Bulgaria–United States relations to work. Bulgaria became a member of the Warsaw Pact on May 14, 1955. Though no Soviet troops were stationed on Bulgarian soil, in 1968, Zhivkov sent a Bulgarian division to join Polish, Hungarian and Soviet troops to crush a popular uprising in Prague. In 1978, the Bulgarian secret police were implicated in the assassination in London of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident who was a correspondent for the BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle radio and the U.S. sponsored Radio Free Europe. Markov was assassinated with a poisoned umbrella on September 7, Zhivkov's birthday. The rise of democratic movements across
1884 attack on London Bridge 1884 attack on London Bridge On 13 December 1884, three American-Irish Republicans carried out a dynamite attack on London Bridge as part of the Fenian dynamite campaign. The bomb went off prematurely while the three men were in a boat attaching it to a bridge pier at 5.45 pm during the evening rush hour. There was little damage to the bridge, and no casualties other than the bombers. The men's boat was so completely destroyed the police initially thought the bombers had fled. "The Illustrated London News" on 20 December 1884 featured a cover illustration depicting the flash of the