02/1986
At a Sinn Féin Árd Fheis, delegates voted to change the party’s constitution to allow members to sit in Dáil Éireann. Gerry Adams (37) was elected president.
03/1916
Ninety-seven lives were lost when the SS Connemara, a passenger and cargo steamer, was struck amidships by a coal boat, the SS Retriever, during a storm at the mouth of Carlingford Lough. The only survivor was a non-swimmer.
07/1956
Faced with a UN Security Council resolution, backed by the United States and the USSR, British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden was forced to evacuate British troops from Suez.
09/1966
Jack Lynch was elected leader of Fianna Fáil and taoiseach the following day.
11/1926
George Bernard Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
11/2011
Michael D. Higgins (70) was elected ninth president of Ireland.
12/1216
Some seventeen months after King John conceded Magna Carta to his rebellious barons, a slightly amended version—Magna Charta Hiberniae—was issued for Ireland.
16/1986
Siobhán McKenna (63), Belfast-born stage and screen actor, died.
19/1916
Fr Michael O’Hickey (55), Professor of Irish at Maynooth College (1896–1909), died.
20/1936
General Eoin O’Duffy led c. 600 Blueshirt followers to Spain as an Irish Brigade in support of General Franco and his nationalist rebels in the Spanish Civil War.
22/1916
Jack London (40), American author, notably of The call of the wild (1903), journalist and social activist, died.
23/1966
Seán T. (Thomas) Ó Ceallaigh/O’Kelly (84), president of Ireland (1945–59), died.
24/1926
The first Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis was held.
24/1996
Mícheal Ó Hehir (76), sports commentator, journalist and ‘the voice of Gaelic games’, died.
01/1666
Sir James Ware (72), antiquary and historiographer, author notably of Ancient Irish histories (1633), died.
01/1956
Ronnie Delaney (21) won a gold medal for Ireland in the 1,500 metres at the Olympic Games in Melbourne, the first since Bob Tisdall in 1932.
07/1916
David Lloyd George replaced H.W. Asquith as prime minister in Britain’s coalition government.
08/1916
T.K. (Ken) Whitaker, economist and public servant, born in Rostrevor, Co. Down (100 today).
11/1936
King Edward VIII abdicated after a reign of just ten months, prompting the biggest constitutional crisis for the British monarchy in the twentieth century.
14/1966
Walt Disney (65), film producer and pioneer of film animation, died of lung cancer.
17/1936
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Flores, Buenos Aires, the eldest of five children of an Italian immigrant accountant (80 today).
21/1866
Maud Gonne MacBride, nationalist and suffragist, born near Aldershot, Hampshire, the daughter of a British Army officer of Irish background.
22/1916
Around 600 untried Irish internees were released from Frongoch and Lewes jails. Convicted prisoners remained in custody. James O’Kelly, Fenian, war correspondent and MP for County Roscommon, died.
23/1996
Sophie Toscan du Plantier (39), French film producer, was murdered outside her holiday home near Toormore, Schull, Co. Cork.
25/1066
William of Normandy, latterly known as William the Conqueror, was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey.
30/1916
Grigori Rasputin (47), Russian peasant, faith healer and favourite of Czar Nicholas II and his family, was poisoned with wine and tea cakes, shot and drowned in the River Neva.
30/2006
Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad, having been found guilty of crimes against humanity after a twelve-month trial.