Today in history

[AlpErTunga]

1883- Czek author Franz Kafka was born.
1905- Russian Army killed workers who went on strike.
1941- Turkish Conservatory of Republic gave her first graduates.
1962. French President de Gaulle sign the decleration which anounce independence of Algeria. 132 year French colony reached the end.
1967- Famous player of Galatasaray, Turgay Seren retired from football.
1969- Turkiye took civil control of the American bases in Turkish borders.
1971- Jim Morrison, the leader of Doors music band died on his age of 27.
1988- Fatih Sultan Mehmed Bridge began to serve. Constuction of bridge costed 887 million dolars. The bridge's length is 1090 m. and construction lasted 2,5 years.
1993- Turkiye met the word of "Tax Number".
1999- Singer Sevim Tuna died.

[Moroz]

Soyuz-Apollo, July 15, 1975

Russian and American astronauts shook hands in space for the first time 31 years ago, in July 1975.

In the meantime, the idea of a joint Soviet-American space mission was gaining ground. The Apollo-13 disaster made the Americans aware of the need for cooperation.

The U.S. technical director of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) Dr. Glynn Lunney recalled that at that dramatic time the idea of outside help was dismissed out of hand. As an engineer he knew only too well that in the preceding years the Soviet Union and the U.S. had been designing and building their spaceships and docking devices in different ways.

Brezhnev supported the idea of a joint flight, and voiced the big idea that the Soviet Union was for peaceful space exploration and for the development of devices to make it possible for spacecraft to rendezvous and dock and for crew members to work together.

Soyuz-19 with astronauts Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov on board blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 15, 1975, at 3:20 p.m. Moscow time. Seven hours and a half later, Apollo followed suit from Cape Canaveral, carrying Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald Slayton.

On the eve of the launch, astronaut Gene Cernan, a participant in the U.S. Moon program, told journalists that he didn't think that any member of the ASTP project had changed his political views in the course of communication. It was clear that we ought to lay emphasis not on what divides us but on the striving to understand, respect and trust each other, he said.

The ASTP was a success despite involving the two competing space powers of the Cold War. For the first time in the history of space flights in the near-Earth orbit, a space system consisting of two docked spacecraft with an international crew functioned for two days.

The public and prominent political figures from around the world viewed the Soviet-American Test Project as an important historical event that ushered in a new era in space research, and as a major contribution to improving Soviet-U.S. relations and the world climate as a whole.

The success of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was largely the result of the long experience of both crews. Brigadier General Thomas Stafford was the Apollo commander. Prior to ASTP he had already carried out rendezvous techniques on Gemini-6 and Gemini-9 five times. Under the Moon project, Stafford's assignment was to fly around the Moon on Apollo-10, getting as close as 12.8 km from its surface in a landing module, and take photos for subsequent landings. The dress rehearsal was a great success and Neil Armstrong's crew landed on the Moon some time later.

Soyuz commander Alexei Leonov was four years younger than Stafford. He had been the first man in outer space from Voskhod-2. Later, he was trained for Moon landings and to conduct five more space missions that were cancelled for various reasons.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project required more than technical competence from all crewmembers. They had to display diplomatic skills and a sense of humor that is an absolute must in space. Not everything went smoothly, but all participants in the program eventually coped with political and technical problems and achieved complete mutual understanding.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was designed to create in the long term a universal rescue unit, to test technical systems and methods for joint flight, and to cooperate in research and experiments as well as in rescue operations. Joint testing of the docking systems and rendezvous techniques, the docking and undocking of the two spacecraft, and the experience of joint flight control and conducting numerous scientific and technical experiments were of vast importance for the subsequent building of the International Space Station.

The ASTP mission was not free of emergencies. A local TV camera collapsed on the eve of the Soyuz launch but it was not delayed. The crew were trusted to fix it themselves and they did.

