary scandal. He was the first president in American history to resign.
In a televised address, Nixon, flanked by his family, announced to the American public that he would step down rather than endure a Senate impeachment trial for obstruction of justice. Since 1972, Nixon had battled increasing vociferous allegations that he knew of, and may have authorized, a botched burglary in which several men were arrested for attempting to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. Between 1972 and 1974, the press, and later a Senate investigation committee, revealed disturbing details that revealed that Nixon had indeed attempted to cover up the crime committed by key members of his administration and re-election committee. The most damning evidence came from subpoenaed tape recordings of Nixon’s White House conversations. Nixon fought the release of the tapes, which led the House of Representatives in 1973 to initiate impeachment charges against the president for obstruction of justice.
During the televised address, Nixon stated that he had never been a “quitter” and that choosing to resign went against his instincts. He refused to confess to committing the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors of which he was accused. He claimed his decision was encouraged by his political base and was in the best interests of the country and said that he hoped it would heal the political and social division caused by the Watergate scandal.
A report by the Washington Post on August 9 revealed the drama that had unfolded in the White House cabinet room an hour before Nixon’s resignation speech. After saying goodbye to 46 members of Congress, including his staunchest supporters, the president told them that the “country could not operate with a half-time President,” broke into tears and left the room.
NASA's space shuttle Challenger accident was a devastating tragedy that killed seven astronauts and shocked the world on Jan. 28, 1986. Killed in the accident were Challenger commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, mission specialists Judy Resnik, Ronald McNair and Ellison Onizuka, payload specialist Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe.
Here's a look at how the Challenger accident occurred:
An inspection of the launch pad revealed large quantities of ice collecting due to unusually cold overnight Florida temperatures. NASA had no experience launching the shuttle in temperatures as cold as on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986. The coldest temperature of a previous launch was 20 degrees warm.
Morton Thiokol, the builder of the solid-rocket boosters, advised NASA that they believed the O-ring seals in the solid-rocket boosters would perform adequately in the cold.
To make each solid-rocket booster, the Morton Thiokol factory built four hull segments filled with powdered aluminum (fuel) and ammonium perchlorate (oxidizer).
At the launch site, the fuel segments were assembled vertically. Field joints containing rubber O-ring seals were installed between each fuel segment.
The O-rings were never tested in extreme cold. On the morning of the launch, the cold rubber became stiff, failing to fully seal the joint.
As the shuttle ascended, one of the seals on a booster rocket opened enough to allow a plume of exhaust to leak out. Hot gases bathed the hull of the cold external tank full of liquid oxygen and hydrogen until the tank ruptured.
At 73 seconds after liftoff, at an altitude of 9 miles (14.5 kilo- meters), the shuttle was torn apart by aerodynamic forces.
The two solid-rocket boosters continued flying until the NASA range safety officer destroyed them by remote control.
The crew compartment ascended to an altitude of 12.3 miles (19.8 km) before free-falling into the Atlantic Ocean
On 27th May 1940, the mass evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk commenced. The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo, also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and 4 June 1940. The operation became necessary when large numbers of British, French, and Belgian troops were cut off and surrounded by the German army during the Battle of France in the Second World War.
A U.N. authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of the State of Kuwait.
On 23rd October 1984, Ethiopia was hit by the world's worst famine yet. The world's eyes are opened to Ethiopia's famine plight by BBC reports, sparking an enormous public response.
On July 21 1969, Neil Armstrong takes the first steps on the moon. As he put his left foot down first Armstrong declared: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.".
Also known as the War of 1967, this war was fought between Israeli and the Arab Forces across large areas across the Middle-East. Tension between Israel and her Arab neighbours had been growing for several months. Egypt, known as the United Arab Republic at the time, Jordan and Syria were all involved in the conflict. By the end of the war Israel had taken control of the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt), West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem (from Jordan) and the Golan Heights from Syria.
