1974Feb, 4
M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England. Nine soldiers and three civilians are killed.
The M62 coach bombing, sometimes referred to as the M62 Massacre, occurred on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in northern England, when a 25-pound (11 kg) Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb hidden inside the luggage locker of a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members exploded, killing twelve people (nine soldiers and three civilians) and injuring thirty-eight others aboard the vehicle.Ten days after the bombing, 25-year-old Judith Ward was arrested in Liverpool while waiting to board a ferry to Ireland. She was later convicted of the M62 coach bombing and two other separate, non-fatal attacks and remained incarcerated until her conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1992, with the court hearing Government forensic scientists had deliberately withheld information from her defence counsel at her October 1974 trial which strongly indicated her innocence. As such, her conviction was declared unsafe.Ward was released from prison in May 1992, having served over 17 years of a sentence of life imprisonment plus thirty years. Her wrongful conviction is seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.The M62 coach bomb has been described as "one of the IRA's worst mainland terror attacks" and remains one of the deadliest mainland acts of the Troubles.
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Events on 1974
- 18Jan
Yom Kippur War
A Disengagement of Forces agreement is signed between the Israeli and Egyptian governments, ending conflict on the Egyptian front of the Yom Kippur War. - 27Jun
Richard Nixon
U.S. president Richard Nixon visits the Soviet Union. - 27Jul
Richard Nixon
Watergate scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon. - 9Aug
Richard Nixon
As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president. - 8Sep
Gerald Ford
Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.