The Apollo crew had a more serious problem. When the astronauts splashed down, poisonous fumes from the engine permeated into the cabin and they had to use oxygen masks. Talking to journalists, Stafford said that he had 10 to 15 seconds to do this. In his whole career he had to deal with 11 emergencies that put his life at risk.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20050715/40912491.html
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050704/40838913.html

[The Chap]

Playboy

Oh, when was it. You all Know! Oh kakak I'm sure I can find out.

This mag next to me. Hmmm.

Bugger, someone has scribbled on the cover. Not an epoch/paradigm - shift/ Chomsky moment.

I'm sure many a PHD has been strung out in a liberal arts department over Norma's **** with a red background.

[sappersgt]

History repeating?

LIFE magazines issue for this week in 1958 has a picture of United States Marines wading ashore in Lebanon on the front cover. Is history repeating itself?

[Dreadnought]

Inspiration for Men of Honor dies

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- Carl M. Brashear, the first black U.S. Navy diver who was portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 2000 film "Men of Honor," died Tuesday. He was 75.

Brashear died at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth of respiratory and heart failure, the medical center said.

Brashear retired from the Navy in 1979 after more than 30 years of service. He was the first Navy diver to be restored to full active duty as an amputee, the result of a leg injury he sustained during a salvage operation.

"The African-American community lost a great leader today in Carl Brashear," Gooding said of the man he played alongside Robert DeNiro, who was Brashear's roughneck training officer in "Men of Honor." "His impact to us as a people and all races will be felt for many decades to come."

In 1966 Brashear was assigned to recover a hydrogen bomb that dropped into waters off of Spain when two U.S. Air Force planes collided.

During the mission Brashear was struck below his left knee by a pipe that the crew was using to hoist the bomb out of the water. Brashear was airlifted to a naval hospital where the bottom of his left leg was amputated to avoid gangrene. It later was replaced with a prosthetic leg.

The Navy was ready to retire Brashear from active duty, but he soon began a grueling training program that included diving, running and calisthenics.

"Sometimes I would come back from a run, and my artificial leg would have a puddle of blood from my stump. I wouldn't go to sick bay because they would have taken me out of the program," Brashear said in 2002 when he was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians. "Instead, I'd go hide somewhere and soak my leg in a bucket of hot water with salt in it -- that's an old remedy I learned growing up."

Brashear faced an uphill battle when he joined the Navy in 1948 at the age of 17, not long after the U.S. military desegregated.

"I went to the Army office, and they weren't too friendly," Brashear said in 2002. "But the Navy recruiter was a lot nicer. Looking back, I was placed in my calling."

Brashear, the son of poor sharecroppers in Sonora, Kentucky, quickly decided after boot camp that he wanted to become a deep-sea diver.

"Growing up on a farm in Kentucky, I always dreamed of doing something challenging," he said. "When I saw the divers for the first time, I knew it was just what I wanted."

In 1954 he was accepted and graduated from the diving program, despite daily battles with discrimination, including having hate notes left on his bunk.

He went on to train for advanced diving programs before his 1966 incident.

"He kept to himself personally, but his military life was an open book," said Junetta Brashear, his first wife, who lives in Portsmouth, Virginia, near Brashear's home in Virginia Beach.

She said Brashear's health started to deteriorate about three years ago, but that he had experienced problems ever since the amputation.

Brashear married childhood friend Junetta Wilcox in 1952 and had four children -- Shazanta, DaWayne, Phillip and Patrick -- before their divorce in 1978. He later married Hattie R. Elam and Jeanette A. Brundage.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

*An excellent movie I may add Rest In Peace Sir.

[Parihaka]

Indira Gandhi assassinated

1984: Indian prime minister shot dead
Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, has been killed by assassins in New Delhi.

Mrs Gandhi was thought to have been walking through her gardens this morning when she was shot. She was taken to the All India Medical Hospital where she underwent an emergency operation to remove the bullets but died an hour and a half later.

Initial reports suggest the two attackers were guards at her home who were then shot by other security officers.

No exact motive is known but it is believed the pair were Sikh extremists acting in retaliation for the storming of the Sikh holy shrine of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in June.

Mrs Gandhi had been receiving death threats since the attack on the temple in which 1,000 people died.

