On this day

1982: Argentines destroy HMS Sheffield
The British ship HMS Sheffield has been hit by an Argentine missile fired from a fighter bomber.
It is not clear how many of the 268 crew have perished.

The sinking has shocked the British nation and foiled any possible diplomatic solution to the current dispute over the Falkland Islands between Britain and Argentina.

The ship caught fire when a French-made Exocet missile penetrated deep into HMS Sheffield's control room. The blaze caused a poisonous smoke and most of the crew abandoned ship.

A major rescue operation has been launched in the South Atlantic as relatives thousands of miles back in the UK wait for news of their loved ones.

The 4,100-ton destroyer was struck as it carried out a scouting mission off the Falkland Islands, although its exact position is a secret.

Announcing the news on television, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defence Secretary, Ian McDonald, said the ship was "in the course of its duty within the total exclusion zone around the Falkland Isles".

Two missiles were fired by a Super-Etendard fighter bomber. One missed but the other scored a direct hit and ignited a fire.

The Exocet missile is designed to skim the sea to avoid radar detection. It has its own radar that guides it to its intended target.

The attack follows yesterday's sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano. An Argentine diplomat in the United States said the destruction of HMS Sheffield was "justified after the massacre that the English have done shelling our men and our ships".




E-mail this story to a friend



Watch/Listen

HMS Sheffield caught fire after it was hit by an Exocet missile



Reaction from the United Nations to the HMS Sheffield sinking





In Context
Twenty men died and a further 24 were injured in the sinking of the HMS Sheffield, the first British warship to be lost in 37 years.
It was the first of four Royal Navy ships sunk during the Falklands War. The others were the frigates Ardent and Antelope and the destroyer Coventry.

The Royal Fleet Auxillary vessel Sir Galahad and the British Merchant Navy ship Atlantic Conveyor were also lost.

After a bloody land battle, Argentine forces surrendered to the British and peace was declared on 20 June.



Stories From 4 May
1979: Election victory for Margaret Thatcher

1982: Argentines destroy HMS Sheffield

2000: Ken Livingstone voted London mayor

1966: Doctors and dentists get huge pay rise

1953: Duke of Edinburgh gets his wings





BBC News >>
Falklands war
Key guide, timeline, pictures and features

1471 - The Battle of Tewkesbury, the last battle in the Wars of the Roses, took place. The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians.

1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on present-day Manhattan Island. He purchased Manhattan from resident Algonquin Indians for the equivalent of $24.

1675 – King Charles II of England orders the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

1896 - The first British halfpenny newspaper, the Daily Mail, was published.

1904 – Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal.

1932 – In Atlanta, Georgia, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.

1974 – An all-female Japanese team reaches the summit of Manaslu, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000-meter peak.

2007 – Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7mi wide EF-5 tornado.

2007 – The Scottish National Party wins the Scottish general election and becomes the largest party in the Scottish Parliament for the first time ever.

1980: SAS rescue ends Iran embassy siege
The siege of the Iranian embassy in London has ended after a dramatic raid by SAS commandos.
Five Iranian gunmen were killed and one was arrested. Nineteen hostages were set free but one died and two were injured in the cross-fire.

Millions of people watched the rescue live on television as bank holiday entertainment on all three channels was interrupted to show the real-life drama unfold.



We did not surrender, we became victorious

Iran's President Bani-Sadr


More than 30 masked troops stormed the embassy building from the balcony and front and back doors throwing grenades through the windows.
Screams were heard from inside the building and some 15 minutes later the hostages emerged and were escorted by Scotland Yard police to waiting ambulances.

The siege began five days ago when six gunmen took over the Iranian embassy in Kensington.

Most of their hostages were fellow Iranians but also included embassy police guard PC Trevor Lock, BBC sound man Sim Harris, BBC news organiser Chris Cramer and tourists who had stopped by to collect visas.

Four of the captives - including Mr Cramer - were released over the last week for medical reasons.

The gunmen belonged to a dissident Iranian group opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader who came to power last year.

They wanted the release of 91 political prisoners held in Iran as well as an aircraft to take them and the hostages out of the UK.

