TIMELINE: Worst bomb attacks on mainland Britain

(Reuters) - British police defused a bomb in an abandoned car in London's theatre district on Friday and launched a counter-terrorism investigation.

Here is a chronology of some of the worst bomb attacks on mainland Britain in the last 30 years.

February 1974 - Coach carrying soldiers and families in northern England is bombed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Twelve people killed, 14 hurt.

October-November 1974 - Wave of IRA bombs in British pubs kills 28 people and wounds more than 200.

July 1982 - Two IRA bomb attacks on soldiers in London's royal parks kill 11 people and wound 50.

December 1983 - IRA bomb at London's Harrods department store kills six.

October 1984 - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's cabinet narrowly escapes IRA bomb which kills five people at Brighton hotel during the Conservative Party's annual conference.

December 1988 - A Pan Am Boeing 747 crashes on the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 aboard after a bomb on board explodes. Eleven people in Lockerbie are also killed.

September 1989 - Bomb at Royal Marines Music School in Deal, southeast England, kills 11 and wounds 22.

February 1991 - The IRA fires mortar bomb at Prime Minister John Major's London office. No one is injured.

April 1992 - Huge car bomb outside Baltic Exchange in London's financial district kills three people and wounds 91.

March 1993 - Bombs in two litter bins in Warrington kill two boys aged three and 12.

April 1993 - IRA truck bomb devastates Bishopsgate area of London's financial district, killing one and wounding 44.

February 1996 - Two people die when IRA guerrillas detonate large bomb in London's Docklands area.

March 2001 - A powerful car bomb explodes outside the BBC's London headquarters. Police say the Real IRA, a republican splinter group opposed to the IRA's ceasefire, was behind the blast. One man was wounded.

July 7, 2005 - Four suicide bomb blasts on London transport during the morning rush hour kill 52 people and injure about 700 in the first Islamist suicide bombings in western Europe.

July 21 - British police say four men attempted to carry out a second wave of attacks on three London underground stations and one bus.

June 29, 2007 - Police defuse a bomb in an abandoned car in the Haymarket, a busy street in the tourist heart of central London.