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December 19

Published in On this Day listing

1919 IRA Lt. Martin Savage was killed during a failed attempt to assassinate the viceroy, Lord French, in Ashtown, Co. Dublin.
1974 Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was inaugurated as the fifth president of Ireland.
1972 NASA’s Apollo program, which began in 1968, during which twelve men walked on the moon, concluded with the safe return of Apollo 17 after a twelve-day mission.
1922 Seven Republicans were executed in the Curragh camp.

On this Day

1820 Edward Bransfield from Ballinacurra, Middleton, Co. Cork, commander of the English merchant vessel Williams, made the first sighting of the mainland of Antarctica—Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost point of the continent.
1968 Vietnam War—the Tet Offensive. After declaring a truce over the seven-day Tet (lunar New Year) holiday, c. 70,000 Viet Cong troops launched surprise attacks on US and South Vietnam forces throughout South Vietnam.
1948 Mahatma Ghandi (78), India’s prophet of non-violence, was assassinated in his own garden in New Delhi by the Hindu extremist Nathuran Vinayak Godse.
1864 The National Gallery of Ireland in Merrion Square, Dublin, financed by William Dargan from a testimonial of £5,000 he received in acknowledgement of his services to the Dublin Exhibition (1853), was formally opened.
1661 Oliver Cromwell, former lord protector of England, was formally executed, more than two years after his death.
1933 Adolph Hitler was appointed German chancellor by President von Hindenburg.