Vatican City, Nov 5, 2019 / 15:01 pm
It was a dark autumn night in Rome, which was suffering under the occupation of Nazi Germany and was the target of bombing raids by Allied and Axis forces.
The Vatican City State was a neutral territory in World War II, but shortly after 8:00 pm on Nov. 5, 1943, a small non-descript plane dropped five bombs onto the Vatican.
Only four detonated -- the first went off near the Vatican train station, a second exploded on the mosaic workshop of the Vatican Museums destroying some of the pieces inside, a third damaged offices within the building of the governorate, and a fourth exploded in the ground outside the Santa Marta guesthouse, causing glass in a rear window of St. Peter's Basilica to shatter.
No one was hurt, but until the last decade the bombing was shrouded in mystery, because there was not a lot of information about who carried out the attack and why.