On 4th January 1967, Campbell was killed whilst attempting to set another water speed record in his 'Bluebird K7'. He had already set seven water speed records between 1955 and 1964 with speed increases from 216mph to 276.33mph. The accident happened on Coniston Water, Lancashire, England. The Bluebird surpassed 320mph but as she did so she gradually lifted from the water before somersaulting out of control. Campbell was killed instantly.
The government of the People’s Republic of China announces that it is releasing 211 people arrested during the massive protests held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. Most observers viewed the prisoner release as an attempt by the communist government of China to dispel much of the terrible publicity it received for its brutal suppression of the 1989 protests.
In early 1989, peaceful protests (largely composed of students) were held in a number of Chinese cities, calling for greater democracy and less governmental control of the economy. In April, thousands of students marched through Beijing. By May, the number of protesters had grown to nearly 1 million. On June 3, the government responded with troops sent in to crush the protests. In the ensuing violence, thousands of protesters were killed and an unknown number were arrested. The brutal Chinese government crackdown shocked the world. In the United States, calls went up for economic sanctions against China to punish the dramatic human rights violations. The U.S. government responded by temporarily suspending arms sales to China.
Nearly one year later, on May 10, 1990, the Chinese government announced that it was releasing 211 people arrested during the Tiananmen Square crackdown. A brief government statement simply indicated, “Lawbreakers involved in the turmoil and counterrevolutionary rebellion last year have been given lenient treatment and released upon completion of investigations.” The statement also declared that over 400 other “law-breakers” were still being investigated while being held in custody. Western observers greeted the news with cautious optimism. In the United States, where the administration of President George Bush was considering the extension of most-favored-nation status to China, the release of the prisoners was hailed as a step in the right direction.
In August 1961, troops in East Germany began to seal the border between East and West Berlin. In doing so they blocked off the escape route for refugees from the East. The barrier ended up being 12 feet high and 66 miles long with a further 41 miles of barbed wire fencing. Over the years, nearly 200 people died trying to cross the wall. It became a symbol for the divided world.
On December 21, 1988, a suitcase bomb exploded aboard New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103, killing all 259 passengers and crewmembers, along with 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. Only one suspect, a Libyan intelligence agent, was ever convicted in connection with the attack, and much mystery still surrounds it.
Tensions between Libya and the United States had been mounting for years when, in March 1986, the two sides fired on each other in disputed waters off the Libyan coast. The following month, a bomb went off in a West Berlin disco popular with American servicemen, killing two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and injuring more than 200 others. Having intercepted communications that purportedly implicated Libya’s government in the attack, the United States responded with air strikes. “We believe that this preemptive action … will not only diminish [Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s] capacity to export terror, it will provide him with incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior,” U.S. President Ronald Reagan said at the time.
Qaddafi, however, had not been scared into submission, prosecutors would later indicate. Instead, his agents in Malta allegedly concocted a bomb made of Semtex, a plastic explosive, and hid it inside a radio-cassette player. They then placed it in a suitcase and sent it unaccompanied on a December 21, 1988, flight to Frankfurt. From there, according to prosecutors, it went to London on the first leg of Pan Am Flight 103. At 6:25 p.m., a Pan Am Boeing 747 took off from London’s Heathrow Airport on the second leg of the journey to New York City. Just minutes after the plane off at 31,000 feet, the bomb detonated near the left wing. Power went out instantly and the plane began breaking apart, sending the crewmembers and passengers, including 35 Syracuse University students returning from a semester abroad, plummeting toward Earth. None survived.
Meanwhile, down below in the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland, residents found themselves directly in the path of falling plane debris. When the fuel-laden wings and a section of the main body crashed into one house, the subsequent explosion created a 155-foot-long crater and sent a fireball shooting up into the sky. One policeman reportedly compared it to the mushroom cloud from a miniature atomic bomb. The couple that owned the house died, as did nine neighbors ranging in age from 10 to 82. Homes up to 75 yards away lost their roofs, and those even further from the blast had their doors and windows shattered. Pieces of the plane came down elsewhere in Lockerbie as well, causing dozens of fires to break out.
