11 October 1982

Raising the Mary Rose

Raising the Mary Rose meant overcoming a number of delicate problems that had never been encountered before. The salvage of the Swedish warship Vasa 1959–61 was the only comparable precedent, but it had been a relatively straightforward operation since the hull was completely intact and rested upright on the seabed. It had been raised with basically the same methods as were in use in Tudor England: cables were slung under the hull and attached to two pontoons on either side of the ship which was then gradually raised and towed into shallower waters. Only one third of the Mary Rose was intact and she lay deeply embedded in mud. If the hull were raised in the traditional way, there was no guarantee that it would have enough structural strength to hold together out of water. Many suggestions for salvage were discarded, including the construction of a cofferdam around the wreck site, filling the ship with small buoyant objects (such as ping pong balls) or even pumping brine into the seabed and freezing it so that it would float and take the hull with it. After lengthy discussions it was decided in February 1980 that the hull would first be emptied of all its contents and strengthened with steel braces and frames. It would then be lifted to the surface with floating sheerlegs attached to nylon strops passing under the hull and transferred to a cradle. It was also decided that the ship would be recovered before the end of the diving season in 1982. If the wreck stayed uncovered any longer it risked irreversible damage from biological decay and tidal scouring.
During the last year of the operation, the massive scope of full excavation and salvage was beginning to take its toll on those closely involved in the project. In May 1981 Alexander McKee voiced concerns about the method chosen for the salvage and openly questioned Margaret Rule's position as excavation leader. McKee felt ignored in what he viewed as a project where he had always played a central role, both as the initiator of the search for the Mary Rose and other ships in the Solent, and as an active member throughout the diving operations. He had several supporters who all pointed to the risk of the project's turning into an embarrassing failure if the ship were damaged during salvage. To address these concerns it was suggested that the hull should be placed on top of a supporting steel cradle underwater. This would avoid the inherent risks of damaging the wooden structure if it were lifted out of the water without appropriate support. The idea of using nylon strops was also discarded in favour of drilling holes through the hull at 170 points and passing iron bolts through them to allow the attachment of wires connected to a lifting frame.

The wreck of the Mary Rose clear of the water on October 11, 1982

In the spring of 1982, after three intense seasons of archaeological underwater work, preparations began for the salvage. The operation soon ran into problems: early on there were difficulties with the custom-made lifting equipment; divers on the project belonging to the Royal Engineers had to be pulled because of the outbreak of the Falklands War; and the method of lifting the hull had to be considerably altered as late as June. After the frame was properly attached to the hull it was slowly jacked up on four legs straddling the wreck site to pull the ship off the seabed. The massive crane of the barge Tog Mor was then used to lift the frame and hull on to the specially designed cradle which was padded with water-filled bags. On the morning of 11 October 1982, the final lift of the entire package of cradle, hull and lifting frame began. At 9:03 the first timbers of the Mary Rose broke the surface in the presence of the salvaging team, Prince Charles and curious spectators on boats circling the site. A second set of bags under the hull was inflated with air to cushion the waterlogged wood and finally the whole package was transferred to the barge that would take the hull ashore. Though eventually successful, the salvage operation was close to floundering on two occasions; first when one of the supporting legs of the lifting frame was bent and had to be removed and later when a corner of the frame, with "an unforgettable crunch", slipped more than a metre (3 feet) and came close to crushing part of the hull.

10 October 2008

Orakzai bombing

10 October 2008 Orakzai bombing
Location	Orakzai Agency, Pakistan
Date	10 October 2008
Attack type	Suicide car bomb
Death(s)	110
Injured	200+

The 10 October 2008 Orakzai bombing occurred when a suicide bomber drove and detonated a pick-up truck packed with 300 kg of explosives into a meeting of 600 people, killing 40 instantly and injuring 81, although the toll later rose to 110 as many died in hospitals. The attack occurred in a remote region where the injured could not get medical attention for several hours.
The attack was preceded by a row between Taliban militants and local Shia tribesmen. Angry tribesmen clashed with the Taliban the day before and destroyed the homes of militants in the area. At the time of the attack, the Ali Khel tribesmen had gathered to discuss ways to evict the Taliban from the region.

Background

On September 28, the Taliban had asked the Ali Khel tribe, the biggest and the most influential tribe in the area, and its sub-clans to leave the region because they belonged to the minority Shia community. The tribesmen initially left, although a political agent summoned a grand jirga of all 18 tribes of the Orakzai Agency on September 30 to clear the area of the Taliban by a lashkar, or local militia. The Ali Khel tribe then returned to the area where they held a jirga on October 7 to take collective action against the Taliban along with representatives of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat. On October 10, the tribesmen gathered at Khadizai village to destroy the local Taliban headquarters and homes of people sheltering the militants.

October 9, 1967

Death of Che Guevara

Capture and execution

"There was no person more feared by the company (CIA) than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America."

— Philip Agee, CIA agent, later defected to Cuba 

Félix Rodríguez, a Cuban exile turned CIA Special Activities Division operative, advised Bolivian troops during the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia. In addition, the 2007 documentary My Enemy's Enemy, directed by Kevin Macdonald, alleges that Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie aka "The Butcher of Lyon", advised and possibly helped the CIA orchestrate Guevara's eventual capture.
On October 7, 1967, an informant apprised the Bolivian Special Forces of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment in the Yuro ravine. On October 8, they encircled the area with 1,800 soldiers, and Guevara was wounded and taken prisoner while leading a detachment with Simeón Cuba Sarabia. Che biographer Jon Lee Anderson reports Bolivian Sergeant Bernardino Huanca's account: that a twice wounded Guevara, his gun rendered useless, shouted "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead."

