1922 The second Craig–Collins agreement was signed. Craig agreed to recruit Catholics into the Ulster Special Constabulary, whilst Collins agreed to quell IRA activity in Northern Ireland. Neither side delivered on their undertakings.
1931 Garda Superintendent Seán Curtin was shot dead near his home in Tipperary by the IRA after he had taken action to prevent illegal drilling in the area.
1969 An explosion destroyed an electricity substation in East Belfast, marking the beginning of a month-long series of attacks on electrical installations and water supplies by the UVF. At the time the IRA was blamed.
1979 Airey Neave (63), Conservative Party spokesman on Northern Ireland, was killed by a car bomb planted by the INLA in the House of Commons underground car park.
1603 The Treaty of Mellifont was signed, bringing to an end the Nine Years’ War (1594–1603) between Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, and the English Crown.
1973 William Craig formed the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP).
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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
2002 Alex Maskey (50) became the first Sinn Féin lord mayor of Belfast.
1981 It was reported that five men in California were suffering from a rare form of pneumonia that was found in patients with weakened immune systems—the first recognised cases of AIDS, which was to kill over 30 million worldwide.
1920 Cornelius Ryan, war correspondent and author, notably of the best-seller The longest day (1959), which became a film that set box-office records, born in Dublin.
2002 Former US President Bill Clinton opened a new £3 million peace centre named after him on the site of the 1987 Remembrance Sunday bombing in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.
1988 Robert Dudley Edwards, professor of modern Irish history at UCD (1945–79) and writer, notably of Church and state in Tudor Ireland (1935), died.
1968 Robert Kennedy (42), leading candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency, was mortally wounded by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. He died the following day.
1967 The Six-Day War began, in which Israel heavily defeated Egypt and her Arab allies, capturing the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.
1916 Kerry-born Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, secretary of state for war, lost his life, along with over 600 others, when HMS Hampshire struck a German mine and sank west of the Orkney Islands, Scotland.
1916 Lord Kitchener, Kerry-born field marshal, was lost at sea when HMS Edinburgh was struck by a mine off the Orkneys. Winston Churchill would have accompanied him in what was a war-boost trip to Russia had he not been dropped from the coalition cabinet the previous January owing to pressure from the Conservatives.
1868 James Connolly, socialist and revolutionary, born in Cowgate, Edinburgh, to Irish immigrant parents.