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February 24

Published in On this Day listing

1920 Nancy Astor, Unionist (now Conservative) MP, became the first woman to speak in Britain’s House of Commons.
1969 General election in Northern Ireland. Unionists won 36 seats, of which 24 were pro-Terence O’Neill and twelve against. O’Neill himself had a narrow victory over Ian Paisley, standing as a ‘Protestant Unionist’. John Hume defeated Nationalist Party leader Eddie McAteer in the Foyle constituency.
1766 Samuel Wesley, organist and composer known as ‘the English Mozart’, born in Bristol. o

On this Day

1920 Recruitment began, mainly from among demobilised British Army officers, into a new force—the ‘Auxiliary Division’—to augment the RIC.
1939 Michael Longley, poet, notable for ‘Gorse Fires’ (1991), ‘The Weather in Japan’ (2000) and ‘The Stairwell’ (2014), born in Belfast of English parents.
2004 Bob Tisdall (96), Olympic gold medal-winner in the 400m hurdles (Los Angeles, 1932) in a world record time of 51.7 seconds—which was not recognised under the rules at the time because he had hit a hurdle—died.
1866 The SS Great Eastern completed the laying of a transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island, Co. Kerry, and Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.