Monument to Guevara in La Higuera

Guevara was tied up and taken to a dilapidated mud schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera on the night of October 8. For the next half day, Guevara refused to be interrogated by Bolivian officers and would only speak quietly to Bolivian soldiers. One of those Bolivian soldiers, helicopter pilot Jaime Nino de Guzman, describes Che as looking "dreadful". According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that "Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke." De Guzman states that he "took pity" and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, with Guevara then smiling and thanking him. Later on the night of October 8, Guevara, despite having his hands tied, kicked Bolivian Officer Espinosa into the wall, after the officer entered the schoolhouse in order to snatch Guevara's pipe from his mouth as a souvenir. In another instance of defiance, Guevara spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche shortly before his execution.
The following morning on October 9, Guevara asked to see the "maestra" (school teacher) of the village, 22-year-old Julia Cortez. Cortez would later state that she found Guevara to be an "agreeable looking man with a soft and ironic glance" and that during their conversation she found herself "unable to look him in the eye", because his "gaze was unbearable, piercing, and so tranquil." During their short conversation, Guevara pointed out to Cortez the poor condition of the schoolhouse, stating that it was "anti-pedagogical" to expect campesino students to be educated there, while "government officials drive Mercedes cars" ... declaring "that's what we are fighting against."
Later that morning on October 9, Bolivian President René Barrientos ordered that Guevara be killed. The order was relayed by Félix Rodríguez despite the U.S. government’s desire that Guevara be taken to Panama for further interrogation. The executioner was Mario Terán, a half-drunken sergeant in the Bolivian army who had requested to shoot Che on the basis of the fact that three of his friends from B Company, all named "Mario", had been killed in an earlier firefight with Guevara's band of guerrillas. To make the bullet wounds appear consistent with the story the government planned to release to the public, Félix Rodríguez ordered Terán to aim carefully to make it appear that Guevara had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army. Gary Prado, the Bolivian captain in command of the army company that captured Guevara, said that the reasons Barrientos ordered the immediate execution of Guevara is so there would be no possibility that Guevara would escape from prison, and also so there would be no drama in regard to a trial.
Moments before Guevara was executed he was asked by a Bolivian soldier if he was thinking about his own immortality. "No", he replied, "I'm thinking about the immortality of the revolution." When Sergeant Terán entered the hut, Che Guevara then told his executioner, "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!" Terán hesitated, then opened fire with his semiautomatic rifle, hitting Guevara in the arms and legs. Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Terán then fired several times again, wounding him fatally in the chest at 1:10 pm, according to Rodríguez. In all, Guevara was shot nine times. This included five times in the legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, once in the chest, and finally in the throat.
Months earlier, during his last public declaration to the Tricontinental Conference, Guevara wrote his own epitaph, stating "Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons."

Post-execution, remains and memorial

The day after his execution on October 10, 1967, Guevara's corpse was displayed to the world press in the laundry house of the Vallegrande hospital.      

 

After his execution, Guevara's body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to nearby Vallegrande, where photographs were taken of him lying on a concrete slab in the laundry room of the Nuestra Señora de Malta. Several witnesses were called to confirm that it was Guevara, key amongst them British journalist Richard Gott, the only witness to have met Guevara when he was alive.
Put on public show, as hundreds of local residents filed past the body, many of them considered Guevara's corpse to represent a "Christ-like" visage, with some of them even surreptitiously clipping locks of his hair as divine relics. Such comparisons were further extended when two weeks later upon seeing the post-mortem photographs, English art critic John Berger observed that they resembled two famous paintings: Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and Andrea Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ. There were also four correspondents present when Guevara's body arrived in Vallegrande, including Bjorn Kumm of the Swedish Aftonbladet, who described the scene in an November 11, 1967, exclusive for The New Republic.
A declassified memorandum dated October 11, 1967 to United States President Lyndon B. Johnson from his National Security Advisor, Walt Whitman Rostow, called the decision to kill Guevara "stupid" but "understandable from a Bolivian standpoint." After the execution, Rodríguez took several of Guevara's personal items, including a Rolex GMT Master wristwatch which he continued to wear many years later, often showing them to reporters during the ensuing years. Today, some of these belongings, including his flashlight, are on display at the CIA. After a military doctor amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's body to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. The hands were preserved in formaldehyde to be sent to Buenos Aires for fingerprint identification. (His fingerprints were on file with the Argentine police.) They were later sent to Cuba.

Plaza de la Revolución, in Havana, Cuba. Aside the Ministry of the Interior building where Guevara once worked, is a 5 story steel outline of his face. Under the image is Guevara's motto, the Spanish phrase: "Hasta la Victoria Siempre" (English: Until the Everlasting Victory Always).

On October 15, Fidel Castro acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout the island. On October 18, Castro addressed a crowd of one million mourners in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución and spoke about Guevara's character as a revolutionary. Fidel Castro closed his impassioned eulogy thusly:

"If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be, we must say: Let them be like Che! If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation: We want them to be educated in Che’s spirit! If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without a single stain on his action, is Che!"

French intellectual Régis Debray, who was captured in April 1967 while with Guevara in Bolivia, gave an interview from prison, in August 1968, where he enlarged on the circumstances of Guevara's capture. Debray, who had lived with Guevara's band of guerrillas for a short time, said that in his view they were "victims of the forest" and thus "eaten by the jungle." Debray described a destitute situation where Guevara's men suffered malnutrition, lack of water, absence of shoes, and only possessed six blankets for 22 men. Debray recounts that Guevara and the others had been suffering an "illness" which caused their hands and feet to swell into "mounds of flesh" to the point where you could not discern the fingers on their hands. Despite the futile situation, Debray described Guevara as "optimistic about the future of Latin America" and remarked that Guevara was "resigned to die in the knowledge that his death would be a sort of renaissance", noting that Guevara perceived death "as a promise of rebirth" and "ritual of renewal."
In late 1995, retired Bolivian General Mario Vargas revealed to Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, that Guevara's body was located near a Vallegrande airstrip. The result was a multi-national search for the remains, which would last more than a year. In July 1997, a team of Cuban geologists and Argentine forensic anthropologists discovered the remnants of seven bodies in two mass graves, including one man with amputated hands (like Guevara). Bolivian government officials with the Ministry of Interior later identified the body as Guevara when the excavated teeth "perfectly matched" a plaster mold of Che's teeth, made in Cuba prior to his Congolese expedition. The "clincher" then arrived when Argentine forensic anthropologist Alejandro Inchaurregui inspected the inside hidden pocket of a blue jacket dug up next to the handless cadaver and found a small bag of pipe tobacco. Nino de Guzman, the Bolivian helicopter pilot who had given Che a small bag of tobacco, later remarked that he "had serious doubts" at first and "thought the Cubans would just find any old bones and call it Che"; he stated "after hearing about the tobacco pouch, I have no doubts." On October 17, 1997, Guevara's remains, with those of six of his fellow combatants, were laid to rest with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the Cuban city of Santa Clara, where he had commanded over the decisive military victory of the Cuban Revolution.

Che Guevara's Monument and Mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba.

Removed when Guevara was captured were his 30,000-word, hand-written diary, a collection of his personal poetry, and a short story he authored about a young Communist guerrilla who learns to overcome his fears.^[208] His diary documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia^[209] with the first entry on November 7, 1966 shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last dated October 7, 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely because of discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara's decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their overall unsuccessful venture. It also records the rift between Guevara and the Communist Party of Bolivia that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally expected and shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, partly because of the fact that the guerrilla group had learned Quechua, unaware that the local language was actually a Tupí–Guaraní language. As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.
The Bolivian Diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world. There are at least four additional diaries in existence—those of Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias "Braulio"), Harry Villegas Tamayo ("Pombo"), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez ("Rolando") and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez ("Benigno")—each of which reveals additional aspects of the events. In July 2008, the Bolivian government of Evo Morales unveiled Guevara's formerly sealed diaries composed in two frayed notebooks, along with a logbook and several black-and-white photographs. At this event, Bolivia's vice minister of culture, Pablo Groux, expressed that there were plans to publish photographs of every handwritten page later in the year. Meanwhile, in August 2009, anthropologists working for Bolivia's Justice Ministry discovered and unearthed five of Guevara's fellow guerrillas near the Bolivian town of Teoponte.

