On this day

1972: Israeli commandos storm hijacked jet
Twelve Israeli soldiers disguised as maintenance staff have stormed a hijacked Sabena Boeing at Lod airport in Tel Aviv and released the 100 people on board.
Two of the Arab hijackers were shot dead and their two female companions were captured, although one of them was injured in the attack.

Six of the passengers were also wounded in the gun battle. The 90 passengers and 10 crew had been held hostage for 23 hours.

The end to their ordeal came when two vans, said to be carrying repair men, drove onto the runway and approached the plane.



Two of the men burst into the cockpit and said they were taking over the jet

Captain Reginald Levy


The men got out and pretended to begin work on the airliner but suddenly climbed onto the wings and opened the emergency doors.
The British pilot, Captain Reginald Levy, said: "Everyone of us is lucky to be alive. I have had some tough times but this was my toughest."

The airliner was hijacked after leaving Vienna, where it had made a stop on a flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv.

Capt Levy said: "Two of the men burst into the cockpit and said they were taking over the jet."

He was ordered to fly the plane to Lod, where the gunmen offered to free the passengers in exchange for 100 Arab prisoners held by the Israelis.

While the plane was sitting on the tarmac, the Israelis managed to let down the tyres and empty the fuel tanks to prevent it taking off again.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan took charge of negotiations with the hijackers, initially offering to free the Arab prisoners in return for the release of the hostages.

Later Israeli officials said there was never any intention to release the prisoners. It was simply a delaying tactic.

The gunmen belonged to the Black September Organisation of Palestine guerrillas, a splinter group of the PLO.

One of the rescued passengers, Mor Weiss, from Brooklyn, told The Times: "The soldiers opened the four doors, two on either side at the same time. Immediately the Arabs started shooting wildly.

"The troops fired back and I saw the younger of the two male hijackers fall with a bullet through his forehead. Seconds later the other one was shot."

Mr Weiss said he had been picked on because he was wearing a skull cap. He was sent to the back of the plane and made to sit with a stick of dynamite between his feet.

Captain Levy, who comes from Slough, told a news conference, the drama had happened on his 50th birthday. His wife had accompanied him on the flight so they could have a celebratory birthday meal in Tel Aviv.



Your Memories?
Write your account of the events.


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Israeli commandos posing as maintenance staff burst into the plane





In Context
The two women hijackers were jailed for life in August 1972. They were found guilty after boarding the Sabena aircraft with explosives packed into the lining of corsets they were wearing and also carrying a pistol and grenade concealed in cans of talcum powder.
They were jailed for life - although one of the three judges voted for the death penalty.

On 29 May 1972 three Japanese gunmen opened fire on crowds at Lod International Airport in Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring dozens more.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said they had recruited the gunmen from the Japanese Red Army. Two died in the attack, the third, Kozo Okamoto, was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Lod, or Lydda airport, has since been renamed Ben Gurion Airport and has some of the strictest airport security in the world.



Stories From 9 May
1956: Mystery of missing frogman deepens

1972: Israeli commandos storm hijacked jet

1979: El Salvador cathedral bloodbath

1988: Syria threatens force in Beirut

1999: Chinese anger at embassy bombing

1955: West Germany accepted into Nato





Conflict and War
More Middle East news reports and timelines



BBC News >>
In Depth
Middle East Crisis

1502 - Christopher Columbus left Spain on his fourth and final trip to the New World.

1662 - The first recorded Punch & Judy Show in Britain took place at Covent Garden in London.

1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.

1877 – A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Peru kills 2,541, including some as far away as Hawaii and Japan.

1887 - Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show opened in London.

1945 – World War II: The Channel Islands are liberated by the British after five years of German occupation.

1950 – L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is released.

1960 - Start of the sexual revolution of the 1960s when the birth control pill went on the market.

1996 - The British House of Commons voted to maintain the Ministry of Defence ban on homosexuals serving in the armed forces.

