On this day

1981: Queen shot at by youth
A 17-year-old man has been arrested for shooting a replica gun at the Queen as she rode past crowds on horseback.
Marcus Serjeant pointed a pistol directly at the Queen as she turned down Horseguards' Parade for the start of the Trooping the Colour ceremony.

He fired six blank cartridges before being overcome by a Guardsman and police.

The shots, which came just before 1100BST, startled the Queen's horse, but she was able to bring it back under control within a few seconds.

The Queen had left Buckingham Palace 15 minutes earlier.

She had rode down the Mall and was turning into a crowded Horseguards' Parade when the incident occurred.

The monarch looked shaken by the episode, but soon recovered her composure.

She comforted her 19-year-old horse, Burmese, which she has ridden in birthday parades since 1969.

The procession continued as planned, and afterwards the Queen returned to Buckingham Palace by the same route, under the close watch of security services.

This is not the first time a member of the royal family has faced danger from within a crowd of spectators.

Seven years ago, a few yards down the Mall, Princess Anne was attacked by a gunman.

Half a mile away in 1936 King Edward VIII faced a man with a loaded revolver.

And Queen Victoria was also shot at by a man with a gun in the Mall.

Security will take on an increasing importance as next month's wedding between Prince Charles and Diana Spencer approaches.


E-mail this story to a friend





The Queen takes part in Trooping the Colour





In Context
Marcus Simon Serjeant was jailed for five years under the 1842 Treason Act, a law not used since 1966.
The former air cadet, from Folkestone, Kent, was found guilty of wilfully discharging at the person of Her Majesty the Queen a blank cartridge pistol, with intent to alarm her.

The court was told that Serjeant had at one stage planned to kill the Queen, but had failed to obtain a suitable lethal weapon.

"I wanted to be famous," he said later. "I wanted to be a somebody."

He served more than three years in jail, before being released in October 1984.



Stories From 13 Jun
1967: Moscow calls for UN action against Israel

1981: Queen shot at by youth

2005: Michael Jackson cleared of abuse

1991: Yeltsin wins first Russian elections

1978: Israeli troops leave southern Lebanon

1996: Guernsey votes to legalise abortion





Queen Elizabeth II
The Queen at 80
A royal lifetime in the media spotlight

1665 - The Great Plague began to take hold, as the official death toll reached 112.

1900 - China's Boxer Rebellion targeting foreigners, as well as Chinese Christians, erupted into full-scale violence.

1917 – World War I: the deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children, and 432 injuries.

1944 - World War II: the first German V1 flying bomb, or 'doodlebug' landed in Britain - killing three people in a house in the coastal city of Southampton.

1955 – Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the USSR, is discovered.

1974 - Prince Charles made his maiden speech in House of Lords. It was the first such royal speech in 90 years.

1983 - After more than a decade in space, Pioneer 10, the world's first outer-planetary probe, left the solar system.

1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages.

2000 – Italy pardons Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981.

2005 – A jury in Santa Maria, California acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch.

1982: Ceasefire agreed in Falklands
A ceasefire between British and Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands has been agreed, the prime minister has announced.
Margaret Thatcher made the statement to a packed House of Commons. The news was cheered by MPs from all parties.

More than 800 people have died since the first British warships reached the remote UK territory on 22 April, 20 days after Argentina invaded South Georgia.

BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan reported at 1530 local time (2030 BST) that British troops had been ordered not to use their weapons except in self-defence.


There are reported to be flying white flags over Port Stanley


UK PM Margaret Thatcher


Negotiations for the surrender of the Junta's army on the islands are now being held between their commander, General Mario Menendez, and British second-in-command Brigadier John Waters.

It is hoped the documents will be signed within the next 24 hours.

Mrs Thatcher told the Commons land forces commander Major-General Jeremy Moore had decided to press forward to the capital last night after a series of successful attacks on enemy troops.

"Large numbers of Argentine soldiers threw down their weapons - there are reported to be flying white flags over Port Stanley," she said.

British control

The prime minister was welcomed outside Downing Street by a jubilant crowd cheering and singing when she returned from Westminster.

Mr Hanrahan - who is with the UK troops close to the frontline - said the Falklands felt strangely quiet after weeks listening to the noise of war.

"The sound of the heavy guns, the bombs, the machine-gunning is gone. The island is still and once again Stanley is under British control," he said.

The Falklands War is the result of years of disputed ownership of the islands.

Argentina says it inherited the Islas Malvinas from the Spanish crown in the early 19th century. The country also bases its claim on the islands' proximity to the South American mainland.

The UK argues that most of the British-descended islanders want to stay British. Its case also rests on the country's long-term administration of the territory.