The night before her death she told a political rally: "I don't mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die today, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation."

Security throughout the country has been stepped up. Roads to the hospital and the home of the prime minister have been sealed off and borders around Delhi have been closed.


If I die today, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation

Indira Gandhi
The Indian cabinet has started an emergency meeting to choose a successor.

India's High Commissioner, Prakash Mehrotra, said: "Democracy is very deep rooted in our country and the country is prepared to face any situation. A meeting is being called in Delhi, it is usual that the number two man in the cabinet takes charge for the time being,"

Mrs Gandhi first became prime minister in 1966 and again in 1980 and was praised for her battle against famine in rural areas.

Stan Orme from the Anglo Indian Parliamentary Association said: "It is a very terrible thing. She was a very impressive person, very strong-willed. It is a real tragedy."

[Canmoore]

Today in History that REALLY matters..

Jaques Plante of the Montreal Canadiens, became the first goalie ever to wear a mask in hockey on this date 1959...after taking a puck in the head from New York Rangers player Andy Bathgate.

After getting stiches to close the wound, he returned to the game with a Mask to protect his face, and thus the Goalie mask was invented!!

oh and btw, the Canadians won that game 3-1

[Canmoore]

Today in History that REALLY matters..;)

Jaques Plante became the first goalie ever to wear a mask in hockey on this date 1959...after getting a puck in the head from New York Rangers player Andy Bathgate.

After getting stiches to close the wound, he returned to the game with a Mask to protect his face, and thus the Goalie mask was invented!!

[YellowFever]

On This day....

1993: The EC was changed to EU.

1950: Harry Truman survives an assasination attempt as two Puerto Rican nationalists shoot their way into his private residence, killing one of his guards.

1984: Rajiv Gandhi is sworn in as India's premiere.


Damn...nothing much happened this day in history....what a boring day.

[YellowFever]

1953: First announcement that Pakistan will adopt Islamic law.

1947: The "Spruce Goose" flew for the first and last time. It began construction in Culver City , California in 1942 and reportedly cost appx. 40 million dollars to build.

1976: Jimmy Carter becomes President-elect with an electoral vote of 297 to Gerald Ford's 241.
(Gotta be one of the saddest days in american history)

1936: The world's first high definition (405-line) TV service was inaugurated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It served 100 TV owners, all living within a radius of 25 miles from the studio At alexandria Palace, Noth London.

1917: The possiblity of a Jewish homeland in Palestine comes one step closer when the British government issues the so-called Balfour Declaration.

1957: Elvis Presely sets an all time record with 8 songs in the UK Top 30 simultaneously.

1960: A British jury of 12 found the book, "Lady Chatterly's Lover" to be not obscene, nor liable to deprave or corrupt those who read it.



1734: Daniel Boone was born.

1913: Burt Lancaster was born.

[Canmoore]

On this day in 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in Lake Superior, due to a "November Gale", also known as the Witch of November, 29 med died as a result.

November Gales are massive storms which occur during early November, as winter sets in, Arctic cold fronts rolling off the praries clash with humid Gulf air masses coming up from the States, these two masses collide over the Great Lakes whose waters are still warm from the Summer, this warm water acts as fuel for these monsterous storms.

One of the greatest November gale occured in 1913, when 250 people were killed, 19 ships were lost, another 19 stranded, and countless damaged. The loss of so many merchant ships made prices for consumer goods to temporarily rise throughout North America

The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last commercial Laker to be lost due to a storm, since 1975, technological advances in weather prediction and communications have nearly made it impossible for a ship to be lost in a storm. Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about the wreck, which has cemented the lost ship into history and the minds of people forever. Here are the Lyrics.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind

When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.

The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.