2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is selected as the successor of Pope John Paul II.

(09-05-2011 11:23 )skully Wrote:  ~~~~
~~~~
1950 – L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is released.
~~~~
~~~~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard

His scientology stuff might be rubbish, but he wrote a science fiction book which I thoroughly enjoyed many years ago.
The film of it starring John Travolta was pretty poor though.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield...28novel%29

1994: Mandela becomes SA's first black president
Nelson Mandela has become South Africa's first black president after more than three centuries of white rule.
Mr Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) party won 252 of the 400 seats in the first democratic elections of South Africa's history.

The inauguration ceremony took place in the Union Buildings amphitheatre in Pretoria today, attended by politicians and dignitaries from more than 140 countries around the world.



Never, never again will this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another

Nelson Mandela


As part of the ceremony he pledged his allegiance to South Africa and his determination to continue his work for reconciliation.
"I do hereby swear to be faithful to the Republic of South Africa and do solemnly and sincerely promise to promote that which will advance and to oppose all that may harm the republic... and to devote myself to the well-being of the republic and all its people."

Jubilant scenes on the streets of Pretoria followed the ceremony with blacks, whites and coloureds celebrating together.

When the new president, flanked by First Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Second Deputy President FW de Klerk, appeared on the Botha Lawn beneath the Union Buildings the crowd went wild.

More than 100,000 South African men, women and children of all races sang and danced with joy.

Addressing the crowd President Mandela paid tribute to outgoing president Mr FW de Klerk: "He has made for himself a niche in history.

"He has turned out to be one of the greatest reformers, one of the greatest sons of South Africa."

He also spoke of the "human disaster" of apartheid.

"We saw our country tear itself apart in terrible conflict... The time for healing of wounds has come... Never, never again will this beautiful land experience the oppression of one by another."

And urging forgiveness he said in Africaans: "Wat is verby verby" - "What is past is past"




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Watch/Listen

Mandela's election ends more than three centuries of white rule in South Africa



South Africa celebrates Mandela inauguration





In Context
Following the inauguration ceremony, President Mandela entrusted his deputy, Thabo Mbeki, with the day-to-day business of the government.
Mandela himself concentrated on the ceremonial duties of a leader, building a new international image for South Africa.

Mandela stepped down as South Africa's president after the ANC's landslide victory in the national elections in the summer of 1999, in favour of Mr Mbeki.

Since his retirement he has continued travelling the world, meeting leaders, attending conferences and collecting awards.



Stories From 10 May
1994: Mandela becomes SA's first black president

1940: Churchill takes helm as Germans advance

1998: Sinn Fein backs peace deal

1978: Italy mourns murdered statesman

1967: Two Rolling Stones on drugs charges





Witness
Your memories of Nelson Mandela's inauguration




BBC News >>
Profile of the former President of South Africa

70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, opens a full-scale assault on Jerusalem and attacks the city's Third Wall to the northwest.

1291 – Scottish nobles recognize the authority of Edward I of England.

1307 - Scottish King Robert the Bruce defeated an English cavalry army at the Battle of Loudon Hill in Ayrshire.

1503 – Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there.

1824 – The National Gallery in London opens to the public.

1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah with the golden spike.

1919 - The first scheduled commercial air service in Britain began. The flight from Manchester to Southport cost 4 guineas one way and was run by A.V.Roe.

1924 - J. Edgar Hoover became FBI director, a job he was to hold until his death in 1972.

1941 - World War II: Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of Nazi Germany, flew a small plane to Scotland and parachuted to the ground in an attempt to negotiate a peace settlement with Britain.

1960 – The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

1981 – François Mitterrand wins the presidential election and becomes the first Socialist President of France in the French Fifth Republic.

1985: Fans killed in Bradford stadium fire