The Home Secretary William Whitelaw ordered the attack on the sixth day of the siege after the gunmen shot dead Iranian press attaché Abbas Lavasani and dumped his body outside the building.

Speaking through PC Lock who relayed the demands from an embassy window to police officers on the ground, they then threatened to kill the rest of the hostages and blow up the embassy if their demands were not met.

The Iranian government approved the use of force and President Bani-Sadr announced the SAS raid as a victory. In a broadcast he said "We did not surrender, we became victorious."

The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has visited the SAS barracks in Kensington to congratulate the troops on a successful mission, codenamed Operation Nimrod.




E-mail this story to a friend



Watch/Listen

Millions watched the SAS storm the Iranian embassy on live TV



Images from the SAS rescue




In Context
It later emerged that during the SAS raid PC Trevor Lock had tackled the leader of the gunmen known as Salim and saved the life of an SAS soldier. He was awarded the George Medal for his actions.
The excellent publicity provided by unprecedented live TV coverage of the event ensured the future of the SAS regiment was guaranteed. It had previously been under threat of disbandment.

The one surviving gunman, Fowzi Nejad, was sentenced to life imprisonment nine months later.

His fellow hostage-takers had opposed Ayatollah Khomeini and demanded freedom for the southern Iranian province of Khuzestan. But their cause was soon forgotten when war broke out between Iran and Iraq in late 1980 - a conflict that was to last eight years.

Although Iran had supported the SAS raid, it took about 13 years for a mutual compensation package to be agreed whereby the British government paid for the damage done to the Iranian embassy and Iran repaired the British embassy in Tehran damaged during the 1979 revolution.

Chris Cramer went on to become managing editor of CNN International.



Stories From 5 May
1980: SAS rescue ends Iran embassy siege

1981: Bobby Sands dies in prison

1961: Shepard becomes first US astronaut

2005: Blair secures historic third term

2001: Sun shines on foot-and-mouth crisis

1955: Dr Salk promotes polio vaccine in UK

1967: First all-British satellite 'Ariel 3' launched





Witness
Hostage rescue
Your memories




BBC News >>
How the SAS stormed the Iranian embassy - interactive guide

1260 – Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.

1760 - The first public hanging took place at Tyburn in London.

1821 – Emperor Napoleon I dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.

1921 - Chanel No. 5 perfume was launched.

1955 – West Germany gains full sovereignty.

1961 - Alan B. Shepard became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

2004 - Pablo Picasso's painting "Boy with a Pipe" (1905) sold for a record $104.1 million at a Sotheby's auction.

2005 - The United Kingdom general election takes place, in which Tony Blair's Labour Party is re-elected for a third, consecutive term.

(05-05-2011 10:45 )skully Wrote:  1961 - Alan B. Shepard became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Many people think that John Glenn was America's first astronaut, but he was in fact only the third. The first two American space flights were made by two quiet, hard-bitten former fighter pilots, Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom and it was Shepard who got the nod to take Mercury 3 into the history books.

When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for lift-off, he had replied, 'The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.'

His first words upon lift-off "the clock has started" became legendary and are still repeated by nearly every astronaut to this day. What was not revealed at the time was that technical delays before lift-off meant that a planned 15-minute flight went off nearly five hours late. This hadn't been taken into account by the flight planners and Shepard had to urinate inside his spacesuit as he couldn't hold it any longer (Grissom had a bottle and tube installed inside his spacesuit before the next flight!).

Shepard was due to make a second flight on Mercury 10, but the programme proved so successful the last three Mercury missions were cancelled and Shepard was moved up to command the first manned Gemini flight. However, in 1964 Shepard found he was getting sudden bouts of dizziness and nausea. The cause was found to be Meniere's disease, a problem in the inner ear which affects balance and co-ordination. Shepard was grounded and moved to the Nasa back office and Grissom moved into the number 1 astronaut position. As a result of the grounding it was Grissom who went on to be given the ill-fated Apollo 1 mission in 1967 where he was killed alongside Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

In 1969 Shepard quietly slipped away for what was at the time a pioneering operation which completely cured his illness. Despite his eight-year absence from spaceflight he was immediately put straight back to the top of the astronaut list. Had he come back 12 months earlier it is likely he would have been given the first moon landing, but as it was he given command of the next available mission, which was Apollo 13. However, such was Shepard's luck that it was decided that he would need longer to prepare so the crews of Apollo 13 and 14 were swapped around, thus he avoided the near disaster that befell Jim Lovell's crew.

