July 6: Anne Frank, George 'Bugs' Moran and Oil Rig Explosion

On this day in history, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding from the Nazis, George "Bugs" Moran got arrested and an oil rig explosion killed 167 workers.

Frank Family Takes Refuge

In Nazi-occupied Holland, 13-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family were forced to hide away in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse in secret.

Anne Frank and her family fled to Amsterdam in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution. In the summer of 1942, when the Germany’s occupation of Holland began, 12-year-old Anne began a diary. This diary would be a glimpse into the everyday fears, Anne, her family, and friends had to deal with.

On July 6, in fear of deportation, the Franks took refuge in a factory run by Christian friends. During the next two years, the families hid from the threat of murder by Nazi officers just outside the warehouse.

On August 4, 1944, just two months from when the Allied landed in Normandy, the Nazi Gestapo discovered the families secret space in the warehouse.

They were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. Anne's diary was left behind and undiscovered by the Nazis.

An instant best seller, and eventually translated into more than 30 languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were silenced in the Holocaust.

George “Bugs” Moran is Arrested

On this day in 1946, FBI agents arrested George “Bugs” Moran, along with fellow crooks Virgil Summers and Albert Fouts, in Kentucky. Bug Moran was once one of the biggest organized crime figures in America.

Bugs Moran’s criminal career took a downward turn after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, in which his rival, Al Capone’s henchmen, slaughtered his top gunmen.

He then turned to smaller bank robberies. He was arrested for one, and ended up in Leavenworth federal prison. He was released in 1956, but was arrested again shortly for an earlier robbery. He died in prison of lung cancer in 1957.

Explosion of North Sea Oil Rig

On this day in 1988, an explosion ripped through an oil rig in the North Sea, killing 167 workers.

“It was the worst offshore oil-rig disaster in history,” said history.com.

The Piper Alpha rig, which was the largest in the North Sea, was owned by Occidental Oil, and had approximately 225 workers on board at the time of the explosion. It was located 120 miles off the northeast shore of Scotland.

On the evening of July 6, a gas leak led to a massive explosion on the rig. The fireball was 350 feet high and it erupted from the platform.

Few people were able to escape, but the ones who did were rescued by helicopters and boats.

The reason for the explosion was never revealed. Two workers were said to show negligence toward safety, but no fingers were ever pointed at anyone.