November 04

  • 1771 Charles Lucas (58), apothecary and MP for Dublin since 1761 and one of the earliest campaigners against abuses in the sale of drugs, died.
  • 2001 On the recommendation of the Patten Report (1999), the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
  • 1979 Iranian students broke into the American embassy in Teheran and took 63 American hostages. They would be released, they declared, if the Shah were returned to Iran for trial.
  • 2001 The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) following a ten-year reform plan for policing set up under the terms of the Belfast Agreement (1998).
  • 1918 Wilfred Owen (25), war poet, notably of ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, was killed during the crossing of the Sambre-Oise Canal in France.
  • 1650 William of Orange (William III) born in The Hague.
  • 1983 Three RUC officers were killed and four others seriously injured when an IRA bomb exploded at the Ulster Polytechnic in Jordanstown during a criminology lecture.