1921 Three IRA volunteers were killed and two others wounded in an abortive attack on a train carrying British soldiers at Upton, Co. Cork. Six civilian passengers were also killed and ten wounded in the crossfire.
1989 The Soviet–Afghan War ended after nine years. Over 14,000 Soviet troops lost their lives, along with c. 18,000 of their Afghan allies and c. 90,000 Mujahideen.
1989 The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict, often referred to as the Soviet Union’s ‘Vietnam’, in which 14,453 of its troops were killed, along with c. 18,000 of their Afghan allies and c. 90,000 Mujahideen.
1928 H.H. (Herbert Henry) Asquith (76), Liberal prime minister (1908–16), died.
1901 Brendan Bracken, press baron, Conservative Party MP and parliamentary private secretary to Winston Churchill during World War II, was born in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, the son of John K. Bracken, a building contractor and founding member of the GAA.
1564 Galileo, Italian astronomer and physicist, born in Pisa.
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Personal Histories
Personal Histories is an initiative by History Ireland,
which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish
people both in Ireland and around the world. It is hoped
to build an extensive database reflecting Irish lives,
giving them a chance to be heard, remembered and to
add their voice to the historical record.
Click Here to go to the Personal Histories page
1922 At 4.07am a field gun fired across the River Liffey by Provisional Government forces at the anti-Treaty IRA garrison in the Four Courts marked the beginning of the Civil War.
1920 Members of ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies of the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, quartered in Jullundur, Punjab, refused to soldier because of reports reaching them of atrocities being committed in Ireland by members of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries.
1919 The Treaty of Versailles was signed, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led directly to the outbreak of the First World War.
1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife were assassinated in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo.
1963 J.F. Kennedy, president of the United States, addressed Dáil Éireann. In his speech, Kennedy had planned to quote Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s observation that his family home, Leinster House, ‘does not inspire the brightest of ideas’. The comment was suppressed by an unimpressed Eamon de Valera.
1922 The bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin, occupied by an anti-Treaty IRA garrison, by the pro-Treaty National Army commences at 4am, marking the beginning of the Civil War.
1920 Members of ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies of the Connaught Rangers mutinied in the Punjab in protest against British atrocities in Ireland. Private James Daly was subsequently court-martialled and executed; other mutineers were sentenced to penal servitude.
1912 The Irish Labour Party was founded in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.