8 October 2005.

2005 Kashmir earthquake

Date	October 8, 2005
Magnitude	7.6 Mw
Depth	10 km
Epicenter	Muzaffarabad, AJK
Countries or regions	Pakistan, India, Afghanistan
Casualties	79,000 dead (17th deadliest earthquake of all time) 106,000+ injured

The 2005 Kashmir earthquake was a major earthquake centered in Pakistan-administered Kashmir known as Azad Kashmir, near the city of Muzaffarabad, affecting Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It occurred at 08:52:37 Pakistan Standard Time (03:52:37 GMT) on 8 October 2005. It registered a moment magnitude of 7.6 making it similar in size to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1935 Quetta earthquake, the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, and the 2009 Sumatra earthquakes. As of 8 November, the government of Pakistan's official death toll was 75,000. The earthquake also affected countries in the surrounding region where tremors were felt in Tajikistan, western China; while officials say nearly 1,400 people also died in Indian-administered Kashmir and four people in Afghanistan. The severity of the damage caused by the earthquake is attributed to severe upthrust, coupled with poor construction.
Well over US$ 5.4 billion (400 billion Pakistani rupees) in aid arrived from all around the world. US Marine and Army helicopters stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan quickly flew aid into the devastated region. Five crossing points were opened on the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan to facilitate the flow of humanitarian and medical aid to the affected region, and international aid teams from around the world came to the region to assist in relief.

The earthquake

Map depicting tectonic plates shows how Pakistan lies on the direct fault line of South Asia, The Middle Eastern Iranian plate and the Eurasian Plate in the north

Pakistan-administered Kashmir lies in the area of collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. The geological activity born out of this collision, also responsible for the birth of the Himalayan mountain range, is the cause of unstable seismicity in the region. The Pakistan Meteorological Department estimated the 5.2 magnitude on the richter scale. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured its magnitude as a minimum of 7.6 on the moment magnitude scale, with its epicentre at 34°29′35″N 73°37′44″E, about 19 km (12 mi) northeast of Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and 100 km (62 mi) north-northeast of the national capital Islamabad. The earthquake is classified as "major" by the USGS. The hypocenter was located at a depth of 26 km (16 mi) below the surface. The Japan Meteorological Agency estimated its moment magnitude at 7.8. By comparison, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake had a magnitude of 9.15. The worst-hit areas were Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,and western parts of the Kashmir valley in Indian-administered Kashmir. Also affected were some parts of the Pakistani province of Punjab, the capital city of Islamabad, and the city of Karachi which experienced a minor aftershock of magnitude 4.6. There were many secondary earthquakes in the region, mainly to the northwest of the original epicentre. A total of 147 aftershocks were registered in the first day after the initial quake, of which one had a magnitude of 6.2. Twenty-eight of these aftershocks occurred with magnitudes greater than the original quake. On October 19, a series of strong aftershocks, one with a magnitude of 5.8, occurred about 65 km (40 mi) north-northwest of Muzaffarabad. As of 27 October 2005 there have been more than 978 aftershocks with a magnitude of 4.0 and above that continue to occur daily. (See USGS for a list of recent aftershocks and effects.) Since then, measurements from satellites have shown that mountain parts directly above the epicenter have risen by a few meters, giving ample proof that the rising of the Himalayas is still going on, and that this earthquake was a consequence of that.

Casualties

2005 Kashmir earthquake casualties
Location	Dead	Injured
Pakistan,   Pakistan-administered Kashmir	73,338	100,000
Indian-administered Kashmir	1,360	6,266
Afghanistan	4	14
Total	74,500+	106,000+

Most of the casualties resulting from the earthquake were in Pakistan, where the official confirmed death toll was 74,698, putting it higher than the massive scale of destruction of the 1935 Quetta earthquake. International donors have estimated that about 86,000 died but this has not been confirmed or endorsed by Pakistani authorities.
As Saturday is a normal school day in the region, most students were at schools when the earthquake struck. Many were buried under collapsed school buildings. Many people were also trapped in their homes and, because it was the month of Ramadan, most people were taking a nap after their pre-dawn meal and did not have time to escape during the earthquake. Reports indicate that entire towns and villages were completely wiped out in Northern Pakistan with other surrounding areas also suffering severe damage.

"...a second, massive wave of death will happen if we do not step up our efforts now", Kofi Annan said on 20 October with reference to the thousand remote villages in which people are in need of medical attention, food, clean water and shelter and the 120,000 survivors that have not yet been reached."

According to Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz

"made the appeal to survivors" on 26 October to come down to valleys and cities for relief, because bad weather, mountainous terrain, landslides and blocked roads are making it difficult for relief workers to reach each house and the winter snows are imminent."

In Islamabad, the Margalla Towers, an apartment complex, collapsed and killed many of the residents.

Afghan territory

Four deaths were reported in Afghanistan, including a young girl who died in Jalalabad after a wall collapsed on her. The quake was felt in Kabul, but the effects were minimal.

October 7, 1985,

Achille Lauro hijacking
 
On October 7, 1985, four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said.

The Achille Lauro in 1989

The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed disabled Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and then threw his body overboard. The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.
United States President Ronald Reagan ordered that the plane be intercepted by F-14 Tomcats from the VF-74 "BeDevilers" and the VF-103 "Sluggers" of Carrier Air Wing 17, based on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, on October 10 and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a N.A.T.O. base in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested by the Italians after a disagreement between American and Italian authorities. The other passengers on the plane (including the hijackers' leader, Abu Abbas) were allowed to continue on to their destination, despite protests by the United States. Egypt demanded an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course.

Disagreement between Italy and U.S.

Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi claimed Italian territorial rights over the NATO base. Italian Air Force personnel and Carabinieri lined up facing the United States Navy SEALs which had arrived with two C-141s. Other Carabinieri were sent from Catania to reinforce the Italians. It was the gravest diplomatic crisis between Italy and United States and was resolved five hours later.

Later years

The ship continued in service; she was reflagged in 1987 when the Lauro Line was taken over by the Mediterranean Shipping Company to become StarLauro. On November 30, 1994, she caught fire off the coast of Somalia while enroute to South Africa. At that time, the cause of the fire was suggested by Italian officials to be a discarded cigarette. The crew attempted to battle the fire for several hours but were unsuccessful. Abandoned, the vessel sank on December 2.