Of the 270 victims that day, 189 were American. Their families soon began clamoring for answers, and some even testified before Congress. In May 1990, a presidential commission declared in a scathing report that the U.S. civil aviation security system was “seriously flawed” and had “failed to provide the proper level of protection for the traveling public.” This became obvious a few days later, when the father of a British victim successfully snuck a fake radio-cassette player bomb onto a flight from London to New York and then onto a second flight from New York to Boston. In an attempt to remedy these safety concerns, Congress passed a bill in October 1990 that, among other things, established training standards for airport security personnel and guidelines for notifying passengers of credible terrorist threats. President George H.W. Bush called it a “living memorial to those whose lives were so cruelly cut short.”
Much of the blame for the incident fell on Pan Am, which faced numerous lawsuits and a federal fine of $630,000 for violating security rules. It declared bankruptcy in early 1991 and ceased operating by the end of the year. Around the same time, U.S. and Scottish prosecutors charged Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah—both alleged Libyan intelligence agents—with executing the attack. Though Qaddafi at first refused to turn them over, a deal was eventually worked out in which they went on trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law. Only Megrahi was found guilty. He remained incarcerated from 2001 until 2009, when the Scottish authorities, believing he would die within a few months of prostate cancer, released him on compassionate grounds. Proclaiming his innocence to the end, Megrahi finally succumbed to the disease in May 2012.
As for Qaddafi, his regime accepted responsibility—but not guilt—for the attack in 2003 and agreed to pay $10 million to the family of each victim. (Due to a missed deadline, this was later reduced to $8 million.) In return, sanctions were dropped, and the United States restored full diplomatic relations. Just before Qaddafi’s death in 2011, his former justice minister told a Swedish newspaper that the Libyan leader had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. Yet even if true, certain facts remain unknown. Some investigators, for instance, reportedly believe that Iran played a role in retaliation for a July 1988 incident in which a U.S. warship mistakenly downed an Iran Air plane with 290 passengers aboard.
On May 8, 1927, French pilots Charles Nungesser and François Coli took off from Paris in a biplane named L'Oiseau Blanc, or the White Bird. The World War I veterans were aiming to become the first aviators to make a nonstop transatlantic flight to New York, but after last being spotted over Ireland, their plane vanished without a trace. Just two weeks later, Charles Lindbergh successfully crossed the Atlantic in a monoplane called the Spirit of St. Louis. He would go on to worldwide fame, but the fate of the men who nearly beat him to the honor remains a mystery to this day.
On the night of May 21, 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh touched down at France’s Le Bourget Field, having completed history’s first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Upon exiting the Spirit of St. Louis, the 25-year-old American was mobbed by a crowd of 150,000 people who hoisted him on their shoulders in celebration. He spent the next several days as the toast of Paris, yet for many French citizens, his triumph was bittersweet. Just two weeks before Lindbergh conquered the Atlantic, a pair of French pilots named Charles Nungesser and François Coli had vanished while trying to accomplish the same feat in the opposite direction. They had yet to be officially declared dead, but with each passing day, their chances of survival were dwindling. The delicateness of the situation was not lost on Lindbergh, who arranged a visit with Nungesser’s mother shortly after arriving in Paris. “You are a very brave young man,” she told him during the meeting. “I, too, have a brave son, who I have never ceased to believe is still fighting his way back to civilization.”
Charles Lindbergh’s 3,600-mile flight vaulted him to international fame, but it’s often forgotten that he was only one of more than a dozen pilots and navigators who were competing for the same honor. The great air race had kicked off in 1919, when a French-American hotel mogul named Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 reward to the first aviator to make a nonstop flight between New York and Paris. British pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown made a nonstop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland that same year, but Orteig’s bounty remained unclaimed until the mid-1920s, when several different teams stepped up to the challenge.
