On this day

1776 - The American Congress voted for independence from Britain.

1826 – Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.

1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family.

1934 – Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.

1969 – Two teens (one male, one female) are attacked at Blue Rock Springs in California. They are the second (known) victims of the Zodiac Killer. The male survives.

1987 – In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (aka the "Butcher of Lyon") is convicted of crimes against humanity and is sentenced to life imprisonment.

1997 - NASA's Mars Pathfinder became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars in more than two decades.

2004 - The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

2007 - BBC correspondent, 45 year old Alan Johnston, was released by kidnappers in the Gaza Strip after 114 days in captivity. An online petition had been signed by some 200,000 people demanding his release.

1981: Police attacked in Liverpool riots
Up to 30 police officers have been injured by flying missiles as rioters took to the streets of Toxteth, Liverpool.
Latest reports suggest that nearly 200 white and black youths have been attacking police, cars and shops with petrol bombs and bricks.

They have staged pitched battles with officers on Upper Parliament Street and Lodge Lane, charging at them with milk floats.

At one stage police in riot gear were forced to retreat as angry mobs hurled bits of scaffolding, bricks and petrol bombs.

At least four buildings were set alight, one collapsed and there was a pall of smoke hanging over Upper Parliament St.

Looting is widespread and there are reports of children as young as four running up and down Lodge Lane with shopping trolleys.

One witness, Christopher Davies said the trouble was well organised. "I've seen them wearing balaclava helmets, just like Belfast, handing out pertol bombs and telling people where to go," he told The Times newspaper.

"There are people standing on street corners with pick-axe handles looking like hell's preachers to make sure no one interferes with what's going on."

'Bloodbath' tip-off

Community leaders are keen to point out that the incident is not racially motivated, although there are reports that it was triggered by the arrest of a black motorcyclist two days ago.

He escaped into a crowd of about 40 black youths. Over the next two hours there was sporadic fighting in which five police officers were injured.

Police then received an anonymous tip-off that there would a "bloodbath" in Toxteth.

Then last night police officers investigating reports of a stolen car were attacked with bottles and stones. A crowd of 150 black and white men took control of Upper Parliament St, set up barricades using overturned parked cars.

Police took cover behind riot shields but were overwhelmed by the bombardment of missiles.

A BBC camera crew were chased by a masked gang brandishing pick-axe handles who took a £12,000 camera and destroyed it.

The Chief Constable of Merseyside, Kenneth Oxford, said the riots were not racial but a vicious attack on the police.

"I blame a small group of criminal hooligans who were hell-bent to provoke the police into a situation that would give them an opportunity to attack what is visibly a symbol of authority," he said.

The Liberal MP for Liverpool Edge Hill, David Alton, has said he is appalled by the scenes that he has witnessed so far.

The disturbances in Liverpool follow race riots in Brixton, south London in April and two days ago in Southall, west London.


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Police were bombarded with bricks and petrol bombs


More than 100 Toxteth youths fight police in pitched battle






In Context
The rioting lasted until 0700 BST (0600 GMT) on 6 July and left a total of about 80 officers injured.
Police reinforcements from Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire were called as the Merseyside force was repeatedly overwhelmed.

This was the first time that British police used CS gas to control civil unrest in mainland Britain.

Compensation claims for the damage caused in Toxteth amounted to £10m out of a national total of £17m in a summer of rioting across the UK.

There were further disturbances later in July.

A public inquiry was held into the riots in April 1981 in Brixton, headed by Lord Scarman.

His report, published in November 1981, raised concerns about the ghetto situation in Toxteth and proposed many measures for improving trust and understanding between police and ethnic communities.


Stories From 5 Jul
1981: Police attacked in Liverpool riots
1991: International bank closed in fraud scandal
1989: Irangate colonel avoids prison
1975: Ashe's Wimbledon win makes history
1954: BBC launches daily TV news
2000: Record-breaking penguin rescue
1979: Queen oversees Manx millennium



Witness
'We walked round the corner into hell' - a police officer's story

1687 – Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, ushering in a tidal wave of changes in thought.

1811 - Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.

1817 - The first gold coin sovereigns were issued in Britain.

1841 - Thomas Cook, a Baptist cabinet maker, founded the first travel agency. The first official 'Cook's Tour' involved almost 600 teatotallers taking the train from Leicester to Loughborough to attend a temperance meeting.

1937 – Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1948 - Britain's National Health Service came into operation.

1946 - The bikini, designed by Louis Reard, made its debut during an outdoor fashion show in Paris.

1954 – The BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin.

1998 – Japan launches a probe to Mars, and thus joins the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.

