| 2005 Year In Review:
Highlights and News Index Remembering Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was
an African American civil rights activist and seamstress whom the U.S.
Congress dubbed the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement".
Parks is famous for her refusal on December 1, 1955 to obey a bus
driver's demand that she give up her seat to a white passenger. Her
subsequent arrest and trial for this act of civil disobedience ignited
the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the largest and most successful mass
movements against racial segregation in history, and launched Martin
Luther King, Jr., one of the organizers of the boycott, to the forefront
of the civil rights movement. Her role in American history earned her an
iconic status in American culture, and her actions have left an enduring
legacy for civil rights movements worldwide.
7/7 London Bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide
bombings that struck London's public transport system during the morning
rush hour.
At 8:50 a.m., three bombs exploded within 50 seconds of each
other on three London Underground trains. A fourth bomb exploded on
a bus at 9:47 a.m. in Tavistock Square. The bombings led to a
severe, day-long disruption of the city's transport and mobile
telecommunications infrastructure.
Fifty-six people were killed in the attacks, including the four
suspected bombers, with 700 injured. The incident was the deadliest
single act of terrorism in the United Kingdom since Lockerbie (the
1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270), and the
deadliest bombing in London since the Second World War.
Police investigators identified four men whom they believed to be
suicide bombers. These are the first suicide bombings in Western
Europe, and are thought to have been planned by Islamist
paramilitary organizations based in the United Kingdom; the
terrorist organization al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
The bombings came while the UK was hosting the first full day of the
31st G8 summit, a day after London was chosen to host the 2012 Summer
Olympics, two days after the beginning of the trial of fundamentalist
cleric Abu Hamza, five days after the Live 8 concert was held there, and
shortly after Britain had assumed the rotating presidency of the Council
of the European Union.
On 21 July 2005, a second series of four explosions took place on
the London Underground and a London bus. However, this time only the
detonators of the bombs exploded, and all four bombs remained
undetonated. There were no fatalities: the single injury reported at
the time was later revealed to be a hospitalized asthma sufferer.
All suspected bombers from this failed attack have been arrested by
police.
Death of a Father, Pope John Paul II
The funeral of Pope John Paul II was held on 8 April 2005, six days
after his death on 2 April. The funeral was followed by the novemdiales
devotional in which the Roman Catholic Church and its Eastern Rite
observe nine days of mourning.
On February 22, 1996, Pope John Paul II introduced revisions to
the centuries-old ceremonies surrounding papal death, repose and
burial. The revisions enacted through the apostolic constitution
Universi Dominici Gregis applied to his own funeral.
Coinciding with the funeral in Vatican City, archbishops and bishops
at cathedrals throughout the world celebrated memorial masses for
grieving Roman Catholics.
In a historical rarity, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Christian
leaders, as well as leaders in Judaism and Islam, offered memorials
and prayers of their own for their congregants sharing in the grief
of Roman Catholics. The current Archbishop of Canterbury was present
at the papal funeral for the first time since the Church of England
broke with the papacy in the 16th century.
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