Post card of the White Bird, a French biplane which disappeared in 1927, during an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Paris and New York. The aircraft was flown by French aviation World War I heroes Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli. (Credit: Carte postale)
Unlike most of the Orteig Prize challengers, the French duo planned to begin their crossing in Paris and end in New York. With Nungesser serving as pilot and Coli as navigator, they would fly their open cockpit biplane over England, Ireland and the Atlantic before buzzing Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. They would then finish in grand style by making a water landing in New York near the Statue of Liberty or Battery Park. The white-painted L’Oiseau Blanc had been modified to carry over 1,000 gallons of fuel—enough for over 40 hours in the air—and it was outfitted with a watertight bottom and detachable landing gear that would allow the pilots to cut down on weight. As a good luck charm, Nungesser had the plane emblazoned with his World War I flying emblem: a black heart with a skull and crossbones.
Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli standing in front of ‘L’Oiseau Blanc’ in France. (Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)
Early on May 8, 1927, Nungesser and Coli climbed into the cockpit of L’Oiseau Blanc at Paris’s Le Bourget Field. The threat of foul weather in the Atlantic had deterred Lindbergh and some of the other Orteig competitors from taking off so early in the month, but the French daredevils were willing to gamble in the hope of winning the race. Nungesser got a last-minute injection of caffeine to ensure he was perked up for takeoff, and Coli received a tearful goodbye kiss from his wife. At 5:17 a.m., as a sea of spectators looked on, L’Oiseau Blanc chugged down the runway and took to the sky. “The crowd stood spellbound, hats in hands, as the beautiful machine disappeared into the mists of early day,” the New York Times wrote.
After jettisoning their landing gear, Nungesser and Coli sped west to the French coast and crossed the English Channel. They were last sighted over southern Ireland around 10:30 a.m., at which point they flew off into the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. L’Oiseau Blanc was not outfitted with a radio, so for the next day, the world could only wait in anticipation for it to reappear over North America. By the afternoon of May 9, thousands of people had gathered in Manhattan to wait for the plane to make its triumphant landing. When the appointed time came and went with no sign of Nungesser and Coli, search planes were dispatched to scout for them along the American coast. Back in France, one newspaper jumped the gun and published an evening edition that read “THE ATLANTIC IS CONQUERED,” but it wasn’t long before telegraph messages confirmed the gloomy reality: L’Oiseau Blanc was missing in action.
Charles Nungesser and his Levasseur plane ‘L’Oiseau blanc.’ (Credit: Albert Harlingue/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)
Over the next several days, Nungesser and Coli became the subject of an international rescue operation. Ships and aircraft from the United States, Canada and France scoured the North American coastline in search of a sign that the plane had ditched in the sea. Floyd Bennett, an American Orteig Prize competitor who had been injured when his plane crashed on takeoff, even came out of the hospital to lead an airborne search. Yet by the time Charles Lindbergh finally made his transatlantic crossing in late May, there was still no sign of the French pilots. In his autobiography, Lindbergh would later write that Nungesser and Coli had simply vanished “like midnight ghosts.”
In the ninety years since its final flight, the fate of L’Oiseau Blanc has remained one of the most tantalizing mysteries in aviation. It’s possible that the flimsy aircraft was forced down in the Atlantic and lost in a storm, but many modern researchers maintain that Nungesser and Coli successfully crossed the ocean and reached the North American coast. Several witnesses in Maine and Newfoundland claimed to have either seen or heard the plane buzz overhead in May 1927, and a few reported hearing it crash. That same year, reports surfaced of white-colored airplane wreckage being recovered off New York. Among the many theories still in circulation is that Nungesser and Coli were knocked off their intended route by a squall before running out of fuel and crash landing somewhere along the East Coast. It has even been suggested that the fliers were mistakenly shot down by Prohibition-era rumrunners or U.S. Coast Guard forces.
The theory that L’Oiseau Blanc conquered the Atlantic is certainly provocative, since it would mean that Nungesser and Coli successfully flew between mainland Europe and North America before Charles Lindbergh. The full extent of their journey may never be known for sure, but even in the 1920s, their attempt was hailed as a remarkable example of heroism in the name of technological progress. One notable monument to the pilots was erected in 1928 at Paris’s Le Bourget Field—the spot were Lindbergh finished his flight and where Nungesser and Coli began theirs. “In honor of those who tried,” reads its inscription, “and of the one who succeeded.”
