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Route taken by the burglars into the vault

The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safe deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, England, on the night of 11 September 1971. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12 m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault (diagram shown). The property stolen was probably worth between £1.25 and £3 million; only £231,000 was recovered by the police. The burglary was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal, who was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in which Sherlock Holmes waits in a bank vault to arrest a gang who have tunnelled in through the floor. Gavin and his colleagues rented a leather goods shop, and tunnelled during weekends. Police found members of the gang soon after the break-in; one of the burglars had signed the lease in his own name, and informers led investigators to Gavin. Many of the papers relating to the burglary remain under embargo at The National Archives until January 2071. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Terracotta bust of an Etruscan woman

... that frescoes, sarcophagi, urns, and trousseaux found in the tombs of Etruscan women (bust pictured) show the important roles they played in society?
... that it is controversial whether indoctrination forms part of education?
... that Megan Abbott's 2018 novel Give Me Your Hand uses menstruation as a metaphor, which she compared to comments made by Donald Trump during the 2016 election?
... that Towa Tei's "Sometime Samurai" remained unfinished for eight years until Australian singer Kylie Minogue re-recorded the song in 2004?
... that readers of Detroit columnist Nancy Brown funded the reforestation of 560 acres of land in her honor during the Great Depression?
... that fans of Castle in the Sky twice broke the record for largest number of tweets posted per second?
... that pilot Henry Biard made his first flight before taking his first flying lesson?
... that Parimal Garden in Ahmedabad has scrap-metal monkeys?

In the news

Earthquake damage in Tizi N'Test

An earthquake (damage pictured) strikes Morocco, killing more than 2,100 people.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam is elected as the next president of Singapore.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, a residential fire kills 77 people.
In Gabon, President Ali Bongo is deposed by a military coup shortly after his re-election.

On this day

September 11: National Day of Catalonia

United Airlines Flight 175 strikes the World Trade Center's South Tower

1297 – First War of Scottish Independence: Scottish forces under Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth.
1945 – The Japanese-run camp at Batu Lintang, Sarawak, in Borneo was liberated by the Australian 9th Division, averting the planned massacre of its 2,000-plus Allied POWs and civilian internees by four days.
1978 – British medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox, leading to a debate on whether the virus should be preserved.
1995 – Mir EO-19, the nineteenth crewed mission to the Russian space station Mir, returned to Earth after approximately 75 days in space. It was the first Mir expedition launched on an American Space Shuttle.
2001 – Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger airliners to carry out a series of terrorist attacks (second attack pictured) against targets in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area.

Stephen Hagiochristophorites (d. 1185)
Paul Nahaolelua (b. 1806)
Mary Watson Whitney (b. 1847)
Issy Smith (d. 1940)

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Franklin D. Roosevelt

Arizona has participated in 28 United States presidential elections since its admission to the Union in February 1912. In the 1912 presidential election, the incumbent president William Howard Taft finished fourth in Arizona, receiving just 12.75 percent of the popular vote. The highest margin of victory ever in Arizona was in the 1936 presidential election, when the Democratic Party candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt (pictured) won Arizona, defeating the Republican Party candidate Alf Landon by 42.92 percent. Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate in the 2020 presidential election, won Arizona, defeating the incumbent president Donald Trump by a close margin of 0.3 percent. Though Arizona has been considered a stronghold state for the Republican Party, recent political realignment has led some to consider Arizona as a swing state. (Full list...)

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The Tribute in Light is an art installation created in remembrance of the September 11 attacks. It consists of 88 vertical searchlights arranged in two columns of light to represent the Twin Towers. It stands six blocks south of the World Trade Center on top of the Battery Parking Garage. Tribute in Light began as a temporary commemoration of the attacks in early 2002, but it became an annual event, currently produced on September 11 by the Municipal Art Society of New York. The Tribute in Light was conceived by artists John Bennett, Gustavo Bonevardi, Richard Nash Gould, Julian LaVerdiere, and Paul Myoda, and lighting consultant Paul Marantz.

Photograph credit: King of Hearts

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