In 1991 ‘The Birmingham Six’ were released from prison when the court of appeal found them not guilty of the bombing that killed 21 people. In 1974 Paddy Joe Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter, Billy Power and Johnny Walker were arrested under the suspicion of planting explosives in two Birmingham pubs in an IRA attack which killed 21 and injured 160. In court they said that they confessed to the bombings only after being beaten by police. The court didn’t believe their story and they were convicted of the crimes. After spending more than 16 years in prison, ‘The Birmingham Six’ were found innocent and released.
In 1964 Jack Ruby is sentenced to death for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Lee Harvey Oswald was the suspect gunmen who shot US President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November the 22nd 1963. As Oswald was being transported to a more secure jail through the police department basement, he was shot by night club owner Jack Ruby with a hand gun. Ruby was detained and Lee Harvey Oswald died of his injuries. Many people saw Ruby as a hero but he had committed murder in cold blood and was put on trial for the crime. His defence was that he was so distraught by the assassination of JFK that he was not in full control of his actions. The verdict was the first to be televised in the United States and millions watched as Jack Ruby was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death by the electric chair. In October 1966 the court of appeal reversed the decision on the grounds that he couldn’t of received a fair trial in Texas at the time. Jack Ruby died in a Dallas Hospital of Lung Cancer while awaiting a re-trial in January 1967.
In 1879 Albert Einstein is born in Ulm, Germany. Considered to be the most influential physicist of the 20th centaury, his theories of general and special relativity revolutionised the way we look at the universe. These theories showed that matter could be converted into energy and vice versa, which was proven with the creation of atomic energy and is how we now know our sun produces energy. He also suggested that time, and distance are relative to the speed an object is travelling (this has also been proven correct). He was so influential around the world that he was offered the job of President of Israel by the Prime minister when President Weizmann died but he turned down the job. He wrote his first scientific paper aged 16, titled "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields." And it considered the relative speed of a stationary observer in comparison to a person moving on a beam of light. This was the first steps on the path to genius.