At least 52 people are known to have died and many are missing after fire engulfed the Bradford City football stadium.
Hundreds of people are in hospital suffering from burns. Most of the dead are children or elderly people crushed in the rush to escape the inferno.

Only one of the victims has been identified so far. He was former club chairman Samuel Firth, aged 86, who died in hospital from burns.



I've never seen anything like it. The smoke was choking. You could hardly breathe

Geoffrey Mitchell, survivor


The tragedy has sent shockwaves around the world. The Queen, the Pope, the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and church leaders have sent messages of condolence to a city in mourning.
The match began in an atmosphere of celebration as Bradford City, who had just been promoted to the second division, were about to play Lincoln City watched by more than 11,000 fans.

Just before kick-off Bradford City captain Peter Jackson was presented with the Third Division Championship trophy.

Five minutes before half time at 3.40pm a small fire was noticed three rows from the back of G block in the Valley Parade ground and fire-fighting equipment was requested.

Within minutes flames were visible and police started to evacuate people in the stand.

But the blaze spread very rapidly - within four minutes the whole of the roof and the wooden stands below were on fire and police struggled to save those who were too stunned or weak to escape.

One survivor spoke of the horror that he witnessed. "It spread like a flash," said 46-year-old Bradford City fan Geoffrey Mitchell. "I've never seen anything like it. The smoke was choking. You could hardly breathe.

"There was panic as fans stampeded to an exit which was padlocked. Two or three burly men put their weight against it and smashed the gate open. Otherwise I would not have been able to get out."

There is still no clue as to the cause of the fire.


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Watch/Listen

Hundreds of people are in hospital suffering from burns



Radio commentator witnesses the fire break out




In Context
The antiquated stand at Valley Parade eventually claimed the lives of 56 supporters and about 265 were injured. It was the worst fire disaster in the history of British football history.
The death toll might have been higher had it not been for the courage of police officers and 22 spectators later presented with bravery awards.

The cause of the fire is thought to have been the accidental dropping of a match or a cigarette stubbed out in a polystyrene cup and the resulting fire was fuelled by rubbish underneath the wooden stand.

An inquiry chaired by Sir Oliver Popplewell published its final report in 1986. Its recommendations resulted in new legislation governing safety at sports grounds across the UK.

A Bradford Disaster Appeal Fund raised £3.5m for the victims and their families.

On Saturday 11 May 2002, the 17th anniversary of the disaster, a memorial with the names of those who lost their lives was dedicated at the new entrance to the redeveloped Sunwin stand.



Stories From 11 May
1985: Fans killed in Bradford stadium fire

1998: India explodes nuclear controversy

1963: Moscow jails British 'spy'

1956: Gold Coast to get independence

1971: Britain's oldest tabloid closes





Witness
'Intense heat'
PC Spendelow's account of the Bradford fire

1985: 'I've never felt heat so intense'
Simon Spendelow was a 20-year-old police constable on duty at the time of the Bradford Stadium fire.
He rescued a middle-aged husband and wife from the inferno. The husband recovered but the wife died later in hospital.

This is his personal account of the tragedy he witnessed.


At the match I was stationed diagonally opposite to where the fire started.



When the news came over the radio that there was a fire under the stand, at first it was treated as a joke
I was quite pleased, as it was a lovely day and the crowd were in a very good mood. There was definitely a buzz about the place.

I had been at the ground for a while when I met up with a very good friend of mine who was also on duty at the match. We stood together under the floodlight pylon, and the mood was really good.

When the news came over the radio that there was a fire under the stand, at first it was treated as a joke, something funny, because that was the part of the ground where the "Bradford Ointment" football hooligans used to congregate.

We thought it would be funny for them to be inconvenienced by having to move aside whilst the fire was tackled.

It seemed to go on for a few minutes, officers talking on the radio, requesting fire fighting equipment, then the fire brigade.

Some police officers were moved to assist in moving the crowd, but not us.

After maybe ten minutes the fire just seemed to roar out of control and was clearly visible from every part of the ground.

