Gunpowder Plot 1605

Or
“A brief account of that bloudy & subtle Design laid against the King, his Lords and Commons in Parliament, and of a Happy Deliverance by Divine Power.”

Real IRA Plot 2011

The planting of bombs and buying guns is an example of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, although the sentences for those arrested are now much less severe:

The plotters were hung, drawn and quartered and their heads displayed in Westminster

A Google news search for ‘terrorist plot’ gathered 2,110 results. In  2011 the alledged  perpetrators of terrorism are:

an ex-Soviet officer in Columbia, the ‘Real’ IRA, various Islamist conspiracies, two Swedes found to be innocent, Iran & the USA making accusations and counter-accusations … and the list goes on.