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7 July 2005 London bombings

attacks on the London public transport system on 7 July 2005

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ10818
Source-derived summary

On 7 July 2005, Islamist terrorists carried out four coordinated suicide bombings targeting commuters travelling on London's public transport during the morning rush hour. The attacks are sometimes known as the 7/7 bombings or simply 7/7.

Three terrorists separately detonated three homemade bombs in quick succession aboard London Underground trains in Inner London. Later, a fourth terrorist detonated another bomb on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. The train bombings occurred on the Circle Line near Aldgate and at Edgware Road and on the Piccadilly Line near Russell Square.

Apart from the bombers, 52 people from 18 countries were killed and nearly 800 were injured in the attacks. It was the UK's deadliest terrorist incident since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 near Lockerbie and the UK's first Islamist suicide attack.

The explosions were caused by improvised explosive devices made from concentrated hydrogen peroxide and pepper, packed into backpacks. The bombings were followed two weeks later by a series of attempted attacks that failed to cause injury or damage.

Attacks

London Underground

At 8:49 a.m.

Editorial summary

“7 July 2005 London bombings” enters the record as attacks on the London public transport system on 7 July 2005. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what July, London and bombings can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—2005, 1988—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around July, London and bombings.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“7 July 2005 London bombings” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, July, London and bombings provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10818. The Library of Congress control number is sh2005004604. Authority coordinates are 51.505, -0.079. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 1988.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 7 July 2005 London 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.