6 October 1976

Thammasat University massacre

6 October 1976 Massacre
6 October 1976 Massacre Memorial in Thammasat University, Bangkok
Location	Thammasat University and at Sanam Luang in Bangkok, Thailand
Date	6 October 1976
Target	Demonstration
Attack type	Shooting
Weapon(s)	Small arms
Death(s)	46
Injured	167
Perpetrator(s)	Pramarn Adireksarn (deputy prime minister), Lieutenant-General Chumphon Lohachala (police), Prachuap Khirikhan (Border Patrol Police)

The Thammasat University Massacre, or Massacre of 6 October 1976 (เหตุการณ์ 6 ตุลา), was an attack on students and protesters that occurred on the campus of Thammasat University and at Sanam Luang in Bangkok. Students from various universities were demonstrating against the return to Thailand of Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, a former military ruler. By the official count, forty-six people died in the attack, during which protesters were shot, beaten and their bodies mutilated.
After Thanom was replaced by a civilian prime minister in October 1973, an army faction headed by Major-General Pramarn Adireksarn began plotting a return to military rule. Right-wing paramilitary groups were armed and trained and a crackdown on left-wing activists was prepared. King Bhumibol was a notable supporter of the paramilitary groups, a situation that has been described as "royal vigilantism." The Communist takeover of Indochina in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War convinced many that Thailand could be the next communist target and that the nation's unruly left-wing students were aiding the enemy.
The day before the massacre, a photo of a mock hanging by Thammasat demonstrators was published in the Bangkok press. To many, the students in the photo appeared to be hanging the Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn in effigy. In response, outraged paramilitary forces gathered outside the university that evening.
Lieutenant-General Chumphon Lohachala, deputy director of the national police, ordered an attack in the morning and authorized free fire on the campus. A junta headed by the defense minister, Admiral Sa-ngad Chaloryu, seized power immediately after the massacre. The membership of the junta was more moderate than that of Pramarn's faction and the relationship between the factions remains poorly understood. The junta appointed Tanin Kraivixien, a hard-line anti-communist and a royal favorite, as prime minister.

Background

People power establishes a democracy

Prior to 1973, Thailand for several decades had had a military dominated government with King Bhumibol Adulyadej serving as a ceremonial head of state. Student demonstrations on 14 October 1973 demanding a new constitution led to the "Three Tyrants" — Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, Field Marshal Praphat Charusathien, and Col. Narong Kittikachorn — fleeing the country and leaving it leaderless. The prestige of the king was greatly enhanced when he appeared to side with the demonstrators by appointing Sanya Dharmasakti, the highly regarded chancellor of Thammasat University, as prime minister. Although widely interpreted as a royal endorsement of democracy, the king was motivated mainly by the need to restore public order, since police had shot and killed 75 demonstrators. He remained wary of popular passions and began developing ties with anti-communist leaders. The student leftists, meanwhile, grew critical of the army's counterinsurgency campaign and even accused it of committing atrocities and blaming them on the communists. In December 1974, coup plotters brought Thanom back to Thailand, but he left almost immediately as public opinion was solidly opposed to a return of military rule at this time.
An elected, parliamentary government under Prime Minister M.R. Seni Pramoj, leader of the center-right Democrat Party, was established in February 1975. As there was no clear majority in parliament, the government was politically unstable, with Seni replaced in April by his more liberal brother M.R. Kukrit Pramoj, who led the center-left Social Action Party. An international economic downturn and the rise of student activism led to more strikes and farmer protests.

Anti-Communists prepare a crackdown

The communist takeover of South Vietnam following the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, and in particular the seizure of power in Laos by the communist Pathēt Lao in June, had a great effect on Thai public opinion. Many feared Thailand would be the next target of the Communists, and felt that left-wing activists were aiding the enemy. In August, Bangkok police went on a rampage through the Thammasat campus, a rehearsal for the later massacre. The abolition of the Laotian monarchy and the impresionment of the royal family in December 1975 shocked King Bhunibol and convinced him of the need for a crackdown on the Thai radical left. A military coup was impossible as long as Kukrit was backed by army chief General Boonchai Bamroongpong, a protégé of General Krit Srivara, a popular hero because of his role in the events of October 1973.
January 1976 was a month of upheaval, strikes and gigantic rallies that left the prime minister without a parliamentary majority, This convinced many formerly constitutionalist army officers that a coup might be necessary to restore stability. An increase in the price of rice provoked a general strike. Kukrit capitulated to the demands of the unions, and the right wing was outraged. A rally of 15,000 organized by the paramilitary group Nawapol and Defense Minister Pramarn demanded Kukrit turn power over to the military. The rally was led by the controversial Buddhist monk Kittivudho Bhikkhu, who bizarrely had stated that killing Communists was not a sin. A group of liberal MPs from the Democrat Party broke with the ruling coalition and joined with the left-wing opposition. Boonchai vetoed the idea of a left-leaning ruling coalition, forcing Kukrit to dissolve parliament and schedule an election for April 4. This was too close a call even for moderate army officers. The Laotian example of a left-leaning coalition government being taken over by communist was still fresh. Admiral Sa-ngad, the supreme commander of the armed forces, submitted plans for a coup. (The supreme commander outranks the army chief, but the position is less influential.) According to Paul Handley, the king replied the time was not appropriate. However, the king ssaid he thought Tanin Kraiwichien, a former Supreme Court judge and a right-wing radio host, would be the best choice for prime minister if a coup should become necessary.
In contrast to the Krit/Sa-ngad clique, Pramarn's group included plotters who had never completely accepted parliamentary government or the ouster of Field Marshal Thanom: right-wing Democrats, Chart Thai Party members, and officers of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC). The two coup plots would advance separately over the next few months, a re-emergence of the Krit vs Thanom army factionalism of 1973.

Order of battle

Several right-wing militia groups played major roles as perpetrators of the Thammasat student massacre. These groups were armed and trained by the army and by the Border Patrol Police beginning in late 1974 in preparation for a crackdown. Paul Handley, author of The King Never Smiles, a controversial biography of the king, describes the situation as "royal vigilantism". Thai Marxist writer Giles Ji Ungpakorn compared these groups to the fascist paramilitary groups of 1930s Europe. (Compare also to the Black Hundreds of Tsarist Russia.)
Nawapol (Thai: นว พล, power of nine) was founded in 1974 by Wattana Kiewvimol and used the slogan "Nation-Religion-Monarchy". The name also refers to King Bhumibol, the ninth king of the Chakri dynasty. This secretive group had about 50,000 members in mid-1975. The group received covert military assistance from ISOC and conducted advanced military training for its members at Jittiphawan College, a Buddhist seminary in Chonburi Province founded by the rightwing monk Kittivudho. This was said to include training in assassination, and the killing of a number of left-wing activists was attributed to Nawapol. Tanin, the post-coup prime minister, was a senior member of this group.
The Red Gaur (กระทิงแดง, Krating Daeng) was founded in 1974 by Special Colonel Sudsai Hasadin, an ISOC officer. In mid-1975, it numbered 25,000 members, mainly vocational students, a group which had played a major part in the demonstrations against Field Marshal Thanom, but had now broken with the leftist students over their apparent embrace of communism. The Red Gaur was Nawapol's youth division. Red is the colour of the former Thai national flag and is considered to represent a patriotism on the present banner. A gaur is a kind of wild buffalo. The group's slogan proclaimed it to be the "Anti-Communist Imperialism United Front". Like the SA in Germany in the 1930s, Red Gaur members provoked fights with left-wing activists and trade unionists. In February 1976, Red Gaurs threw bombs at a leftist protest, killing four students. At a highly publicized event, the king test-fired Red Gaur weapons.
The Volunteer Defense Corps or VDC (the Or Sor, also called the Village Scouts ลูกเสือชาวบ้าน,) formed in 1954 to provide law and order and emergency or natural disaster response, was expanded in 1974 when ISOC gained control,. It was extended to urban areas to counter left-wing political activism. A member of the royal family (often the queen) would present the identifying VDC kerchief to each village scout. At one point, 1 in every 5 Thai adults was a member of the Village Scouts.
When the leftist demonstrators took over the Thammasat University campus, the main organizations coordinating the activities were the National Student Centre and the Federation of Trade Unions.