E-mail this story to a friend




Watch/Listen

Over 800 people have died since the conflict began



A triumphant Margaret Thatcher greets the press


Max Hastings witnesses the ceasefire


"The island is still..."





In Context
Hostilities officially ceased on 20 June 1982. The war cost the lives of 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen.
The victory greatly boosted the popularity of Margaret Thatcher's government which went on to win the next election.

Argentine president General Leopoldo Galtieri was deposed and served three years in prison for military incompetence.

In October 1983 Argentina returned to civilian rule but it was 1990 before full diplomatic relations with Britain were restored.



Stories From 14 Jun
1940: German troops enter Paris

1982: Ceasefire agreed in Falklands

1991: Iraqi Kurds fear US troop withdrawal

1972: Pilots threaten worldwide strike

1961: Panda replaces zebra at road crossing





Witness
Living with the enemy
An islander's account of the Falklands war


Battle for the Falklands
Your memories of the conflict

1789 - English Captain William Bligh and 18 others, cast adrift from the H.M.S. Bounty, reached Timor after travelling nearly 4,000 miles in a small, open boat. The Bounty had been sailing from Tahiti when crew members mutinied.

1789 – Whiskey distilled from maize is first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig. It is named Bourbon because Rev Craig lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

1834 - Isaac Fischer, Jr. of Vermont patented sandpaper.

1839 – The village of Henley-on-Thames, on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, stages its first Regatta.

1900 – Hawaii becomes a United States territory.

1940 – World War II: Paris falls under German occupation, and Allied forces retreat.

1962 – The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency.

1967 – Mariner program: Mariner 5 is launched toward Venus.

1985 – TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by Hezbollah shortly after take-off from Athens, Greece.

1994 – The 1994 Stanley Cup riot occurs after the New York Rangers win the Stanley Cup from Vancouver, causing an estimated C$1.1 million, thus forcing 200 arrests and injuries. One person is also left with permanent brain damage.

1996: Huge explosion rocks central Manchester
A massive bomb has devastated a busy shopping area in central Manchester.
Two hundred people were injured in the attack, mostly by flying glass, and seven are said to be in a serious condition. Police believe the IRA planted the device.

The bomb exploded at about 1120 BST on Corporation Street outside the Arndale shopping centre.

It is the seventh attack by the Irish Republican group since it broke its ceasefire in February and is the second largest on the British mainland.

A local television station received a telephone warning at 1000 BST - just as the city centre was filling up with Saturday shoppers.

The caller used a recognised IRA codeword.

One hour and 20 minutes after the warning, police were still clearing hundreds of people from a huge area of central Manchester.

Army bomb disposal experts were using a remote-controlled device to examine a suspect van parked outside Marks & Spencer when it blew up in an uncontrolled explosion.

Glass wounds

Many of those injured were outside the police cordon.

Seventy bystanders were ferried to three hospitals in ambulances. Others walked or were taken by friends.

A consultant at Hope Hospital said most of the seriously injured - including a pregnant woman thrown 15 ft (4.6 m) into the air - had suffered deep glass wounds which would require surgery.

Prime Minister John Major insisted the multi-party Northern Ireland peace talks begun last week would continue, but called on Sinn Fein - the political wing of the IRA - to condemn the attack and demand a ceasefire.

"This act by a handful of fanatics will be regarded with contempt and disgust around the world," he said.


E-mail this story to a friend




Watch/Listen

Many of the wounded were behind the police cordon



The aftermath of the Manchester blast





In Context
In the early aftermath of the explosion a £1m reward was offered for information leading to the perpetrators but now Greater Manchester Police say it is unlikely anyone will be brought to justice for the attack.
In 2006 police released a video clip, taken from a police helicopter hovering above the crime scene, showing the full impact of the explosion.

The immense damage done to buildings in the city centre led to a total regeneration - it could be argued that without the bomb, Manchester may not have had such a dramatic opportunity for rebirth, funded by private investors and the government.

The IRA's 1996 post-ceasefire campaign focused entirely on UK mainland attacks.

The group broke its truce on 9 February 1996 with a huge bomb in London's Docklands which killed two people.

Within 10 weeks, the Irish Republicans had planted five other devices - all of them in London.



Stories From 15 Jun
1996: Huge explosion rocks central Manchester

1974: Man dies in race rally clashes

1971: Councils defy Thatcher milk ban

2000: British marines leave Sierra Leone

1966: Hovercraft deal opens show





Witness
'The whole city shook'
Your accounts of the Manchester bomb

763 BC – Assyrians record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history.

1215 - King John agreed to put his royal seal on the Magna Carta, at Runnymede, near Windsor. The document was a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteeing that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation's laws.

1667 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.

1752 - Benjamin Franklin flew the kite with a key tied to its string and proved that lightning contained electricity.