The match was stopped, and the crowd in our area surged forwards, running onto the pitch towards the fire.

We had to move forwards to try and get them back but we didn't have to try for very long, as the fire rapidly became an awesome inferno, rushing across the roof of the stand.

The people on the pitch didn't need our bidding to move away - the heat was incredible. I've never before or since felt heat so intense.



They were lying next to each other on the pitch, holding hands
It was obvious now that people in the stand would be in serious danger, and we tried to go forwards to help get them out, but the heat was just too much.

I managed to get one older man and drag him forwards, away from the fire, and lay him on the floor trying to shield him from the heat.

He was badly burned, but through his suffering, he was more bothered about where his wife was.

Somehow, and I'll never know how, I managed to locate his wife who was also very badly burned, and got them together so that they were lying next to each other on the pitch, holding hands.

When the ambulances finally arrived, ages later, we used my raincoat as an improvised stretcher to carry them both to an ambulance.

We got them both into the same ambulance, and they held hands across the aisle of the ambulance all the way to the Bradford Royal Infirmary.

I have never heard an ambulance man swear so much as during that journey from the ground to the hospital - the traffic was horrendous, but somehow we made it.

After delivering our patients, we were taken back to the ground, to wait for who knows what. We ended up sat on the pitch in little groups, relating to our police stations so that they could work out which police officers were missing or injured.

It seems incredible now, but initially we were under the impression that nobody had been killed on the day. We thought that everybody had got out.

After a while however, the news went round, and our mood plunged into a deep depression.

At home, my wife was waiting for me to come home, and I just didn't.

She was out of her mind with worry, and ringing the police to ask where I was just didn't work as the phone system was overwhelmed.

After the fire, we left the ground via Manningham Lane, passing the lines of police vans that had been parked at the back of the stand during the match.

I'll never forget the vehicles - the intense heat had incinerated the sides nearest the ground, melting all the plastic fittings, the plastic windows and tyres. A stark image.

I went to the burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital a few weeks after the fire to see the man that I had dragged out and got into the ambulance with his wife.

He was doing as well as could be expected, but his wife was still very poorly. She eventually lost her fight for life, being the last person to perish as far as I am aware.



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Fifty-six people died in the fire which swept through the Bradford stadium





Simon Spendelow had been in the force four years at the time of the fire
In Context
Altogether 56 people died after the Bradford stadium disaster.
Simon Spendelow joined the police force as a cadet in 1982.

In 2005 he was still working as a police officer for West Yorkshire Police as a domestic violence co-ordinator.



Witness Stories
1956: 'Laughing stock of the world' - Suez veteran

1988: Debris of a disaster

1963: 'Stunned into silence' by JFK's death

1989: The night the Wall came down

1980: The legend of Lennon





On This Day
11 May 1985
Fans killed in Bradford stadium fire

1310 – In France, fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake as heretics.

1812 - British Prime Minister Spencer Percival was assassinated in the House of Commons, apparently mistaken by his killer for someone else. He is the only Prime Minister in Britain to have been assassinated.

1924 – Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging their two companies.

1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.

1947 - B.F. Goodrich Co. of Akron, Ohio, announced the development of a tubeless tire.

1949 - Siam changed its named to Thailand.

1967 - Britain, Ireland and Denmark officially applied to join the EEC.

1987 – In Baltimore, Maryland, the first heart-lung transplant takes place. The surgery is performed by Dr. Bruce Reitz of the Stanford University School of Medicine.

1995 – In New York City more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.

1998 - A French mint produced the first Euro coins of the 12 European Union member countries.

2004 - The Stockline Plastics factory explosion in Glasgow kills nine people and injures 37 others.

1981: Second IRA protester dies in jail
A second IRA hunger striker, 25-year-old Francis Hughes, has starved to death in the Maze Prison near Lisburn in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