Crisis in October

Thanom returns

Samak, a confident of the queen, flew to Singapore and told former military ruler Thanom that the palace had approved his return to Thailand. When Thanom returned on September 19, he denied political motive and stated that he came to Thailand only to do penance at his father's deathbed. He was ordained as a monk at Wat Bovornives, a temple closely associated with the royal family. The ceremony was illegally closed to avoid challenges to the ordination and the temple was ringed by the Red Gaur. When the king made a public visit to see Thanom, Prime Minister Seni responded by offering his resignation. This was rejected by parliament. Students protested Thanom's return at Sanam Luang in Bangkok on 30 September, but protests soon moved to the nearby campus of Thammasat University. Hoping to avoid a repetition of the police rampage that occurred the previous year, the university had canceled examinations and closed the campus. However, demonstrators broke down the gates to occupy the campus and stage a sit in. Forty-three labor unions demanded that the government expel Thanom or face a general strike.

Mock hanging provokes outrage

A photo of a mock hanging performed by the demonstrators at Thammasat was published on October 5 in two Bangkok newspapers, the English-language Bangkok Post and the vernacular Dao Sayam. Because the student actor who played the victim bore a certain resemblance to the crown prince, the demonstrators were accused of hanging in effigy a member of the royal family. It is sometimes claimed the photo was doctored to make the student resemble the crown prince, but all known surviving copies are identical. In reality, the mock hanging protested the murder of two trade unionists by police in Nakhon Pathom on September 25. On the army's Tank Corps Radio, Utharn Sanitwongs and other announcers accused the students of lèse majesté and chanted "kill them" and "kill the communists." Although the mock hanging has been the object of much attention, the organizers of the massacre would have found an alternative pretext had it not occurred. By the evening of 5 October, there were 4,000 royalist paramilitaries at the gates of Thammasat, where about 2,000 students were holding a sit in.

Police attack campus

At a cabinet meeting held early on October 6, Pramarn, leader of the Chart Thai Party and deputy prime minister, stated that the time had come to end the student movement once and for all. At about 5am the paramilitaries began to fire into the campus using military weapons. The Border Patrol Police shut all exits at about 7am. A dump truck smashed through the main gate and police rushed in at about 11am. Several students who were armed opened fire, but they were quickly overcome. Although the students pleaded for a ceasefire, Chumphon, the police commander, authorized free fire on the campus. Students who tried to surrender were forced to lie on the ground. Several were beaten to death and then hanged. Those who attempted to escape by jumping into the Chaophraya River were shot at from naval vessels. Wimolwan, a nursing student, was shot dead while trying to swim to safety. The attack lasted for several hours. Time described the event as a "A nightmare of lynching and burning":

“

Suddenly the nightmare that Bangkok had dreaded was happening: a wild outbreak of kicking, clubbing, shooting, lynching. Youths hurled themselves into the river to keep from being shot. Then the blazing finale as a heap of gasoline-soaked bodies was set afire.

”

About a thousand demonstrators were taken prisoner and humiliated by being stripped to the waist (though females were allowed to keep their bras on), made to crawl, or kicked. Female students allegedly were raped, alive and dead, by police and Red Gaurs. Officially, there were 46 dead and 167 wounded. Puey Ungphakorn, rector of Thammasat at the time of the massacre, gives an unofficial estimate of over 100 based on anonymous sources at the Chinese Benevolent Association, which disposed of the bodies. The massacre continued until noon, when it was halted by a rainstorm. It was "brutality of the utmost barbarity against workers, students and peasant activists," according to Giles. The Border Patrol Police, Red Gaur, Nawapol, and the Village Scouts rallied at the Royal Turf Club at about 4pm and proceeded to Government House, where they demanded and received Seni's resignation.
At 6:30pm, the National Administrative Reform Council (NARC), a 24-member military junta headed by Sa-ngad, seized power. Sa-ngad had been appointed defense minister by Seni on September 25. NARC was a group of moderate officers who acted to prevent Pramarn's extreme right-wing faction from seizing power. The fact that Chumphon was willing to go on record authorizing the shootings suggests he knew that a coup was imminent, as a civilian government would have prosecuted him.

Aftermath

Rise and fall of ultraroyalism

The coup was greeted with widespread relief because the crisis sparked by Thanom's return had created enormous anxiety. "It was the pattern of several previous coups...initiating violence, leaving the police to show they could not establish order, then allowing the military to step in," wrote Handley. This time the manipulation of public fear was particularly brazen since the king had introduced the catalyst for the violence by allowing Thanom to return, claims Handley. The outrage triggered by the photo of the mock hanging introduced a spontaneous element, but the pattern of training and recruiting paramilitary forces during the previous year showed that violence against leftists was planned well in advance. Four days after the massacre, says Handley, the crown prince distributed awards to paramilitary personnel involved.
On October 8, NARC appointed royal favorite Thanin Kraiwixien as prime minister. Disregarding the junta's "shortlist", Thanin picked a cabinet of the extreme right, including Samak as interior minister. Sa-ngad remained as defense minister and recently retired army chief Boonchai was appointed deputy prime minister. Three thousand suspected leftists were rounded up, all media was put under censorship, and membership in a communist organization was made punishable by death. There were sweeping purges of the universities, media, and civil service. Democracy would be restored gradually under a 12-year plan. This was the most fiercely royalist and anti-leftist government in Thai history, but it also cracked down hard on corruption. About 800 urban leftists fled to the Communist-controlled dorder areas after the coup. A wave of guerilla attacks followed, but these peaked in early 1977.
Thanin's ultranationlism quickly alienated almost every segment of Thai society, much to the surprise of the king. NARC staged another coup in October 1977 and replaced Thanin with one of its own members, Gen. Kriangsak Chomanan, who promised to speed up Thailand's return to democracy. The Communist Party of Thailand declined after Moscow-backed Vietnam invaded Beijing-allied Cambodia in 1979. This led to closer Sino-Thai relations and to a cutoff of Chinese aid for the Thai insurgents.