[Parihaka]

Sad git that I am, I loved that song:)

[zraver]

On this day...
461 St Leo I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1483 Martin Luther Eisleben, Germany, founded Protestantism is born
1674 Dutch formally cede New Netherlands (NY) to English
1770 French philosopher Fran_'__ois Voltaire, 75, uttered his famous remark: 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.'
1775 US Marine Corps established by Congress
1801 Kentucky outlaws dueling
1808 Osage Treaty signed
1836 Louis Napoleon banished to America
1864 Austrian Archduke Maximilian became emperor of Mexico
1871 Stanley presumes to meet Livingston in Ujiji, Central Africa
1891 1st Woman's Christian Temperance Union meeting held (in Boston)
1898 Race riot in Wilmington NC (8 blacks killed)
1917 41 suffragists are arrested in front of the White House
1918 Independence of Poland proclaimed by Jozef Pilsudski
1919 1st observance of National Book Week
1919 American Legion's 1st national convention (Minneapolis)
1926 Vincent Massey becomes 1st Canadian minister to USA
1938 Kemal Atarok 1st President of Turkey, dies
1928 Hirohito enthroned as Emperor of Japan
1940 Pittsburgh & Philadelphia play a penalty free NFL game
1945 College football's #1 Army beats #2 Notre Dame 48-0
1945 General Enver Hoxha becomes leader of Albania
1950 Jacobo Arbenz Guzm n elected President of Guatemala
1951 1st long distance telephone call without operator assistance
1954 Iwo Jima Memorial (servicemen raising US flag) dedicated in Arlington
1954 Lt Col John Strapp travels 632 MPH in a rocket sled
1957 NFL record crowd (102,368), '49ers vs Rams in LA
1960 Senate passes landmark Civil Rights Bill
1963 Gordie Howe takes over NHL career goal lead at 545
1968 Launch of Zond 6, 2nd unmanned circumlunar & return flight
1969 "Sesame Street" premieres on PBS TV
1970 Luna 17, with unmanned self-propelled Lunokhod 1, is launched
1971 US table tennis team arrived in China
1974 2nd meeting of Giants-Jets, Jets even series at 1 with 26-20 OT win
1974 Montreal Candiens shutout Washington Capitals 11-0
1975 Ore ship Edmund Fitzgerald & crew of 29 lost in storm on Lake Superior
1975 PLO leader Yasser Arafat addresses UN in NYC
1975 UN General Assembly approves resolution equating Zionism with racism
1976 Utah Supreme Court OKs execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore
1977 Major Indoor Soccer League officially organized (NYC)
1978 Israel's top negotiators broke away from Middle East peace talks
1978 Yanks trade Lyle, Rajsich, McCall, Heath & Ramos to Texas for Righetti, Mirabella, Beniquez, Jemison & Griffin
1980 Dan Rather refuses to pay his cabbie, CBS pays the $12.55 fare
1982 Leonid I Brezhnev Soviet 1st sect, dies of a heart attack at 75
1984 Miami Hurricanes blows 31-0 lead in 3rd quarter lose to MD 42-40
1986 River Rhine (Germany) polluted by chemical spill
1988 China confirms earthquake death toll will rise above current 938
1988 MLB All-Star team beats Japan 3-1 in Tokyo (Game 5 of 7)
1988 NY's MTA announces it may replace tokens with credit card type passes
1988 Orel Hershiser wins NL Cy Young award unanimously
1989 Guerrillas battle with government forces in El Salvador
1989 Germans begin punching holes in the Berlin Wall
1989 Word Perfect 5.1 is shipped
1990 Lebanon releases 2 French hostages (Camille Sontag & Marcel Coudari)
1991 Marty Glickman broadcasts his 1,000th football game
2084 Transit of Earth as seen from Mars

[Parihaka]

1965: Sir Winston Churchill dies

1965: Winston Churchill dies



Sir Winston Churchill has died at the age of 90 with his wife Lady Clementine Churchill and other members of the family at his bedside.

He suffered a stroke 15 days ago and gradually slipped into a deep sleep from which he never awakened.

Sir Winston died in his London home at Hyde Park Gate.

Earlier in his illness, there had been crowds anxiously waiting for news at the top of the quiet Kensington cul-de-sac - but when the announcement finally came there was only a handful of journalists in the street.