2009 – The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, consisting of more than 1,500 items, is found near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England.

1988: Piper Alpha oil rig ablaze
A fire on a North Sea oil rig is feared to have claimed the lives of most of those on board.
The fire is believed to have started after explosions at about 2230 BST (2130 GMT) on the Piper Alpha drilling platform, 120 miles (193km) off the north-east coast of Scotland.

Helicopters and boats were immediately sent out to rescue the oil workers in an operation co-ordinated by the Aberdeen coastguard.

Pilots reported seeing an "inferno" up to 350ft (107m) high and a platform wrenched apart.

It is thought approximately 225 men were working on the rig owned by Occidental Oil.

Safety inspection

Survivors are being airlifted to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary - some are said to be seriously injured.

Most of those who have been rescued so far said they survived by sliding down pipes or jumping hundreds of feet into the sea which was covered in burning oil.

The Piper Alpha platform is the largest and oldest platform in the North Sea oilfield.

It was last inspected two weeks ago but last week there was a small fire on the rig.

Since drilling began in the North Sea in the 1970s there have been 300 deaths on Britain's 123 oil installations, often in accidents caused by bad weather.


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Some workers jumped from the blazing oil rig


Hopes of finding men alive begin to fade




In Context
A total of 167 people died in the Piper Alpha fire making it the world's worst offshore oil disaster.
Most of the victims suffocated in toxic fumes which developed after a gas leak set off the blasts and sparked the fire.

In November 1990 Lord Cullen's report into the disaster severely criticised safety procedures on the rig owned by Occidental Oil.

Lord Cullen did not blame any individuals but after a civil action over insurance payments in 1997 two workers who died in the disaster were found to have been negligent.

However, that finding has been contested both by relatives of the men concerned and television documentary investigations.


Stories From 6 Jul
1988: Piper Alpha oil rig ablaze
1978: Eleven die in sleeper train inferno
2005: London to host 2012 Olympics
1997: Mars buggy starts exploring Red Planet
1992: Riot police confront French truckers
1952: London's trams trundle into history
2000: Prime Minister's son arrested for drunkenness

1553 - Mary I acceded to the throne, becoming the first queen to rule England in her own right.

1699 - Pirate Captain William Kidd was captured in Boston, Massachusetts, and deported to England.

1785 – The dollar is unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States.

1887 – David Kalakaua, monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, is forced at gunpoint, at the hands of the Americans, to sign the Bayonet Constitution giving Americans more power in Hawaii while stripping Hawaiian citizens of their rights.

1907 - The opening of Brooklands. It as the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit.

1917 – World War I: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and Auda ibu Tayi capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt.

1919 The first airship to cross the Atlantic, the British-built R34, arrived in New York.

1942 – Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the ''Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

1947 – The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.

1998 – Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport is closed and the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok becomes operational.

2005 - The International Olympic Committee announced that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London.

2005: Bomb attacks on London
A series of bomb attacks on London's transport network has killed more than 30 people and injured about 700 others.
Three explosions on the Underground left 35 dead and two died in a blast on a double decker bus.

The first three bombs went off at 0850 on underground trains just outside Liverpool Street and Edgware Road stations, and on another travelling between King's Cross and Russell Square.

The final explosion was around an hour later on a number 30 double-decker bus in Tavistock Square, not far from King's Cross

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the bombings had "the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda-related attack".

Prime Minister Tony Blair promised the "most intense police and security service action to make sure we bring those responsible to justice".

Mr Blair, who flew back to London from the G8 summit in Gleneagles, condemned the terrorists and paid tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the people of London.

"They are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cow us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do," he said in a televised statement from Downing Street.

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A medic helps an injured woman after the attack on Edgware Road tube station


Scenes across London after the terror attacks




In Context
In total 52 people lost their lives in the London bombings, 700 people were injured.
The attacks were carried out by four suicide bombers.

The presumed ringleader, Mohammed Siddique Khan, had recently visited Pakistan and was later found to have made a video message in which he claimed British foreign policy was oppressing Muslims.

Al-Qaeda issued a videotaped statement in September claiming it was behind the London bombings.

On July 21 there were four more attempted bombings in London. None of the devices exploded.

On 22 July 2005, police shot dead a man, Jean Charles de Menezes, they mistook for one of the bombers.

Five men were later arrested and are due to face trial in September 2006.

A decision is still awaited on whether any charges will be brought over the de Menezes shooting.


