February 15

  • 1921 Three IRA volunteers were killed and two others wounded in an abortive attack on a train carrying British soldiers at Upton, Co. Cork. Six civilian passengers were also killed and ten wounded in the crossfire.
  • 1970 Eoin ‘the Pope’ O’Mahony (66), barrister, genealogist and raconteur, died.
  • 1989 The Soviet–Afghan War ended after nine years. Over 14,000 Soviet troops lost their lives, along with c. 18,000 of their Afghan allies and c. 90,000 Mujahideen.
  • 1989 The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict, often referred to as the Soviet Union’s ‘Vietnam’, in which 14,453 of its troops were killed, along with c. 18,000 of their Afghan allies and c. 90,000 Mujahideen.
  • 1928 H.H. (Herbert Henry) Asquith (76), Liberal prime minister (1908–16), died.
  • 1901 Brendan Bracken, press baron, Conservative Party MP and parliamentary private secretary to Winston Churchill during World War II, was born in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, the son of John K. Bracken, a building contractor and founding member of the GAA.
  • 1564 Galileo, Italian astronomer and physicist, born in Pisa.