Imagine your plane being hijacked by nine fanatical ninjas wielding Samurai swords. That was the nasty surprise that lay in store for passengers on Japan Airlines Flight 351 in March, 1970. Members of the Japanese Red Army Faction suddenly leaped from their seats wielding the deadly swords and demanding control of the plane. You may…
When the Tories came to power in 1979, fighting crime was high on the agenda. There was even a flirtation with the idea of restoring capital punishment, which Thatcher was understood to favour. But the landmark policy was the introduction of the so-called Short Sharp Shock regime with special detention centres imposing military-style discipline on…
There’s an astonishing number of unsolved murders from the 1980s and it’s very striking how varied these cases are. Mobsters, members of cults, victims of homophobia, and racist homicides. Some of the stories are truly sinister so let’s investigate. The People’s Temple and a cult defector In 1980, Jeannie Mills, her husband Al, and daughter…
The 1970s was the decade that gave us the disaster movie, The Towering Inferno. The world’s tallest skyscraper catches fire and its height proves to be an insurmountable obstacle to rescuing the wealthy folk inside. This was a cautionary tale about the decade’s unshakable belief in modernity as well as the hubris and greed of…
With Iran back in the news, it’s an opportune moment to ask how did this country come to be ruled by a theocratic caste combined with a parliamentary democracy? Up until 1979, Iran was under the thumb of a monarch – the Shah – who was pro-western and effectively policed the Middle East on behalf…
Attitudes to sex in the 1980s were more liberal than is sometimes assumed. But the decade was very different from the liberated 1960s and rebellious 1970s. The AIDS pandemic and rise of political conservatism impacted how young people viewed sex. Despite a climate of fear and repression, a survey in 1986 had very surprising results….
It may seem incredible but Britain beat Facebook by four years to create a social media website that reunited old friends across the globe – and became an early online sensation. But, as is so often the case with Great British inventions, other countries took the idea, improved on it, and ultimately dominated. So let’s…
It’s hard to remember a world – only a quarter of a century ago – when most people had no public visibility. Imagine it. A world without social media influencers, TikTok trolls, YouTube channels, and bots. The only way you ever got your name or face in public was if a newspaper published your letter…
In the 1970s, I spent six years at a boys’ grammar school on the Essex-London border where life could best be summed up as flob pits and bundles. I’ll come to those disturbing rituals in a moment. But it was a strange experience where I often felt like a character in William Golding’s novel, Lord…
Imagine a beautiful old house burning down and the fire brigade turns up. The firefighters ask if there’s anybody inside. The answer is – no. The firefighters climb back into their fire engine and drive off leaving the fire to rage through the entire property reducing it to a smoking ruin. Thousands of pounds worth…
