3 July1988: US warship shoots down Iranian airliner
An American naval warship patrolling in the Persian Gulf has shot down an Iranian passenger jet after apparently mistaking it for an F-14 fighter.
All those on board the airliner - almost 300 people - are believed dead.

The plane, an Airbus A300, was making a routine flight from Bandar Abbas, in Iran, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The USS Vincennes had tracked the plane electronically and warned it to keep away. When it did not the ship fired two surface-to-air missiles, at least one of which hit the airliner.

Navy officials said the Vincennes' crew believed they were firing at an Iranian F14 jet fighter, although they had not confirmed this visually.

No survivors

The plane blew up six miles from the Vincennes, the wreckage falling in Iranian territorial waters.

Iranian ships and helicopters have been searching for survivors but none have so far been found. Iranian television broadcast scenes of bodies floating amid scattered debris.

Iran has reacted with outrage, accusing the United States of a "barbaric massacre" and vowed to "avenge the blood of our martyrs".

President Reagan said the Vincennes had taken "a proper defensive action" and called the incident an "understandable accident", although he said he regretted the loss of life.

'Deep regret'

Admiral William J Crowe, Jr, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference that the US government deeply regretted the incident.

However, he said, the Airbus was four miles west of the usual commercial airline route and the pilot ignored repeated radio warnings from the Vincennes to change course.

Less than an hour before the shooting down of the passenger jet, he added, the Vincennes was engaged in a gun battle with three Iranian gunboats after a helicopter from the Vincennes was fired on.

The president promised a full investigation into how a passenger jet came to be mistaken for a fighter jet, which is two-thirds smaller.

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4th of July, american independance day

Yes Tom, and it appears that N Korea has used today to further test missiles, it seems to be done as an act of provocation so lets hope the yanks are'nt stupid enough to respond with sabre rattling, at the same time I don,t know what the Koreans are hoping to achieve as that part of the world has already seen its share of pointless confict. stan

regarding north korea, they have been totaly defiant history tells us following a world recession, comes the world war, the big six meet up as in u.s.a. russia. china. japan. and of course north and south korea, lets hope they dont just talk the talk instead of walking the walk.

1971 Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong jazz musician (Hello Dolly), dies at 70.

related topic here and his life story here

this day in 1997 the mike tyson in the rematch bit Holyfield's ear, for which he was temporarily banned from boxinand fined 3million dollars

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, if taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omited all the voyages of their lives is bound in shallows and in misery.
On such a tide are we now afloat, and we must take that tide or lose the venture.

W.S. julius ceasar, Act 4 Scene 3 Brutus

"I told him, Julie don't go, but he rarely listens." Mrs. Caesar as quoted in
Osservatore Romano.

18 July 2003.

2003: Missing Iraq expert - body found
A body believed to be that of government scientist Dr David Kelly has been found in woodland not far from his Oxfordshire home.

The discovery was made at 0920 BST by a member of the police team called into search for Dr Kelly after his family reported him missing last night.

Dr Kelly has been at the centre of a row between the British Government and the BBC about the use of intelligence reports in the run up to the war against Iraq.

The row centred on a report by journalist Andrew Gilligan during the Today programme on BBC Radio Four in which he said the government had "sexed-up" its dossier on Iraq to boost public support for the war.

Intense scrutiny

He accused the government of inserting a claim into the dossier that Saddam Hussein was capable of deploying weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes

On Tuesday Dr Kelly - an expert in arms control who had worked as a weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998 - told the Foreign Affairs select committee he had spoken to Mr Gilligan but denied he was the main source for the story.

Dr Kelly left his home in Southmoor, Abingdon, at about 1500 BST on Thursday to go for a walk. His family reported him missing at 2345 BST the same day.

The government has announced an inquiry will be held, headed by law lord Lord Hutton, to investigate the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was on a flight to Tokyo on the first leg of a Far East tour when he was told the body had been found.

He was said to be "very distressed" for the Kelly family.

Dr Kelly has been under intense media scrutiny since the Ministry of Defence said he had come forward to say he had had a meeting with Mr Gilligan.

The MoD said Dr Kelly had at no time been threatened with dismissal or suspension for speaking to Mr Gilligan.

A spokesman said it had been made clear to Dr Kelly that he had broken civil service rules by having unauthorised contact with a journalist, but "that was the end of it".

Downing Street said Dr Kelly had been warned his name was likely to become public because he was one of only a small number of people who could have been the source.

Dr Kelly and his wife, Janice, have three daughters, Sian, 32, and twins Rachel and Ellen, 30.
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This story is not going away. Too many of the doctor's peers are unwilling to believe he
could have committed suicide. Tony Blair will be even more "distressed" if the true story
is ever allowed to surface, or so I believe.