To renew a subscription please login first

November 04

Published in On this Day listing

1771 Charles Lucas (58), apothecary and MP for Dublin since 1761 and one of the earliest campaigners against abuses in the sale of drugs, died.
2001 On the recommendation of the Patten Report (1999), the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
1979 Iranian students broke into the American embassy in Teheran and took 63 American hostages. They would be released, they declared, if the Shah werereturned to Iran for trial.
2001 The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) following a ten-year reform plan for policing set up under the terms of the Belfast Agreement (1998).
1918 Wilfred Owen (25), war poet, notably of ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, was killed during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal in France.
1650 William of Orange (William III) born in The Hague.
1983 Three RUC officers were killed and four others seriously injured when an IRA bomb exploded at the Ulster Polytechnic in Jordanstown during a criminology lecture.

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.