1806 Patrick Cotter (46), giant, died. Born in Kinsale, Co. Cork, Cotter was just eighteen when he began exhibiting himself in England as Patrick Cotter O’Brien, ‘a lineal descendant of the old puissant King Brien Boreau’. It was recorded that Cotter ‘had less imbecility of mind than the generality of overgrown persons’ but also had … Read more
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 … Read more
1987 Stephen Roche, who became the first Irish rider to win the Tour de France in July that year, became the first Irish rider to win the World Professional Road Race Championship, in Villich, Austria. 1914 The Battle of the Marne began, in which the French, under General Joffre, halted the German advance. It concluded six … Read more
1820 Pope Pius VII approved the Irish Christian Brothers, founded by Edmund Ignatius Rice. 1926 Forty-eight lives were lost when fire broke out in a cinema in Drumcollagher, Co. Limerick, during a showing of The Ten Commandments. 1972 Eleven Israeli athletes were killed when the Arab terrorist group Black September struck at the Olympic Games … Read more
1969 Ho Chi Minh (79), founding Vietnamese leader affectionately known as ‘Uncle Ho’, died. 1998 Bill Clinton arrived on the second of his three visits to Ireland as president of the United States. 1972 Mary Peters of Belfast took the gold medal in the women’s pentathlon at the Olympic Games in Munich with a world … Read more