On this Day
Published in 18th–19th - Century History, Issue 6 (Nov/Dec 2010), On this Day, Volume 18November
7 1910
Leo Tolstoy (82), Russian novelist, author notably of War and Peace (1863–9) and Anna Karenina (1874–6), died of pneumonia in a siding at Astapovo railway station.
8 1960
Nine Irish soldiers from an eleven-man patrol of the 33rd Battalion serving as a peacekeeping force with the UN in the Congo were killed in an ambush at Niemba by Baluba tribesmen.
9 1990
Mary Robinson was elected the first woman president of Ireland, with 39.9% of the vote.
10 1580
Massacre at Dún an Óir, Ballyferriter, Co. Kerry. Over 600 men, women and children—Spanish, Italian and Irish—were slaughtered after they had surrendered to Lord Deputy Grey and Sir Walter Raleigh.
15 1860
The mutilated body of James Murray, steward to John George Adair, landlord of the Gartan, Glenveagh and Derryveagh estates in North Donegal, was discovered near Lough Veagh. Blaming his tenantry, Adair subsequently evicted them—244 people from 46 households—over a three-day period the following April.
17 1970
The bank strike in the Republic of Ireland, which began on 30 April, ended.
18 1860
Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist, composer, diplomat and third prime minister of the Republic of Poland (Jan.–Dec. 1919), was born.
21 1920
‘Bloody Sunday’. Eleven British intelligence agents were shot dead in Dublin by the IRA on the orders of Michael Collins. That afternoon the British forces killed twelve civilians in Croke Park. In a further reprisal, three IRA prisoners were shot ‘while trying to escape’ by the British army in Dublin Castle.
23 1910
The American Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison, having been convicted of poisoning his wife, Belle, and dismembering her body.
28 1990
Margaret Thatcher, Conservative prime minister of the UK since May 1979, resigned. She was succeeded by John Major.
'