Shepard's Apollo 14 mission was a textbook exercise, made more notable by him famously playing golf on the moon (astronauts were allowed to take a personal item of their choice on their flights - most took a cassette player or similar, Shepard took a golf club and golf balls!).

Shepard retired from NASA in 1974 with the rank of Rear-Admiral and had a successful second career in both business and teaching. When he died in 1998 at the age of 74 Bill Cliinton made a Presidential Broadcast to the nation honouring his achievements.

He had been happily married for 53 years and his wife Louise died just five weeks after him. They were both cremated and their ashes scattered from a US Navy helicopter over their home in Pebble Beach, California.



Alan Shepard in his capsule prior to his 1961 Mercury flight
(photo is copyright NASA but may be freely used for non-commercial purposes if acknowledged)

1966: Moors murderers jailed for life
Ian Brady and his lover Myra Hindley have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the so-called Moors murders at Chester Assizes.
Judge Fenton Atkinson imposed three concurrent life sentences on Ian Brady, aged 28, for what he called "three calculated, cruel, cold-blooded murders".

The couple were tried for the killing of Edward Evans, 17, Lesley Ann Downey, aged 10, and 12-year-old John Kilbride - a case that has shocked the nation.

Hindley, 23, was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences for the murder of Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey and found not guilty of the killing of John Kilbride.

The bodies of the three children were found on Saddleworth Moor in the Pennines seven months ago.

Boasts

Brady, a stock clerk from Glasgow and Hindley, a shorthand typist from Manchester, lured the children into their home in Manchester, tortured, then killed them.

It was Hindley's brother-in-law, 17-year-old David Smith, who called the police after witnessing the brutal murder of Edward Evans at the couple's home in Hattersley, East Manchester. He told them that Brady had boasted that he had buried other victims at the moors.

The judge praised the "utmost skill and thoroughness" of the police working on the case. They had discovered a left-luggage ticket in Hindley's communion prayer book.

This led them to a suitcase containing pornographic photographs and tapes that proved to be valuable evidence against the pair. One of the photos showed Hindley posing with her dog at what turned out to be the site of John Kilbride's grave.

The Home Office has said that anyone sentenced to life imprisonment is liable to be held for the whole of his or her natural life but the Home Secretary could release a prisoner on licence.

Two children believed to be victims of Brady and Hindley - Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett - are still missing.





E-mail this story to a friend



Watch/Listen

Myra Hindley and Ian Brady: Suspected of killing other children



Special report on the Moors Murders





In Context
Both Brady and Hindley were taken back to the moors, separately, in the 1980s, when Greater Manchester Police began a new search for bodies.
They discovered the remains of Pauline Reade in 1987 but failed to find any trace of Keith Bennett's grave.

Ian Brady has been on hunger strike at high-security Ashworth psychiatric hospital since October 1999.

The High Court in London rejected his appeal for "the right to die" in April 2001. Later that year American publishers controversially released a book by Brady analysing serial killers.

Myra Hindley's original 30-year sentence expired in 1996 and she has tried to win her release since then. But successive home secretaries have ruled that "life should mean life".

Hindley's last appeal for freedom failed in the House of Lords in March 2000.

She died on 15 November 2002 from a severe chest infection aged 60.



Stories From 6 May
1966: Moors murderers jailed for life

1976: Huge earthquake rocks Italy

1954: Bannister breaks four-minute mile

1960: Margaret weds Armstrong-Jones

1994: President and Queen open Chunnel

2001: Second blast at London post office

1997: Brown sets Bank of England free

1988: Hick makes cricketing history

1527 – Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, die fighting the forces of Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo.

1840 - The first postage stamps, the Penny Black and two-penny blues, which were the brainchild of Roland Hill, officially went on sale in Britain.

1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1937 - The hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg crashed in New Jersey, killing 36 of its passengers. It was the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany.

1954 - Roger Bannister, a 25 year old British medical student, broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in England, in 3:59.4.