A defining moment in the American civil rights movement, Martin Luther King delivers a speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on 28 August 1963.
The Cuban Missle Crisis was a confrontation between the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War. On 28th October 1962, the confrontation ended and the world stepped back from nuclear war . Along with General U Thant, John F Kennedy reached an agreement with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
June 1958, Sweden v Brazil in the World Cup Final. Brazil were a goal down until a17 year old newcomer, Pele, equalised with a stunning goal. Brazil went on to win 5-2 and Pele became a sporting hero and is considered one of the greatest football players of all time.
The Munich Air Crash happened on 6 February 1958. On board were the affectionately known 'Busby Babes' - the Manchester United football team. Their plane crashed on its third attempt at take off. Twenty three people died, 21 survived.
On October 1st 1949, China was proclaimed a Communist state. Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong took over the reign of Government and proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
The first atom bomb to be used as a weapon, "Little Boy" (as was its codename) was dropped on to the flat terrain of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb vapourised buildings and killed nearly 70,000 people directly but by the end of 1945, nearly 100,000 had died from its protracted effects.
On 4 May 1945 at Lüneburg Heath, near Hamburg, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, in north west Germany including all islands, and in Denmark and all naval ships in those areas.
On February 12th 1945, a communicate was issued from the Crimean town of Yalta in the Soviet Union that changed the course of history. It was here after 8 days of secret talks, that the victors carved out the future of the post-war period. The Big Three, as they were called, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill decided on how Germany would finally be defeated, divided and punished.
The greatest battle of WW2 ended on 31st Jan 1943 - the surrender of the German 6th army at Stallingrad. After months besieging the city of Stalingrad without success, the German Army capitulated.
Queen Victoria, the only child of Edward, the duke of Kent and King George III's fourth son, and Victoria Saxe-Saalfield-Coburg, sister of Leopold, king of the Belgians, was queen of Great Britain for 63 years. To date, she is the the second longest reigning British monarch after Queen Elizabeth II. Victoria's reign saw great cultural expansion; advances in industry, science, and communications; and the building of railways and the London Underground. She died in England in 1901.
Early Life
Queen Victoria served as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837, and as empress of India from 1877, until her death in 1901. She was born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in London, England, the only child of George III's fourth son, Edward, and Victoria Saxe-Saalfield-Coburg, sister of Leopold, king of the Belgians.
Victoria’s father died when she was eight months old and her mother became a domineering influence in her life. As a child, she was said to be warmhearted and lively. Educated at the Royal Palace by a governess, she had a gift for drawing and painting and developed a passion for journal writing Upon her father’s death, Victoria became the heir apparent, since her three surviving uncles, who were ahead of her in succession, had no legitimate heirs who had survived childhood. When King William IV died in June 1837, Victoria became queen at the very young age of 18. Victoria’s first prime minister, Lord Melbourne, was her political advisor and confidant and helped teach the young queen the intricacies of being a constitutional monarch A Marriage Partnership
In 1840, she married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. At first, the British public didn’t warm up to the German prince and he was excluded from holding any official political position. At times their marriage was tempestuous, a clash of wills between two extremely strong personalities. However, the couple were intensely devoted to each other and shared a strong enough affection to have nine children. Prince Albert also became her strongest ally, helping her navigate difficult political waters. In 1861, Victoria's beloved prince died of typhoid fever after several years of suffering from stomach ailments. Victoria was devastated and went into a 25-year seclusion.
Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Under Queen Victoria's reign, Great Britain experienced unprecedented expansion in industry, building railways, bridges, underground sewers and power distribution networks throughout much of the empire. There were advances in science (Charles Darwin's theory of evolution) and technology (the telegraph and popular press), vast numbers of inventions, tremendous wealth and poverty; growth of great cities like Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham; increased literacy; and great civic works, often funded by industrial philanthropists. During her reign, Britain expanded its imperial reach, doubling in size and encompassing Canada, Australia, India and various possessions in Africa and the South Pacific. The Queen was emblematic of the time: an enthusiastic supporter of the British Empire, which stretched across the globe and earned the adage: “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”
At various points in her reign, Queen Victoria exercised some influence over foreign affairs, expressing her preference, but not pressing beyond the bounds of constitutional propriety. During this time, the British Empire experienced only a few small wars, exerting its authority over foreign possessions. One of the major factors that helped Britain avoid European entanglements was the marriage of Victoria's children: either directly or by marriage, she was related to the royal houses of nearly every major European power, with the exceptions of France and Spain. Though the English constitutional arrangement denied her powers in foreign affairs, she ruled her family with an iron hand that helped keep Great Britain away from the intrigues of European politics.
During Queen Victoria’s reign, British Parliamentary politics went through a major transition. The Tory Party split, forming the Liberal and Conservative parties, and started a succession of opposing administrations. Victoria played a crucial role as mediator between arriving and departing prime ministers. Though she detested Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone, she found ways to work with him, even during her mourning period. She was particularly fond of Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who linked the Monarchy to the expansion of the empire, which helped restore public opinion following Queen Victoria’s long seclusion after the death of her beloved Albert
Death and Legacy
Life in Britain during the 19th century was known as Victorian England because of Queen Victoria’s long reign and the indelible stamp it and her persona placed on the country. Her ethics and personality have become synonymous with the era.
Victoria continued in her duties up to her death. In keeping with tradition, she spent Christmas 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where her health quickly declined to the point that she was unable to return to London. She died on January 22, 1901, at age 81. Her son and successor King Edward VII and her eldest grandson Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany were both at her bedside.
Following a Soviet blockade of all ground routes into and out of Berlin, American and British forces organise airlifts to maintain food supplies into the isolated city. On June 26 1948, the effort to feed more than two million people in the city of Berlin began.
On this day in 2011, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, is killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan. The notorious, 54-year-old leader of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network of Islamic extremists, had been the target of a nearly decade-long international manhunt.
The raid began around 1 a.m. local time, when 23 U.S. Navy SEALs in two Black Hawk helicopters descended on the compound in Abbottabad, a tourist and military center north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. One of the helicopters crash-landed into the compound but no one aboard was hurt. During the raid, which lasted approximately 40 minutes, five people, including bin Laden and one of his adult sons, were killed by U.S. gunfire. No Americans were injured in the assault. Afterward, bin Laden’s body was flown by helicopter to Afghanistan for official identification, then buried at an undisclosed location in the Arabian Sea less than 24 hours after his death, in accordance with Islamic practice.
Just after 11:30 p.m. EST on May 1 (Pakistan’s time zone is 9 hours ahead of Washington, D.C.), President Barack Obama, who monitored the raid in real time via footage shot by a drone flying high above Abbottabad, made a televised address from the White House, announcing bin Laden’s death. “Justice has been done,” the president said. After hearing the news, cheering crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City’s Times Square and the Ground Zero site.
Based on computer files and other evidence the SEALs collected during the raid, it was later determined that bin Laden was making plans to assassinate President Obama and carry out a series of additional attacks against America, including one on the anniversary of September 11, the largest terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. Shortly after the 2001 attack, President George W. Bush declared bin Laden, who was born into a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia in 1957 and used his multi-million-dollar inheritance to help establish al Qaeda and fund its activities, would be captured dead or alive. In December of that year, American-backed forces came close to capturing bin Laden in a cave complex in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region; however, he escaped and would continue to elude U.S. authorities for years.
A break in the hunt for bin Laden came in August 2010, when C.I.A. analysts tracked the terrorist leader’s courier to the Abbottabad compound, located behind tall security walls in a residential neighborhood. (U.S. intelligence officials spent the ensuing months keeping the compound under surveillance; however, they were never certain bin Laden was hiding there until the raid took place.) The U.S. media had long reported bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the remote tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border, so many Americans were surprised to learn the world’s most famous fugitive had likely spent the last five years of his life in a well-populated area less than a mile from an elite Pakistani military academy. After the raid, which the U.S. reportedly carried out without informing the Pakistani government in advance, some American officials suspected Pakistani authorities of helping to shelter bin Laden in Abbottabad, although there was no concrete evidence to confirm this.
Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” (a moniker chosen by the Courier editor) became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast.
Loch Ness, located in the Scottish Highlands, has the largest volume of fresh water in Great Britain; the body of water reaches a depth of nearly 800 feet and a length of about 23 miles. Scholars of the Loch Ness Monster find a dozen references to “Nessie” in Scottish history, dating back to around A.D. 500, when local Picts carved a strange aquatic creature into standing stones near Loch Ness. The earliest written reference to a monster in Loch Ness is a 7th-century biography of Saint Columba, the Irish missionary who introduced Christianity to Scotland. In 565, according to the biographer, Columba was on his way to visit the king of the northern Picts near Inverness when he stopped at Loch Ness to confront a beast that had been killing people in the lake. Seeing a large beast about to attack another man, Columba intervened, invoking the name of God and commanding the creature to “go back with all speed.” The monster retreated and never killed another man.
In 1933, a new road was completed along Loch Ness’ shore, affording drivers a clear view of the loch. After an April 1933 sighting was reported in the local paper on May 2, interest steadily grew, especially after another couple claimed to have seen the beast on land, crossing the shore road. Several British newspapers sent reporters to Scotland, including London’s Daily Mail, which hired big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell to capture the beast. After a few days searching the loch, Wetherell reported finding footprints of a large four-legged animal. In response, the Daily Mail carried the dramatic headline: “MONSTER OF LOCH NESS IS NOT LEGEND BUT A FACT.” Scores of tourists descended on Loch Ness and sat in boats or decks chairs waiting for an appearance by the beast. Plaster casts of the footprints were sent to the British Natural History Museum, which reported that the tracks were that of a hippopotamus, specifically one hippopotamus foot, probably stuffed. The hoax temporarily deflated Loch Ness Monster mania, but stories of sightings continued.
A famous 1934 photograph seemed to show a dinosaur-like creature with a long neck emerging out of the murky waters, leading some to speculate that “Nessie” was a solitary survivor of the long-extinct plesiosaurs. The aquatic plesiosaurs were thought to have died off with the rest of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Loch Ness was frozen solid during the recent ice ages, however, so this creature would have had to have made its way up the River Ness from the sea in the past 10,000 years. And the plesiosaurs, believed to be cold-blooded, would not long survive in the frigid waters of Loch Ness. More likely, others suggested, it was an archeocyte, a primitive whale with a serpentine neck that is thought to have been extinct for 18 million years. Skeptics argued that what people were seeing in Loch Ness were “seiches”–oscillations in the water surface caused by the inflow of cold river water into the slightly warmer loch.
Amateur investigators kept an almost constant vigil, and in the 1960s several British universities launched expeditions to Loch Ness, using sonar to search the deep. Nothing conclusive was found, but in each expedition the sonar operators detected large, moving underwater objects they could not explain. In 1975, Boston’s Academy of Applied Science combined sonar and underwater photography in an expedition to Loch Ness. A photo resulted that, after enhancement, appeared to show the giant flipper of a plesiosaur-like creature. Further sonar expeditions in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in more tantalizing, if inconclusive, readings. Revelations in 1994 that the famous 1934 photo was a hoax hardly dampened the enthusiasm of tourists and professional and amateur investigators to the legend of the Loch Ness Monster.
December 7th 1941 - The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a surprise devastating air attack against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii
In late 1921, the Irish Free State Treaty is signed, establishing Ireland as a Dominion within the British Empire. Strictly speaking the Irish Free State treaty was signed on the 6th December 1921, not the 7th.
Suffragette Emily Davison's Derby Day protest ends in tragedy. She was a militant activist who fought for women's suffrage in Britain. She was jailed on nine occasions and force-fed 49 times. She is best known for stepping in front of King George V's horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby on 4 June 1913, sustaining injuries that resulted in her death four days later.
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