Stories From 7 Jul
2005: Bomb attacks on London
2001: Two stabbed in Bradford race riots
1976: British grandmother missing in Uganda
1985: Boris Becker wins Wimbledon at 17
1969: Brian Jones died of 'drink and drugs'
1998: Chief's death sparks turmoil in Nigeria

1307 - England's King Edward I, conqueror of Wales and 'Hammer of the Scots' died on the way to Scotland to fight Robert the Bruce.

1865 - Four people were hanged in Washington, D.C., after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

1911 – The United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.

1930 – Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of the Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam).

1953 – Ernesto "Che" Guevara sets out on a trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador.

1954 – Elvis Presley made his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right."

1978 – The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom.

1981 - The Church of England decided that divorcees would be allowed to re-marry in a church ceremony.

1985 - German tennis player Boris Becker, an unseeded 17 year old, became the youngest player to win the men's singles championship at Wimbledon.

(07-07-2011 11:49 )skully Wrote:  1865 - Four people were hanged in Washington, D.C., after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

This astonishing photo of the 1865 executions survives. Hanging under the scaffold, from left to right, the condemned were Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt. Of these, the execution of Surratt was the most controversial. She kept the boarding-house where some of the conspirators had stayed to plan the assassination, and holed-up there afterwards. A widow (her huband had been killed in the Civil War), she was of good character and claimed she knew nothing of the plot, was only vaguely acquainted with the others and had done nothing more than innocently rent some rooms. The case against her was circumstantial at best, and even the other conspirators said she was not involved, but the military tribunal found her guilty. She would probably not have done any better with a jury trial, as there was such a wave of anger and demand for vengence after Lincoln's death that initially no lawyer would even defend the accused.

1965: Ronald Biggs escapes from jail
Ronald Biggs - a member of the gang who carried out the Great Train Robbery in 1963 - has escaped from Wandsworth prison.
Biggs, 35, escaped by scaling a 30ft wall with three other prisoners at 1505 BST today.

A ladder was thrown over the wall from the outside during the prisoners' afternoon exercise session.

The escapees climbed the ladder and lowered themselves into a waiting van. They were driven away from the prison in three cars.

Loaded shotgun

Every police car in London has been notified and all ports and airports have been alerted.

Biggs is the second of the Great Train Robbers to escape from jail - Charles Wilson is still at large after escaping from Winson Green prison in Birmingham in August last year.

Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Lewis, who is investigating the escape, said the break-out was well prepared and "was engineered without a doubt with collusion inside the prison".

He added this did not suggest prison officers had been involved.

A Home Office spokesperson explained what happened. He said: "At 3.05pm one of the four officers on duty in the yard saw a man's head appear above the outside wall.

"The officer immediately rang the alarm bell and at the same time the man on the wall threw over a rope and tubular ladder.

"The four prisoners immediately made for the ladder and climbed over the top. The prison officers tried to stop them, but were stopped by some of the others in the exercise yard.

"The officers went outside and discovered a van with a platform on top parked against the wall and the ladders secured to the top of the van."

Police said a green Ford Zephyr, involved in the escape, had been found abandoned tonight outside Wandsworth Common railway station.

Police also found a loaded shotgun and a set of overalls inside.

An operations room has been set up inside the prison and the area cordoned off. People living near the prison are being interviewed by police.

Scotland Yard has warned members of the public not to approach any of the men as they may be armed and dangerous.


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Ronald Biggs had served just 15 months of a 30 year prison sentence


Former Detective Supt. Fewtrell: "I think it's staggered everybody"






In Context
Ronnie Biggs was free for nearly 40 years before he returned voluntarily to Britain from Brazil.
He came back to the UK in 2001 aged 71, impoverished and weakened by a series of strokes to receive free medical treatment.

He was immediately taken to a top-security prison to serve the remaining 28 years of his sentence.

Charlie Wilson was recaptured in Canada in 1968.


Stories From 8 Jul
1996: Seven slashed in school machete attack
2005: G8 leaders agree $50bn aid boost
1965: Ronald Biggs escapes from jail
2003: Conjoined twins die in separation op
1971: British troops shoot Londonderry rioters
2000: New Harry Potter most magical yet

1099 – First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on.

1497 - Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama left Lisbon for a voyage on which he discovered the Cape route to India.

1776 - In Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rang from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), summoning citizens to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

1884 - The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was founded in London.

1947 – Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

1985 - Britain lifted its trade ban with Argentina after the Falklands crisis ended.

1994 – Kim Jong-il assumes office as Supreme Leader of North Korea after the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.

1996 - Three young children and four adults were attacked by a man with a machete at an infant school in Wolverhampton. Teacher Lisa Potts, (later awarded for her bravery), was badly injured protecting the children.

2000 - J. K. Rowling's fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire went on sale, breaking all publishing records.