The 1973 Old Bailey bombing (known as Bloody Thursday in Britain) was a car bomb attack carried out by the Provisional IRA (IRA) which took place outside the Old Bailey Courthouse on 8 March 1973. The attack was carried out by an 11-person active service unit (ASU) from the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. The unit also exploded a second bomb which went off outside the Ministry of Agriculture near Whitehall in London at around the same time the bomb at the Old Bailey went off. This was the Provisional IRA's first major attack in England since the Troubles began in the late 1960s. One British civilian died of a heart attack attributed to the bombing, estimates of the injured range from 180 to 220 from the two bombings. Two additional bombs were found and defused. Nine people from Belfast we