Massacre as history

None of the perpetrators of the 1976 massacre have been brought to justice and the issue is extremely sensitive in Thailand. The members of the junta have been amnestied, but there is no legal bar to prosecuting the other people who were involved. Many modern history textbooks in Thailand completely skip this event or include one-sided police reports from the time that claim student protesters had turned violent. Some play down the massacre as a 'misunderstanding' between the two sides, while even the most accurate are watered down versions of the event.
Thammasat University holds an annual event to display newspapers showing the atrocity, along with eyewitness accounts and historical records. A memorial was built on campus in 1996.
Samak was elected prime minister in 2008. When questioned about his role, he stated, "Only one died," and that one by accident. In an interview with CNN aired 9 and 10 February, the prime minister responded to questions about the massacre by saying he had been "an outsider by that time". He referred to, "One unlucky guy being beaten and burned in Sanam Luang". (This is a reference to artist Manas Siensingh, whose body was pulled from a pile of corpses and mutilated before cheering onlookers.)
An instance of a corpse being beaten with a chair is shown on the Single Cover, Holiday in Cambodia by the Dead Kennedys. The victim was a second year student from Chulalongkorn University.

5 October 1969

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Format	Sketch comedy
Created by	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Starring	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin Carol Cleveland
Opening theme	"Liberty Bell" by John Philip Sousa
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	45
Production
Running time	approx. 25–30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC1 (1969–1973) BBC2 (1974)
Original run	5 October 1969 – 5 December 1974
Chronology
Followed by	And Now for Something Completely Different

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (known during the final series as just Monty Python) is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and sketches without punchlines. It also featured Terry Gilliam's animations, which are often sequenced or merged with live action.
The first episode was recorded on 7 September and broadcast on 5 October 1969 on BBC One, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV.
The show often targets the idiosyncrasies of British life (especially that of professionals) and is at times politically charged. The members of Monty Python were highly educated. Terry Jones and Michael Palin are Oxford graduates; Eric Idle, John Cleese and Graham Chapman attended Cambridge; and American-born member Terry Gilliam is an Occidental College graduate. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous references to philosophers and literary figures. It followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his groundbreaking series Q5, rather than the traditional sketch show format. The team intended their humour to be impossible to categorise, and succeeded so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to define it, and later, similar material. Terry Jones once commented, jokingly, that the fact that they had inspired a new word in the dictionary shows how miserably they had failed.
The Pythons play the majority of the series characters themselves, including the majority of the female characters, but occasionally they required an extra actor. Regular supporting cast members include Carol Cleveland (referred to by the team as the unofficial "Seventh Python"), Connie Booth (Cleese's first wife), series Producer Ian MacNaughton, Ian Davidson, Neil Innes (in the fourth series) and The Fred Tomlinson Singers (for musical numbers).
The series' theme song is the first segment of John Philip Sousa's The Liberty Bell, chosen because it was in the public domain, free to use without charge.

Title 

The title Monty Python's Flying Circus was partly the result of the group's reputation at the BBC. Michael Mills, BBC's Head of Comedy, wanted their name to include the word circus because the BBC referred to the six members wandering around the building as a "circus" (in particular "Baron Von Took's Flying Circus" after Barry Took, who had brought them to the BBC). The group added flying to make it sound less like an actual circus and more like something from World War I. Monty Python was added because they claimed it sounded like a really bad theatrical agent, the sort of person who would have brought them together, with Eric Idle suggesting Monty and John Cleese suggesting Python. 

The BBC had rejected some other names put forward by the group including "Whither Canada?", "Ow! It's Colin Plint", "A Horse, a Spoon and a Bucket", "The Toad Elevating Moment" and "Owl Stretching Time".

Recurring characters

In contrast to many other sketch comedy shows, Flying Circus made up new characters for each new sketch and had only a handful of recurring characters, many of whom were involved only in titles and linking sequences, including:

