Nick Maxwell

1769 Napoleon Bonaparte, statesman and military leader, born in Ajaccio, Corsica, the son of a lawyer. 1969 After three days of intense violence in Belfast, during which seven lives were lost and c. 1,800 families were forced to leave their homes, British troops were deployed. 1969 The Woodstock music festival, featuring over 30 acts, including Janis Joplin, … Read more

1598 The Battle of the Yellow Ford. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, along with his Ulster allies and some Spanish, inflicted the heaviest defeat ever suffered by the English in Ireland. Early that morning Sir Henry Bagenal, marshal of the queen’s army in Ireland, set out from Armagh with 300 cavalry and c. 4,000 foot-soldiers … Read more

1969 The British government announced that troops were being sent to Derry ‘to take all necessary steps, acting impartially between citizen and citizen, to restore law and order. Troops will be withdrawn as soon as this is accomplished. This is a limited operation.’ Taoiseach Jack Lynch, in a television broadcast, said that ‘the Irish government … Read more

1971 With over 4,000 refugees from Northern Ireland in refugee camps in the Republic, Taoiseach Jack Lynch called for the abolition of Stormont. 1970 Constables Samuel Donaldson (23) and Robert Millar (26) were killed by an IRA booby-trap bomb hidden in a stolen car parked a mile from Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh. They were the first … Read more

1971 John McKerr (49), a father of two, was shot dead in Ballymurphy, West Belfast, the last of eleven unarmed civilians with no paramilitary affiliations killed by the British Parachute Regiment in that area over a three-day period. 1919 Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist, business magnate and philanthropist who donated c. $350 million to charities, foundations … Read more