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September 07

Published in On this Day listing

1940 The London Blitz began when the German Luftwaffe bombed the East End docklands, killing over 400 people.
1966 Hendrik Verwoerd, prime minister of South Africa and the architect of apartheid, was fatally stabbed by Dimitri Tsafendas during a parliamentary meeting.
1948 At a press conference in Ottawa, Taoiseach John A. Costello announced that he intended to repeal the External Relations Act (1936), taking Ireland out of the British Commonwealth.
1948 At a press conference in Ottawa, Canada, Taoiseach John A. Costello announced that his inter-party government intended to repeal the External Relations Act (1936) and declare a republic.
1910 James ‘Skin-the-Goat’ Fitzharris, a member of the Invincibles who was convicted as an accessory to the Phoenix Park Murders (1882), died at the South Dublin Union Infirmary.
1812 The Battle of Borodino, the largest and bloodiest single-day action of Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign, involving over 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties.

On this Day

1933 The eighth Dáil Éireann assembled: Eamon de Valera formed his second government, with a one-seat majority.
1929 James Connell, County Meath-born Fenian, Land Leaguer and writer of the British Labour Party anthem The Red Flag, died.
1926 The Plough and the Stars by Seán O’Casey opened in the Abbey Theatre. During the fourth performance there was a full-scale riot when the audience protested at what they perceived to be a slanderous distortion of historical events.
1912 The British home secretary, Winston Churchill, shared the platform with John Redmond at a Home Rule meeting in Celtic Park, Belfast. The organisers had been refused the use of the Ulster Hall, where Churchill’s father, a quarter of a century earlier, had warned that Home Rule could come upon them ‘as a thief in the night’.