1825 - The foundation stone of the New London Bridge was laid by. It now spans an artificial lake in Arizona.

1888 – Crown Prince Wilhelm becomes Kaiser Wilhelm II. He was the last Emperor of the German Empire.

1910 - British explorer Captain Robert Scott began his ill-fated expedition to reach the South Pole.

1954 – UEFA (Union des Associations Européennes de Football) is formed in Basel, Switzerland.

1985 – Rembrandt's painting Danaë is attacked by a man (later judged insane) who throws sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife.

1998 - Britain introduced a £2 coin.

2002 – Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

1567 - Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle in Scotland.

1779 – Spain declares war on Great Britain and the siege of Gibraltar begins.

1824 - The RSPCA Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded.

1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.

1911 – IBM is founded in Endicott, New York.

1958 - Yellow 'No Waiting' lines were introduced to British streets.

1961 - Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West while his troupe was in Paris.

1963 - Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, aboard Vostok 6.

2001 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa opened for the first time since 1990 as work to keep it from falling over was completed.

(16-06-2011 13:28 )skully Wrote:  1963 - Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, aboard Vostok 6.

Both the Americans and the Soviets had plans to put women in space from the early days of the space programme but Tereshkova became the only woman to achieve the feat in the first 20 years of spaceflight.

Tereshkova was born in Central Russia in 1937, although her parents were both originally from what is now part of Belarus (her father was killed in the Winter War against Finland when she was just two years old). She was one of five women selected to form the female cosmonaut group and, at the age of 26, was the one chosen for the Vostok mission. Her spaceflight lasted for 48 orbits and almost three days which at the time was longer than all the American spaceflights to date put together.

She didn't particularly enjoy the experience, as she suffered badly from nausea throughout the flight, but it was a textbook mission.

There had been rumours of a romance with fellow cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev, but it was still something of a surprise when they married in November 1963, although the explanation for the hasty marriage became obvious when she gave birth to a daughter in June 1964.

Tereshkova was a loyal member of the Communist Party, and after her space exploits had a career in politics, eventually becoming a Deputy in the Supreme Soviet. She was decorated with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, the USSR's highest award. She was also awarded the Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, numerous other medals, and foreign orders including the Karl Marx Order, United Nations Gold Medal of Peace and the Simba International Women’s Movement Award. Valentina Tereshkova became the first and still remains to be the only female general officer in both Soviet and Russian armed forces.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union she lost all her political posts and influence, but is still greatly revered. She has made few public appearences in recent years, although in 2008 she was an Olympic torchbearer when it passed through St Petersburg where she now lives in retirement aged 74.

Although there were plans for further female spaceflights it was another 19 years before Svetlana Savitskaya went into orbit, and a further year before Sally Ride became the third woman, and first female American astronaut.



Tereshkova in 1963

(photo copyright Russian Space Agency but may be used for non-commercial purposes under their public domain policy)

1462 – Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.

1579 - During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchored in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and claimed the territory for Queen Elizabeth I.

1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.

1775 - In the War of American Independence, British troops won a victory at Bunker Hill north of Boston, Massachusetts, but it was a moral victory for the Americans who had far fewer casualties.

1823 - Charles Macintosh patented the waterproof cloth he used to make raincoats, after experimenting with waste rubber products from Glasgow's new gas works.

1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.

1939 – Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison

1944 – Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.

1980 - The locations for the first US nuclear missiles to be stored on British soil (at Greenham Common and Molesworth military bases) were revealed by the government.

1987 – With the death of the last individual, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow becomes extinct.

1994 - After a dramatic flight from justice witnessed by millions on live television, former football star and actor O.J. Simpson surrendered to Los Angeles police. The police charged him with the June 12 double-murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman. Simpson was later acquitted in a criminal trial, but held liable in a civil trial.

618 – Li Yuan becomes Emperor Gaozu of Tang, initiating three centuries of Tang Dynasty rule over China.

1178 – Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon's distance from the Earth (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.

1583 - The first Life Insurance policy was sold in London, and when a claim was eventually made, it was disputed.

1633 - Charles I was crowned King of Scotland, in Edinburgh.

1812 - The War of 1812 began as the United States declared war against Britain.

1815 - At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history, his defeat forced him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.

1817 - Waterloo Bridge across the River Thames was opened. Originally it was called Strand Bridge but was re-named in honour of the British victory at Waterloo in 1815.

1953 – The Republic of Egypt is declared and the monarchy is abolished.

1975 - The first North Sea Oil was pumped ashore in Britain.

1981 – A disease cluster, which will later be known as AIDS, is recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.

1983 - Astronaut Sally K. Ride became America's first woman in space as she and four colleagues blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

2006 – The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched.

2009 – The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a NASA robotic spacecraft is launched.