• Arthur Pewtey (Palin), a socially inept, extremely dull man who appears most notably in the "Argument Clinic", "Marriage Guidance Counsellor", and "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketches. His sketches all take the form of an office appointment with an authority figure (usually played by Cleese, but occasionally Chapman), which are used to parody the officious side of the British establishment by having the professional be contained in the most bizarre field of expertise. In the "Marriage Guidance Counsellor" sketch, a cowboy in black (played by Cleese) tells Pewtey to "hold his head high" and "be a man".
• The Reverend Arthur Belling (played by both Chapman and Palin), is the vicar of St Loony-Up-The-Cream-Bun-and-Jam. He is insane and in one sketch has an appeal to the insane people of the world to drive sane people insane and in another sketch politely joins a couple and "converts" them to his insane sect of Christianity.
• The “It’s” man (Palin), a Robinson Crusoe-type castaway with torn clothes and a long, unkempt beard who would appear at the beginning of the programme, often after performing a long or dangerous task, and introduce the show by just saying, “It’s...” before being abruptly cut off by the opening titles, which started with a Terry Gilliam animation sprouting the words 'Monty Python’s Flying Circus'. "It’s" was an early candidate for the title of the series.
• Historical figures, such as Julius Caesar (Chapman), Napoleon (Jones), or a Viking (usually Gilliam) and appearing randomly in the midst of a sketch to interrupt it, a quick cut-away gag or as a line.
• A BBC continuity announcer in a dinner jacket (Cleese), seated at a desk, often in highly incongruous locations, such as a forest or a beach. His line, “And now for something completely different,” was used variously as a lead-in to the opening titles and a simple way to link sketches (though Cleese is best known for it, the first time the phrase appeared in the show it was actually spoken by Idle in Episode 2 where he introduced a man with three buttocks). It eventually became the show’s catch phrase, serving as the title for the troupe’s first movie. In Series 3 the line was shortened to simply: "And now..."
• The Gumbys, a group of slow-witted individuals identically attired in gumboots (from which they take their name), high-water trousers, braces, and round, wire-rimmed glasses, with toothbrush moustaches and handkerchiefs on the tops of their heads (a stereotype of the English, working class holidaymaker). They hold their arms awkwardly in front of them, speak slowly in loud, low voices punctuated by frequent grunts and groans, and have a fondness for bashing bricks together. They often complain that their brains hurt. All of them are surnamed 'Gumby' (D.P. Gumby, R.S. Gumby, etc.). Even though all Pythons played Gumbies in the show's run, the character is most closely associated with Michael Palin.
• The-Knight-Who-Hits-People-With-A-Chicken. (Gilliam) An armoured knight carrying a raw chicken, who would hit characters over the head with it when they said something particularly corny. A regular during the first series, with another appearance in the third.
• Mr. Badger (Idle), a Scotsman whose speciality was interrupting sketches ("I won't ruin your sketch, for a pound"). He has also been seen as an airplane hijacker whose demands grow increasingly eccentric, and was once interviewed (by Cleese) regarding his interpretation of the Magna Carta, which Badger believes was actually a piece of chewing gum on a bedspread in Dorset.
• A nude organist (played in his first two appearances by Gilliam, later by Jones) who provided a brief fanfare to punctuate certain sketches (most notably on a sketch poking fun at Sale of the Century) or as yet another way to introduce the opening titles.
• Mr. Eric Praline, an eccentric, disgruntled man who often wears a Pac-a-Mac, played by Cleese. His most famous appearance is in the "Dead Parrot" sketch. His name is only mentioned once on-screen, during the “Fish Licence” sketch of the episode entitled “Scott of the Antarctic”, but his attire (together with Cleese's distinctive, nasal performance) distinguishes him as a recognisable character who makes multiple appearances throughout the series. "Fish Licence" also reveals that he has multiple pets of wildly differing species, all of them named “Eric.”
• A perverted moustachioed man, referred to in the published scripts as "Mr. Nudge" (Idle) who often appears bothering other, more uptight, characters (usually Jones). He is characterised by his constant nudging gestures and tone of conversation; cheeky innuendo. His most famous appearance is in Nudge Nudge, his initial sketch, though he appears in several later ones too, such as ruining a romantic evening between a man and a woman in "The Visitors" sketch.
• Biggles (Chapman, and in one instance Jones), a WWI pilot. Derived from the famous series of fiction stories by W. E. Johns.
• 'Pepperpots': screeching middle-aged, lower-middle class housewives played by the Pythons in frocks, engaging in surreal and inconsequential conversation. The Pythons played all their own women, unless the part called for a younger, more glamorous actress (in which case usually Carol Cleveland, but occasionally Connie Booth, would play the part). “Pepperpot” refers to what the Pythons believed was the typical body shape of middle-class British housewives, as explained by John Cleese in “How to Irritate People”. On the rare occasion these women were named, it was often for comic effect, featuring such names as Mrs. Scum, Mrs. Non-Gorilla or the duo "Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion." Terry Jones is perhaps most closely associated with the Pepperpots, but all the Pythons were frequent in performing the drag characters.
• Luigi Vercotti (Palin), a mafioso entrepreneur and pimp, accompanied in his first appearance by his brother Dino (Jones). His most notable appearances are as Ron Obvious's manager, and as the owner of La Gondola restaurant. With his brother, he attempts to talk the Colonel into paying for protection of his Army base.
• Brief black-and-white stock footage, lasting only two or three seconds, of middle-aged women sitting in an audience and applauding. The film was taken from a Women’s Institute meeting.
• The Spanish Inquisition would burst into a previously unrelated sketch whenever their name was mentioned. Their catchphrase was "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!". They consist of Cardinal Ximinez (Palin), Cardinal Fang (Gilliam), and Cardinal Biggles (Jones). They premiered in series two and had sporadic cameos in series two and three.
• Frenchmen: Cleese and Palin would sometimes dress in stereotypical French garb (striped shirt, tight pants, beret) and speak in garbled French, with incomprehensible accents. They had one fake moustache between them, and would stick it onto the other person's lip when it was his turn to speak. Usually, the Frenchmen gave lectures, such as to explain the flying sheep (from episode 2, "Sex and Violence") and the team-up of the Ministry of Silly Walks with its French equivalent to create "La Marche Futile".
• Nightclub Host (Palin), who wears a red suit and is always smiling. He linked sketches by introducing them as nightclub acts, and was occasionally seen after the sketch, passing comment on it. In one link, he was the victim of the aforementioned armoured knight's assault with a chicken.
• Spiny Norman, a Gilliam animation of a giant hedgehog. He's introduced in Series 2, Episode 1 ("Ethel The Frog") in the Piranha Brothers sketch, where Dinsdale Piranha hallucinates him whenever he becomes depressed (Norman's size is proportional to Dinsdale's depression). Afterward he appears in the background of cityscapes in certain animations shouting "Dinsdale!"
• Cardinal Richelieu (Palin), is always impersonated or impersonating. He is seen in court but turns out to be Ron Higgins, professional Cardinal Richelieu impersonator. He is also seen later as a historical impersonator as himself impersonating Petula Clark.
• “The Colonel”, played by Chapman, who interrupts sketches when things become too silly, or when the Pythons rip off the army's slogan (and when non-BBC broadcast repeats need to be cut off for time constraints in syndication)
• Ken Shabby, played by Palin, who starred in his own sketch in the first series and in the second series made a few brief cameos giving his thoughts on aftershave lotion and even his own religion.
• Raymond Luxury Yacht (Chapman) is described as one of Britain's leading skin specialists. He wears an enormous fake nose made of polystyrene. He proudly proclaims that his name, "is spelled Raymond Luxury-Yacht, but it's pronounced Throatwobbler Mangrove". The interviewer then calls him a "very silly man".

Some other characters have proven very memorable, despite the fact that they appear in only one or two episodes. For example, two characters that were often mentioned but never seen were Ann Haydon-Jones and her husband Pip, who are mentioned in several sketches, notably for losing a seat to Engelbert Humperdinck in the "Election Night Special" sketch.
Several characters appeared multiple times, played by different Pythons. For example, the insanely violent Police Constable Pan Am was played at different times by both Palin and Chapman, and Sgt. Harry "Snapper" Organs of Q division was portrayed by both Jones and Palin. Various historical figures often changed actors, such as Mozart (Cleese, then Palin), or Queen Victoria (Jones, then Palin, then all five Pythons in Series 4)
Some of the Pythons' targets recurred more frequently than others. Reginald Maudling, a contemporary Conservative politician, was singled out for perhaps the most consistent ridicule. The contemporary Secretary of State for Education and Science, future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was occasionally mentioned (in particular, a reference to her brain being in her shin received a hearty laugh from the studio audience). Then-US President Richard Nixon was also frequently mocked, as was Conservative party leader Edward Heath, PM for much of the series run. The British police are also a favourite target; they often act extremely bizarrely or stupidly, are depicted as drag queens or abusive with their legal powers, and frequently yell out "What's all this, then?"

Popular character traits

Although there were few recurring characters, and the six cast members played many diverse roles, each had some character traits that he had perfected.

Chapman

Graham Chapman was well known for his roles as straight-faced men, of any age or class (frequently an authority figure such as a military officer, policeman or doctor) who could, at any moment, engage in “Pythonesque” maniacal behaviour and then return to their former sobriety (see sketches such as "An Appeal from the Vicar of St. Loony-up-the-Cream-Bun-and-Jam", “The One-Man Wrestling Match”, "Johann Gambolputty" and “The Argument Clinic"). He was also skilled in abuse, which he brusquely delivered in such sketches as "The Argument Clinic" and "Flying Lessons". His dignified demeanour was put to good use when he played the leading "straight man" in the Python feature films Holy Grail (as King Arthur) and Life of Brian (as the title character).

