TODAY: Thursday July 8, 2021

ON THIS DAY 16 years ago (2005)

Under the headline “We Britons will never be defeated”, our front page reported on the 7/7 bombings that took place in London and quoted PM Tony Blair who vowed Britain would not be intimidated by terrorism.

Fifty-two people from 18 countries were killed in the simultaneous suicide attacks on three Tube trains and a London bus during the morning rush hour.

It was the UK’s deadliest terrorist incident since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

74 years ago (1947)

A United States Army Air Forces weather balloon crash-landed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, leading conspiracy theorists to claim the “flying disc” was, in fact, a UFO whose extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the US military which then covered it up.

10 years ago (2011)

The Space Shuttle Atlantis launched its 33rd and final mission bringing Nasa’s fourth human spaceflight programme to an end after more than 20 years.

Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times and travelled nearly 126,000,000 miles.