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February 12

Published in On this Day listing

2009 Hugh Leonard, pseudonym of John Keyes Byrne, dramatist and writer, notably of Da (1973), died.
1997 Stephen Restorick (23) of the Royal Horse Artillery was shot dead by a sniper whilst manning a checkpoint in Bessbrook, Co. Armagh—the last British soldier to be killed before the IRA called its second ceasefire.
1989 In one of the most controversial incidents of the recent ‘Troubles’, the Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane was murdered by gunmen in his own home in north Belfast.
1861 Robert O’Hara Burke, County Galway-born explorer, along with three companions reached the tidal waters of the Flinders River to become the first white people to cross the Australian continent.

On this Day

1972 Eight people, seven of them young girls, died when fire destroyed the offices of Noyek’s timber merchants in Parnell Street, Dublin.
1972 Eight people, seven of them young girls, died when fire destroyed the offices of Noyek’s timber merchants in Parnell Street, Dublin.
1968 Yuri Gagarin (34), Russian pilot and cosmonaut who was the first man in outer space (1961), died when his jet crashed during a training flight.
1940 Michael Joseph Savage, the son of Irish parents and New Zealand’s first Labour prime minister (since 1935), died.
1766 The vicar of Wakefield, subtitled ‘A Tale, Supposed to be written by Himself’, a novel by Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74), was published.