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Research dossier · General Reference

2004 Madrid train bombings

Terrorist attack on Madrid's suburban trains

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The 2004 Madrid train bombings were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's general elections. The explosions killed 193 people and injured around 2,500. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain and the deadliest in Europe since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Scotland. The attacks were carried out by radical Islamists who opposed Spanish indirect involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2004 Madrid train bombings” is terrorist attack on Madrid's suburban trains. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Madrid, train and bombings, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 1988, 2003—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Madrid, train and bombings is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “terrorist attack on Madrid's suburban trains” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2004, 1988 and 2003.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “2004 Madrid train bombings”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 2004 Madrid train bombings primary sources, 2004 Madrid train bombings archive and Madrid research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “2004 Madrid train bombings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.