BY AODHÁN CREALEY
03/1918
The government banned most nationalist organisations, including the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin.
06/1988
An explosion and resulting oil and gas fires destroyed Piper Alpha, an oil production platform in the North Sea c. 120 miles north-east of Aberdeen; 167 were killed and 61 survived in what was the worst oil-rig accident in history.
11/1938
Taoiseach Éamon de Valera raised the tricolour in Cork Harbour as Éire took possession of Spike Island, Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreements of 25 April 1938.
16/1968
An archaeological team discovered a passage and burial chamber at Knowth, Co. Meath.
17/1918
The Russian imperial family—Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their five children—were assassinated by their Bolshevik guards in a cellar in the city of Yekaterinburg on the edge of the Urals.
17/1918
The RMS Carpathia, famous for rescuing over 700 survivors from the Titanic (1912), was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast as she sailed from Liverpool, bound for Boston. Her 57 passengers were rescued but five crewmen were killed.
18/1918
Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid revolutionary and first democratically elected president of South Africa (1994–9), born in Mvezo, Cape Province.
20/1918
The British troop-ship SS Justicia, en route from Belfast to New York, sank c. 45km north-west of Malin Head after being struck several times by German torpedoes. Sixteen crewmen lost their lives.
25/1918
Cork-born Major Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock (31), one of the most celebrated fighter pilots of the RFC (Royal Flying Corps), with 73 credited enemy ‘kills’ in fourteen months, was shot down and killed by enemy fire.
29/1968
Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (‘Of Human Life’) reaffirmed orthodox Catholic teaching by rejecting all forms of artificial contraception.
30/1818
Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights (1847), born in Thornton, West Yorkshire.
01/2008
Eleven climbers from international expeditions were killed in a series of accidents on K2. Amongst the dead was Gerard McDonnell (37) from County Limerick, after becoming the first Irishman to reach its summit.
08/1918
The Battle of Amiens began, marking the beginning of the Hundred Days (Allied) Offensive that led to the end of the First World War.
14/1958
The KLM Super Constellation Hugo de Groot, en route from Amsterdam to New York with 91 passengers and a crew of eight, crashed some 90 miles off the Galway coast after refuelling in Shannon. There were no survivors.
15/1868
A teachers’ conference in Dublin led to the foundation of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO).
15/1998
Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died when a Real IRA car bomb exploded in Omagh, Co. Tyrone.
18/1993
President Mary Robinson began a two-day private visit to Northern Ireland, during which she was criticised by the British government and unionists for shaking the hand of Gerry Adams at a reception in West Belfast.
20/1868
Thirty-three died when the Irish mail train, en route from Euston to Holyhead, collided with runaway wagons from a goods train. Amongst the dead were Henry Maxwell, Lord Farnham, landlord and MP for County Cavan since 1824, and his wife.
20/1988
Eight soldiers from the Light Infantry Regiment, aged 18–21 years, were killed when an IRA bomb went off under their bus as it travelled on the Ballygawley to Omagh road in County Tyrone. A further nineteen were injured.
21/1968
A five-nation Warsaw Pact force, led by the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia.
22/1998
The INLA announced a ceasefire, ending their 23-year campaign. During that time they killed over 140, many of whom were their own members.
24/1968
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) held its first march from Coalisland to Dungannon, Co. Tyrone.