subcutaneous's comment on Algeria

subcutaneous commented on Algeria by Martin Evans (The Making of the Modern World)

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Invaded in 1830, populated by one million settlers who co-existed uneasily with nine million Arabs …

In 1956, the french army forced a plane of FLN leaders headed for a secret conference (which french officials were planning to attend!) to land in Algiers instead of Tunis, arresting the leaders as soon as they exited. The book calls this the first airline hijacking in history.

Kantolope replied to subcutaneous's status

@subcutaneous Not just the book! Most historians agree that this incident set the precedent for most modern airplane hijakings. It's so messed up.

subcutaneous replied to Kantolope's status

@Kantolope Thanks for the confirmation! Didn't wanna dig around to verify, so I hedged a bit. Anyway, to honest if this was the first it means that it only took like a decade for people to figure out how to do anti-oppression skyjackings, so you could say things went up for a while before going back down?