1994 - The Queen and France's President Francois Mitterrand formally opened the Channel Tunnel during two elaborate ceremonies in France and Britain.

2008 – Chaiten Volcano erupts in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.

Front Page | Years | Themes | Witness
About This Site | Text Only


1945: Germany signs unconditional surrender
Germany has signed an unconditional surrender bringing to an end six years of war in Europe, according to reports from France.
This evening the Ministry of Information has confirmed that an official statement declaring the end of the war, will be made simultaneously in London, Washington and Moscow tomorrow.

The day has been declared a national holiday to mark Victory in Europe Day (VE Day). The following day (9 May) will also be a national holiday.

The BBC's Thomas Cadett watched the official signing at a schoolhouse in Reims, northeastern France, which serves as the advance headquarters of the supreme commander in Europe, General Dwight D Eisenhower.



We are so glad the war is over; sometimes we are surprised we are still living, what with the bombing, the shells, the V bombs and planes that fell down around here

People's War memories »


He said the signing, which took place in the early hours of this morning, was carried out "on a cold and businesslike basis."
Afterwards, he said General Gustav Jodl, of Germany, spoke briefly, saying the Germans had given themselves up "for better or worse into the victors' hands".

The document was signed by General Bedell Smith for the Allied commander, General Ivan Susloparov for Russia and General Francois Sevez for France.

It seems General Eisenhower tried to delay the release of the details of the surrender because of the difficulty of arranging a simultaneous declaration in London, Washington and Moscow.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the Soviet leader Marshal Joseph Stalin and United States President Harry S Truman have now agreed to make the official announcement of the end of the war at 1500 BST tomorrow.

Mr Churchill will broadcast his announcement from the Cabinet room at 10 Downing Street.

It was from this same room that previous Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced Britain was at war with Germany on 3 September 1939.

Until today the German surrender has been piecemeal.

The German 1st and 19th Armies have capitulated in the south. The 25th Army has surrendered in the western Netherlands and Denmark has been celebrating its first day of freedom from occupation.

Earlier today, German forces in Norway also surrendered.

The final capitulation has been delayed by the new Fuehrer, Grand Admiral Doenitz. After the death of Adolf Hitler last week, he announced his intention to continue the fight against the British and Americans as long as they hampered his battle with the Russians.

It appears it did not take him long to realise further resistance was useless.

This evening the King sent a telegram to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower congratulating the troops for carrying out their duties with "valour and distinction".

His message continued: "How unbounded is our admiration for the courage and determination which, under wise leadership, have brought them to their goal of complete and crushing victory."

1664 – Louis XIV of France inaugurates the Palace of Versailles.

1765 - HMS Victory, the ship which became the flagship of British Admiral Horatio Nelson, was launched at Chatham.

1832 – The independence of Greece is recognized by the Treaty of London. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria is chosen King.

1915 - Nearly 1200 people died when a German torpedo sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast, on its return trip from New York to Liverpool, England.

1946 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation (later renamed Sony Corporation) is founded with about 20 employees.

1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.

1992 - Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its maiden voyage (STS-49).

1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for $40 billion USD and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

1999 - The first Scottish Parliament for 300 years was elected.

1660 - Charles II was proclaimed King of England. This was the restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War and the reign of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector.

1701 - English pirate Captain Kidd went on trial at the Old Bailey in London. After being found guilty of piracy he was hanged on May 23rd.

1886 - Atlanta pharmacist John Styth Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named Coca-Cola as a patent medicine.

1902 - On the Caribbean island of Martinique, the volcano Mount Pelée erupted, killing 30,000 people.

1914 – Paramount Pictures is founded.

1945 - VE Day in Europe. After five years, eight months, and five days of massive devastation, the end of the European phase of World War II was celebrated.

1968 - The Kray twins, Reginald and Ronnie and their brother Charlie were arrested after dawn raids by police in London.

1970 - The Beatles 13th, and last, album, Let It Be, was released.

1980 – The eradication of smallpox is endorsed by the World Health Organization.

1984 - The official opening of the Thames Barrier in London. The barrier is designed to be raised when exceptionally high tides on the River Thames threaten to flood parts of London.