This day in history

Five weeks after its secession from Nigeria, the breakaway Republic of Biafra is attacked by Nigerian government forces.

Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu had proclaimed the independence of Nigeria’s Eastern Region, home to the Igbo people, in response to the massacre of Igbos elsewhere in Nigeria. General Yakubu Gowon, the leader of the Nigerian federal government, refused to recognize Biafra’s secession and on 6 July ordered an invasion.

In the subsequent fighting, Ojukwu’s forces made some initial advances, but Nigeria’s superior military gradually reduced territory claimed by Biafra. The nascent state lost its oil fields, its main source of revenue, and without the funds to import food, roughly one million of the area’s civilians died as a result of severe malnutrition. In 1970, Biafra surrendered to Nigeria.
 

It is announced that London will host the 2012 Olympics.

167 men die in an explosion on board the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea.

In England, the last tram runs in London.

French chemist Louis Pasteur administers his first successful treatment of an anti-rabies vaccine.

Sir Thomas More, English statesman and Lord Chancellor, is executed on Tower Hill in London for treason, refusing to accept, officially and publicly, Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.

Richard III is crowned King of England.