Mourning crowds

News of his death was announced on the BBC shortly after 0800 GMT. Within half-an-hour, crowds began to gather near his home to pay homage to Britain's greatest wartime leader.

When Sir Winston fell ill, he was visited by one of the country's leading neurologists, Lord Brain, who advised on his treatment.

Since then, regular medical bulletins have been issued by Sir Winston's own doctor, Lord Moran.

Sir Winston has spent the past few days lying in the downstairs room he converted to a bedroom after a fall four years ago in which he injured his back.

Members of the family were summoned to his bedside at 0700 GMT. Lady Churchill and the couple's eldest surviving daughter, Mary Soames, have been with him throughout his illness.

Their son, Randolph Churchill was seen arriving with his son, Winston. Soon after, Sir Winston's actress daughter, Lady Sarah Audley, looking pale and drawn, arrived with her daughter, Celia Sandys.

Many television and radio programmes have been cancelled or re-scheduled to make way for tributes to Sir Winston.

Sir Winston will lie in state in Westminster Hall - an honour not accorded any English statesman since Gladstone in 1898. His body will remain there for three days, before the funeral at St Paul's cathedral on Saturday.

[Parihaka]

Northern Ireland: The longest tour of duty is over

Northern Ireland: The longest tour of duty is over

It was as a last resort that Harold Wilson sent troops to Northern Ireland in 1969. Now, after 38 years, the deployment is finally at an end.
By David McKittrick
Published: 31 July 2007

Today the Army will formally end Operation Banner, the longest continuous deployment in UK military history, and will bring almost all the troops back home after almost four decades.

The move is a milestone for the Army and for Northern Ireland, which is now looking forward to a more peaceful era. The hope is that no more generations will grow up with heavily armed troops a familiar sight on the streets. The ending of the IRA campaign, and the widespread sense that the Troubles are over, mean that the Army will no longer be on active security duty, after 38 years which have seen more than 300,000 military personnel serve in Northern Ireland.

Some of them went through multiple tours of duty, but the campaign lasted so long that hardly anyone in the Army has served throughout its length.

For decades the phrases "British Army" and "streets of Belfast" have been almost synonymous, with newspapers and television carrying images of wary infantry trudging through dangerous urban and rural areas.

The troops were first called in in 1969 after a period of street marches degenerated into disorder. In Belfast, Protestant mobs set fire to Catholic homes in the Falls Road, while in Londonderry's Bogside, police were exhausted by days of nationalist rioting.

The Stormont government did not want to call them in, realising that their arrival would inevitably mean a loss of power for its Unionist government. And Westminster desperately resisted the move, for the instinct was strong "not to be drawn into the Irish bog".

It all happened under a previous generation of British Labour politicians: Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, reluctantly approved their dispatch as an absolute last resort. He did so against the desire of the military establishment, a cabinet minister recording that the Defence Secretary, Denis Healey, "was cagey and said on no account must we risk having to take over".

But with rioting raging almost out of control, Stormont in desperation made an appeal for military aid to James Callaghan, the Home Secretary. Callaghan recalled being handed a message while flying in an RAF plane.

"It tersely informed us that an official request for the use of troops had been made. I immediately scribbled 'Permission granted' on the pad and handed it back to the navigator. A few minutes later General Freeland's troops began to relieve the police in the Bogside amid loud jubilation from the inhabitants."

That jubilation did not last long. Nationalists initially hailed the troops as saviours, handing out trays of tea and sandwiches to the first bemused squaddies.

But the military is a blunt instrument to come into contact with any civilian population, and the welcome dissipated as brushes on the streets produced friction leading to sustained rioting. The Army saw itself as providing protection to civilians and maintaining the peace. But in the nationalist ghettos, resentment grew with incidents such as a large-scale curfew in which a large part of the Falls Road was sealed off for several days.

Nationalist alienation from the military was heightened when troops were used in the disastrous introduction of internment without trial and, most of all, with Bloody Sunday in Londonderry in 1972. The deaths of 14 civilians who were taking part in a protest march put a final end to any military efforts to win nationalist hearts and minds. The event led to a swelling of the ranks of the IRA, and helped to spark off a major wave of violence, with almost 500 people killed that year.