His death comes a week after the death of Bobby Sands on 5 May, the first to die in a republican campaign for political status to be granted to IRA prisoners.



His blood is on Margaret Thatcher's hands

Francis Hughes' brother Oliver


Hughes began refusing food and medical attention a week after Sands began his hunger strike on 1 March. He lapsed into unconsciousness and died at 1743BST today.
As news of his death spread in Catholic areas of Belfast and Londonderry, women clanged dustbin lids and young men stoned army vehicles, threw petrol bombs and hijacked lorries.

Hughes's brother, Oliver, blamed the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, for his death. Speaking from his hometown of Bellaghy he said: "Margaret Thatcher and the British Government have murdered my brother and his blood is on Margaret Thatcher's hands."

The condition of two other hunger strikers at the Maze, Raymond McCreesh and Patrick O'Hara, continues to deteriorate.

Their five demands include: the right to wear their own clothes, refrain from prison work, associate freely with other republican prisoners, to have visits and parcels once a week and the right to have lost remission on sentences restored.

'Absolute fanatic'

Security forces have said Hughes was "an absolute fanatic whose name stood for murder and nothing else".

A spokesman went on to describe him as "as vicious a man as you could meet, a ruthless killer who thrived on what he was doing".

His republican colleagues hailed him as "fearless and active".

Four years ago, Hughes became a wanted man after the home of a policeman was blown up in County Tyrone.

No-one was hurt but Hughes' fingerprints were found on adhesive tape used on the bomb.

In March 1978 he was finally caught after a gun battle at Bellaghy and eventually sentenced to a total of 83 years in prison for his six-year-long career as an IRA gunman and bomber.

The government is refusing to grant any of the hunger strikers' demands. Mrs Thatcher says they are a cover for gaining political status, a special category denied paramilitaries in the Maze since 1976.




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Women clang dustbin lids on the road to mark Francis Hughes' death





In Context
The Maze Prison was initially run along the lines of a prisoner-of-war camp, segregated according to paramilitary allegiance with military-style command structures.
In March 1976 the British Government ended special category status - which had accorded the prisoners political recognition - and started to treat paramilitary offenders as ordinary criminals.

The jail became the focus of intense international scrutiny between 1976 and 1981 when Republican inmates fought for political status, initially through the "blanket" and "dirty" protests.

Their campaign culminated in two hunger strikes.

During the second in 1981, 10 Republicans, led by Bobby Sands, starved themselves to death and 64 civilians, police and soldiers died in violence directly attributable to the hunger strikes.

Three days after the hunger strikes came to an end on 3 October, Northern Ireland Secretary James Prior negotiated a package of concessions for the Maze prisoners - much to the fury of the loyalist community.

He met two of the prisoners' demands - the right to wear their own clothes and the restoration of 50% of lost remission for those who obeyed prison rules for three months.



Stories From 12 May
1994: Labour leader John Smith dies at 55

1981: Second IRA protester dies in jail

1967: Stansted to become London's third airport

2000: Ford quits Dagenham after 70 years

1971: Row rocks Rolling Stone wedding





BBC News >>
In Depth
The peace process in Northern Ireland


In Depth
The causes of the conflict in Northern Ireland


1971 - 2000
History of the Maze Prison

1536 - Sir Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton and several other alleged lovers of Anne Boleyn, wife of King Henry VIII, were tried for treason and executed.

1935 - Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio, by stockbroker Bill Wilson and doctor Bob Smith.

1937 - The Coronation of George VI upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. The BBC televised the procession in its first ever outside broadcast.

1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.

1942 – Holocaust: 1,500 Jews are sent to gas chambers in Auschwitz.

1965 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.

1969 - The minimum voting age in Britain was lowered from 21 to 18.

1982 – During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, believed that the Pope had to be killed for being an agent of Moscow.

2001 - For the first time ever the FA Cup Final was held outside England when it took place at the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.

2008 – An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.