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Illustration of two of the robbers emptying safes on the train

The Great Gold Robbery took place on the night of 15 May 1855, when a shipment of gold to Paris was stolen from the guard's van of the rail service between London and Folkestone. There were four robbers: two employees of the rail company, a former employee and Edward Agar, a career criminal. They took wax impressions of the keys to the train safes and made copies. One of them ensured he was on guard duty when a shipment was taking place, and Agar hid in the guard's van. They emptied the safes of 224 pounds (102 kg) of gold, valued at £12,000 (approximately equivalent to £1,193,000 in 2021); the theft was only discovered in Paris. When Agar was arrested for another crime, his former girlfriend, in need of funds, revealed the details of the theft. Agar admitted his guilt and testified as a witness. The other three were arrested, tried and found guilty of the theft. In 1978 a highly fictionalised version of events was turned into a film, The First Great Train Robbery, featuring Sean Connery. (Full article...)

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On this day

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1960 – Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took his iconic photograph Guerrillero Heroico of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
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Edward Cornwallis (b. 1713)
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Today's featured picture

The dyeing poison dart frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) is a species of poison dart frog. It is among the largest species, reaching lengths of 50 millimetres (2.0 in). It is distributed throughout the eastern portion of the Guiana Shield, including parts of French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname and Brazil. This dyeing poison dart frog was photographed in the Karlsruhe Zoo in Germany.

Photograph credit: H. Zell

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