Cleese

John Cleese usually played ridiculous authority figures. Gilliam claims that Cleese is the funniest of the Pythons in drag, as he barely needs to be dressed up to look hilarious, with his square chin and 6'5" frame (see the "Mr. and Mrs. Git" sketch). Cleese is also well known for playing very intimidating maniacs (see the skit "Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit"). His character Mr. Praline, the put-upon consumer, featured in some of the most popular sketches, most famously in "Dead Parrot." One star turn that proved most memorable was "The Ministry of Silly Walks," where he worked for the eponymous government department. The sketch features some rather extravagant physical comedy from the notoriously tall, and loose-limbed, Cleese. Despite its popularity, particularly amongst American fans, this proved to be one sketch which Cleese himself particularly disliked, feeling that many of the laughs it generated were cheap and that no balance was provided by what could have been the true satirical centrepoint. Another of his trademarks is his over-the-top delivery of abuse, particularly his screaming "You bastard!"
Cleese often played foreigners with rather ridiculous accents, especially Frenchmen, most of the time with Palin. Sometimes this is extended to the usage of actual French or German (such as "The Funniest Joke in the World", "Hitler in Minehead", or "La Marche Futile" at the end of "The Ministry of Silly Walks"), but still with a very heavy accent (or impossible to understand, as for example Hitler's speech).

Gilliam

The famous Python Foot can here be seen in its original format in the bottom left corner of “Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time”

Many Python sketches were linked together by the cut-out animations of Terry Gilliam, including the opening titles featuring the iconic giant foot that became a symbol of all that was “Pythonesque.” Gilliam’s unique visual style was characterised by sudden and dramatic movements and deliberate mismatches of scale set in surrealist landscapes populated by engravings of large buildings with elaborate architecture, grotesque Victorian gadgets, machinery, and people cut from old Sears Roebuck catalogues, supported by Gilliam’s airbrush illustrations and many famous pieces of art. All of these elements were combined in incongruous ways to obtain new and humorous meanings in the tradition of surrealist collage assemblies.
The surreal nature of the series allowed Gilliam’s animation to go off on bizarre, imaginative tangents. Some running gags derived from these animations were a giant hedgehog named Spiny Norman who appeared over the tops of buildings shouting, “Dinsdale!”, further petrifying the paranoid Dinsdale Piranha, and The Foot of Cupid, the giant foot that suddenly squashed things. The foot is appropriated from the figure of Cupid in Agnolo Bronzino’s “Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time”.
Notable Gilliam sequences for the show include The Killer Cars, Conrad Poohs and his Dancing Teeth, the rampage of the cancerous black spot, and a giant cat that stomps its way through London, destroying everything in its path.
Initially only hired to be the animator of the series, Gilliam was not thought of (even by himself) as an on-screen performer at first. The others felt they owed him something and so he sometimes appeared before the camera, generally in the parts that no-one else wanted to play (generally because they required a lot of make-up or involved uncomfortable costumes). The most recurrent of these was The-Knight-Who-Hits-People-With-A-Chicken, a knight in armour who would walk on-set and hit another character on the head with a plucked chicken when they said something really corny. Some of Gilliam's other on-screen portrayals included:

• A man with a stoat through his head
• Cardinal Fang in The Spanish Inquisition sketch
• A dandy wearing only a mask, bikini underwear and a cape, this in "The Visitors" sketch from episode 1.09
• A hotel clerk in The Cycling Tour episode.

Despite (or, according to Cleese in the DVD commentary for Life of Brian, perhaps because of) an obviously deficient acting ability in comparison to the others, he soon became distinguished as the go-to member for the most obscenely grotesque characters. This carried over into the Holy Grail feature film, where Gilliam played King Arthur's hunchbacked page "Patsy."

Idle

Eric Idle is perhaps best remembered for his roles as a cheeky, suggestive playboy (see sketches such as “Nudge Nudge"), and as a crafty, slick salesman (see the “Door-to-Door Joke Salesman”, “Encyclopedia Salesman,” and the shop keeper who loves to haggle in Monty Python’s Life of Brian). He is acknowledged as 'the master of the one-liner' by the other Pythons. He is also considered the best singer/songwriter in the group; for example, he wrote and performed “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from The Life of Brian. Unlike Jones, he often played female characters in a more straightforward way, only altering his voice slightly, as opposed to the falsetto shrieking used by the others. His appearances as upper-class, middle-aged females (such as Rita Fairbanks in the "Reenactment of the Battle Of Pearl Harbor" sketch or the sexually-repressed Protestant wife in the "Every Sperm is Sacred" sketch from The Meaning of Life) are his most notable.
Younger than his colleagues and not from an already-established writing partnership prior to Python, Idle wrote his sketches alone.

Jones

Although all of the Pythons played women, Terry Jones is renowned by the rest to be 'the best Rat-Bag woman in the business'. His portrayal of a middle-aged housewife was louder, shriller and more dishevelled than that of any of the other Pythons (see “Dead Bishop” sketch, or his role as Brian's mother Mandy in Life of Brian, Mrs. Linda S-C-U-M in “Mr. Neutron” or in "Spot The Brain Cell," or as the restaurateur in “Spam"). He also often played upper-class reserved men, such as in the famous “Nudge, Nudge” sketch and the "It's A Man's Life" sketch, and incompetent authority figures (Harry "Snapper" Organs). Generally, he deferred to the others as a performer, but proved himself behind the scenes, where he would eventually end up pulling most of the strings.

Palin

Michael Palin was regarded by the other members of the troupe as the one with the widest range, equally adept as a straight man or wildly over the top character. He portrayed many working-class northerners, often portrayed in a disgusting light (see “The Funniest Joke in the World” sketch, or the “Every Sperm Is Sacred” segment of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life). On the one hand, he played weak-willed, put-upon men such as the husband in the "Marriage Guidance Counsellor" sketch, or the boring accountant in the “Vocational Guidance Counsellor” sketch. He was equally at home as the indefatigable Cardinal Ximinez of Spain in "The Spanish Inquisition" sketch. Another high-energy character that Palin portrays is the slick TV show host, constantly smacking his lips together and generally being over-enthusiastic (as in the "Blackmail" sketch) but with an underlying hint of self-revulsion (as when, in one sketch, he wipes his oily palms on his jacket, makes a disgusted face, and then continues). One of his most famous creations was the shopkeeper who attempts to sell useless goods by very weak attempts at being sly and crafty, which are invariably spotted by the customer (often played by Cleese) because the defects in the products are inherently obvious (see the “Dead Parrot”, the “Cheese Shop"); his sleazy club owner, Luigi Vercotti, in the “Piranha Brothers” and “Army Protection Racket” is another classic variant on this type. Palin is also well known for his leading role in the "The Lumberjack Song".
He also often plays heavy-accented foreigners (mostly French (as in "La marche futile") or German ("Hitler in Minehead"), usually alongside Cleese. In one of the last episodes, he even delivers a full speech, first in English, then in French, then in German (with an even heavier accent).
Of all the Pythons, Palin has probably played the fewest female roles. Among his portrayals of women are: Queen Victoria in "Michael Ellis", Debbie Katzenberg the American in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life or as a rural idiot's wife in the "Idiot in rural society" sketch)