This phase of the Troubles saw sustained gun battles which sometimes lasted for hours in the Belfast republican heartlands of the Falls and Ballymurphy. By that stage, it was apparent that the military presence, originally viewed as an emergency, short-term measure, would have to continue indefinitely.

In the years that followed, the Army never rebuilt relations with nationalists in general, but in addition it faced the Provisional IRA, which developed into a formidable terrorist grouping.

By the late 1970s the violence had reduced somewhat, yet by that stage the IRA had transformed itself into a smaller yet still deadly organisation with the ability to launch high-profile attacks and sustain a campaign.

The Army and police altered their strategy, with the police placed in overall charge but the military providing the back-up needed to contain the violence in frontline areas. Officers have often acknowledged that they faced a formidable foe in the IRA. One recently and inadvertently released army document described it as "what will probably be seen as one of the most effective terrorist organisations in history - professional, dedicated, highly skilled and resilient".

In the years that followed, the Army, alongside the police and other security services, remained locked in a long-running conflict with the IRA and lesser republican organisations.

Most of the Army's fatalities were suffered at the hands of the IRA. In one 1979 incident, 18 soldiers, 16 of them members of the Parachute Regiment, were killed in a two-stage IRA bombing attack at Warrenpoint, Co Down.

Soldiers were also vulnerable to snipers, and in some cases were killed while off duty. Over the years, the IRA used an array of tactics and weapons, including booby-trap bombs, mortars and machineguns.

The IRA menace increased in the late 1980s when it received shipments of high-grade weapons from Libya, including very powerful machineguns, rockets and even flamethrowers.

The organisation was particularly ingenious in putting to use Libyan-supplied Semtex in booby-trap bombs and other homemade but effective devices which posed a serious threat to military vehicles and bases. In the border region of South Armagh - known as "bandit country" - the threat was so high that almost all troop movements had to take place by helicopter, since local roads were too dangerous.

As the years passed, the Army developed new technology to protect its vehicles and the scores of military installations which were dotted all over Northern Ireland. New bases and watchtowers were built using sophisticated new techniques. The military also hit back aggressively at the IRA, imprisoning large numbers of its members. It used the SAS in a series of ambushes which intercepted IRA units en route to carry out bombings or shootings. The IRA's worst single loss came at Loughgall, Co Armagh, in 1987, when a concealed SAS team opened fire on an IRA unit intent on attacking a police station. Eight IRA members were shot dead.

A major complication during the Army's deployment lay in the threat posed by loyalist extremists. Although these were for the most part dealt with by the police, there were times when the Army struggled to contain large-scale demonstrations which threatened stability. In addition, sections of the Army also had an undercover role. Military intelligence infiltrated loyalist terrorist groups, placing or recruiting undercover agents within their ranks.

While this produced some significant breakthroughs, it was also to lead to major controversies, with accusations that intelligence officers had used agents not to save lives but to direct loyalist gunmen towards specific republican targets.

The 1989 murder of the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, who was killed by a loyalist organisation which included at least one agent planted in its ranks by army intelligence, is to be the subject of an official public inquiry.

The Army and the IRA meanwhile remained locked in battle into the 1990s. The IRA lost important figures, but remained a menace. In 1996, it set off two car bombs inside the Army's closely-guarded headquarters in Lisburn, Co Antrim, killing a warrant officer, in what was seen as a huge security breach.

The last soldier to be killed by the IRA, Lance-Bombardier Stephen Restorick, died in the following year, the victim of a sniper using a high-powered rifle.

The question of who really prevailed, the Army or the IRA, remains unanswered and will be the subject of controversy for years to come. The IRA has gone as an active force, having abandoned the idea of victory and instead pursuing its aims through politics. The Army would not claim to have beaten the IRA in the sense of bringing about its surrender, but it can argue that violence did not prevail and that the conflict ended with a political settlement.