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March 05

Published in On this Day listing

1981 Taoiseach Charles J. Haughey announced the establishment of Aosdána (‘poet of the tribe’) to publicly honour distinguished achievement in the arts and to provide members with an annuity to free them from non-creative employment.
1940 The Katyn massacre of c. 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia was initiated by the NKVD—the Soviet secret police—with the approval of the Soviet politburo led by Joseph Stalin.
1974 Merlyn Rees appointed secretary of state for Northern Ireland, where all but one of the Westminster seats in the general election the previous month had gone to anti-Sunningdale unionists.
1974 Merlyn Rees succeeded Francis Pym as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

On this Day

1937 During the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica, a bastion of Republican resistance, was pounded by the German Condor Legion with high-explosive bombs and at least 3,000 incendiary bombs. Over 1,600 people were killed in the subsequent firestorm.
1900 Queen Victoria concluded her final, three-week visit to Ireland, the purpose of which was to encourage Irishmen to join the British Army and fight in the Second Boer War. Nationalist opposition to her visit was led by Arthur Griffith and his newspaper, The United Irishman.
1974 Nineteen Old Masters paintings were stolen from the Blessington, Co. Wicklow, home of Sir Alfred and Lady Beit by a Provisional IRA gang which included Dr Rose Dugdale.