Terror attacks in Western Europe are up, but not close to the 1970s
Extremist attacks like the blasts in Brussels on Tuesday that left at least 34 dead and 270 injured are increasing in Western Europe, but they're still not nearly as common as they were from the mid 1970s to the mid-1990s.
Anti-government groups such as the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, Basque separatists in Spain, and Anni di Piombo in Italy helped turn such attacks into more than a daily occurrence between 1970 and 1996.
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More than 400 terror attacks occurred in Western Europe in nearly every year from 1975 to 1996, whereas the vast majority of the years since have seen fewer than 200.
In 1979, Western Europe was home to 1,019 terrorist attacks, as Quartz pointed out back in November. That amounts to nearly three attacks per day.
Though the number of attacks has dropped since the mid-90s, several massive attacks in the years since have occasionally caused a year's number of casualties to resemble casualty numbers when attacks were much more frequent.
The 2004 attack on train stations in Madrid left 196 people dead and injured 1,853 -- more people than have ever been injured in a Western European terror attack before or since.
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, as it flew over Scotland, killed 440 people and caused 1988 to be the deadliest year for terror attacks in modern Western European history.
After multiple extremist attacks in Paris last year, 2015 became the deadliest year for Western European terror attacks -- 148 killed -- since the attacks in Madrid, in 2004.
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Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
