On This Day in History

Chicago alderman Benjamin F. Lewis was murdered in his office by unknown assailants two days after having been reelected.

American test pilots Charles Bassett and Elliot See die in a plane crash in St. Louis, Missouri.

Japanese police stormed a mountain lodge near Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, to end a ten-day siege by members of the paramilitary group United Red Army.

The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Liberal Party, under Jeremy Thorpe, achieved their highest ever number of votes.

A London Underground train failed to stop at the terminal Moorgate station, crashing and causing the deaths of 43 people.

The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army launched a mortar attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary station in Newry, Northern Ireland, killing nine people.

GRB 970228, a highly luminous 80-second flash of gamma rays, was detected on Earth, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.

Two heavily armed bank robbers exchanged gunfire with officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in North Hollywood, in one of the most intense gun battles in American police history.

A high-speed train crash occurred near Selby in North Yorkshire, England, killing 10 and injuring 82.

During a period of religious violence in Gujarat, India, mobs of Hindus attacked Muslims in Naroda Patiya and in Chamanpura, resulting in 166 deaths.

Benedict XVI became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign from the papacy.

Bus drivers in Greater Manchester began an eleven-week strike, one of the longest in British transportation history.

The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials.