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November 20

Published in On this Day listing

1719 Spranger Barry, an actor who rivalled Garrick on the London stage, described as ‘the wonder and darling of every audience’, born in Skinner’s Row (Christ Church Place), Dublin.
1975 General Francisco Franco (83), El Caudillo, dictator of Spain since 1939, died.
1936 General Eoin O’Duffy led c. 600 Blueshirt followers to Spain as an Irish Brigade in support of General Franco and his nationalist rebels in the Spanish Civil War.
1917 The Battle of Cambrai, Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In an operation that included the first mass tank attack in history, British forces liberated the town with the loss of 44,000 troops.

On this Day

1820 Sir William Howard Russell, one of the first modern war correspondents, whose coverage included the Crimean War and the American Civil War, born in Tallaght, Dublin.
1969 Death of Dwight D. ‘Ike’ Eisenhower (78), American army general, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the Second World War and 34th (Republican) president of the United States (1953–61).
1979 The worst-ever accident in the US nuclear power industry began when a pressure valve in a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania failed to close.
1957 Jack Butler Yeats (85), painter and younger brother of W.B. Yeats, died.
1972 Eight people, seven of them young girls, died when fire destroyed the offices of Noyek’s timber merchants in Parnell Street, Dublin.
1820 William Howard Russell, the first modern war correspondent, renowned for his reports on the mismanagement of the Crimean War for The Times (London), born at Lily Vale, Tallaght, Co. Dublin.
1760 Dublin-born Margaret (Peg) Woffington, renowned beauty and leading actress on the London stage for almost two decades, died.
1973 Irish naval service vessels apprehended the Claudia, a Cypriot coaster, off County Waterford. Six men, including Joe Cahill, were arrested for conspiracy to import arms.