On this day, Sept. 28, in 1975, three armed men set off to rob the Spaghetti House restaurant in Knightsbridge, London, kicking off what would become a six-day siege.
Nine staff members were at the Knightsbridge restaurant that evening collecting the weeks’ £13,000 of revenue when the gunmen, lead by Nigerian Franklin Davies, forced them into a storage room where they were held hostage.
One man managed to escape and alerted police. Authorities then ambushed the building where the armed men refused to release anyone for two days, after which they set free two ill hostages in exchange for coffee and cigarettes.
Once it became clear to the robbers that British authorities would not comply with their demands, they released all six remaining hostages unharmed Oct. 3.
– Violeta O. Ikonomova
