Major Outbreaks - Past
- 1881 Assassination of Tsar Alexander II - At this time period, the emergence of a radical militant group called the Land and Freedom Party had begun to undertake a program of assassinating important government officials in order to encourage political reform. In December 1879, a terrorist section of this party, the Narodnaya Volya, decided to kill Alexander II because they wanted to fuel a social revolution. Many unsuccessful events at assassination led to numerous arrests, but finally one assassin succeeded in killing the reforming tsar. This attack resulted in the end of an era of reform and instead instigated the development of a policy of repression and autocracy.
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ETA assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco 1973 - The ETA killed the successor of the dictator Franciso Franco by exploding a bomb under his usual parking spot outside a Madrid church. Since the ETA is trying to form an independent Basque state, it uses terrorism to kill prominent Spanish officials in order to broadcast its message.
- Jubille Plot 1887 - Queen Victoria was targeted as the victim for part of a terrorist plot intended to assassinate the Queen, and other members of the royal family. Ironically, this event was actually hatched by the British secret service and supervised by Lord Salisbury. The secret service used this plot in order to expose and outlaw Irish republican terrorist institutions and to show that the Irish were incapable of ruling their own country by linking Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell with terrorists.