December 27, 2007: Benazir Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan, and for 25 years the leader of the Pakistan People's Party, is assassinated by a suicide bomber in Rawalpindi. She was 54.
Her father, Zulfikar Bhutto, the party’s founder, had also served as Prime Minister, and had also been assassinated in Rawalpindi, in 1979. She became Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1982, and held that post for the rest of her life. She served as Prime Minister from December 2, 1988, becoming the 1st democratically-elected woman to be a mostly-Muslim nation's head of government, until August 6, 1990; and again from October 18, 1993 to November 5, 1996.
As is frequently the case, the other major party, the Pakistan Muslim League, accused Bhutto and her party of corruption, most likely because they opposed her efforts at modernizing the country. Most of the accusations were about not her, but her husband, businessman Asif Ali Zardari.
They had 3 children, and she was pregnant with her son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, when she won her 1st election, making her the 1st elected head of government to give birth while in office. She later had 2 daughters, Bakhtawar and Aseefa. A joke arose that "PPP" stood for "Perpetually Pregnant Prime Minister."
Brooke Allen, in her 2016 biography of her, wrote, "The Benazir Bhutto of 1988 was a uniting figure for her country; that of twenty years later, a divisive one. In retrospect, her best and worst qualities seem so intimately linked that the course of her career might almost have been predicted."
On the morning of December 27, 2007, Bhutto met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In the afternoon, she gave a speech at a PPP rally held in Rawalpindi's Liaquat National Bagh. On leaving in a bulletproof vehicle, she opened the car's escape hatch and stood up to wave to the surrounding crowds. A man standing within 6 to 10 feet of the car fired 3 gunshots at her, and detonated a suicide vest packed with ball bearings.
Bhutto was fatally injured, but reports differ as to whether she was hit by bullets or by shrapnel from the explosion. There were 22 others who died in the attack. The following day, she was buried next to her father in the family mausoleum near Larkana. PPP supporters rioted in various parts of Pakistan, leading to at least 50 deaths.
It wasn't clear who was responsible. Pakistani authorities claimed to have proof that the attack was masterminded by Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban. The CIA officially agreed with them. Mehsud, however, denied it. He was killed in a U.S. missile strike in 2009. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a.k.a. Saeed al-Masri, leader of al-Qaeda in Pakistan, did claim responsibility, saying,
"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat the mujahideen." He was killed in a U.S. missile strike in 2010.
Likewise, it's unclear with either Mehsud or al-Masri that their responsibility, if any, for Bhutto's assassination had anything to do with the U.S. targeting them, as they had committed other terrorist acts against Americans.
Benazir's son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was immediately elected the PPP's leader, though he was only 19 years old and a student at the University of Oxford at the time. Upon his appointment, he said, "My mother always said that democracy is the best revenge." He was mainly a ceremonial figure until becoming the Party's spokesman in the 2018 elections, winning a seat in the National Assembly at age 30. On April 27, 2022, he was named the country's Foreign Minister.
UPDATE: He lost that office and his seat on August 10, 2023, when his party lost the next election. He remains Party Chairman, and won a by-election for a new Assembly seat on February 8, 2024.
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December 27, 2007 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its regular season and its Playoffs. There was a college bowl game: Number 17 Texas pulled off a mild upset, beating Number 12 Arizona State, 52-34, in the Holiday Bowl, at Qualcomm Stadium (formerly San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium).
There were 3 games in the NBA:
* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 88-81 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
* The Phoenix Suns beat the Los Angele Clippers, 108-88 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.
* And the Boston Celtics beat the Seattle Seahawks, 104-96 at the KeyArena in Seattle. Paul Pierce scored 37 points for the Celtics. This would be the Sonics' last season in Seattle, as they were being moved to become the Oklahoma City Thunder.
There were 10 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Islanders lost to the Ottawa Senators, 5-2 at Scotiabank Place (now the Canadian Tire Centre) in Ottawa.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.
* The Florida Panthers beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 5-3 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta.
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-2 at the St. Pete Times Forum (now the Benchmark International Arena) in Tampa.
* The Nashville Predators beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4-3 at the Sommet Center (now the Bridgestone Arena) in Nashville.
* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3 at the Mellon Arena (as the Civic Arena was then known) in Pittsburgh. Former Capital Sergei Gonchar scored the winning goal with 3:27 left in overtime.
* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2 at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver.
* The Anaheim Ducks beat the Edmonton Oilers, 2-1 at Rexall Place (as the Northlands Coliseum was then known) in Edmonton.
* The Minnesota Wild beat the Phoenix Coyotes, 3-2 at the Jobing.com Arena (now the Desert Diamond Arena) in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, California.
* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Calgary Flames, 5-3 at General Motors Place (now the Rogers Arena) in Vancouver.
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