ON THIS DAY
MAY/JUNE 2015
MAY
01/1945
Joseph Goebbels (47), Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany since 1933, and one of Hitlers closest associates, committed suicide in a Berlin bunker, having poisoned his wife and six children.
06/1915
Orson Welles, actor, director, writer and producer who made his stage debut at Dublin’s Gate Theatre in 1931, born in Wisconsin.
07/1865
Major John McBride, revolutionary, born Westport, Co. Mayo.
07/1915
The Cunard passenger liner Lusitania, en route from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German submarine off the Old Head of Kinsale. Altogether, 1,195 passengers and crew, including 123 Americans—more than 60% of the ship’s compliment of 1,959—lost their lives.
13 /1945
In his victory speech, Prime Minister Winston Churchill attacked Eamon de Valera’s policy of neutrality during World War Two. De Valera made his celebrated reply three days later.
22 /1915
The Quintinsshill or Gretna Green railway disaster. In a collision involving three trains—a local train, a troop train heading south and the main Scotch Express heading north—227 were killed. It was Britain’s biggest rail accident.
23 /1945
Henrich Himmler (44), Reich Minister of the Interior, committed suicide whilst in Allied custody.
24 /1915
The Royal Irish Regiment was subjected to a German poison gas attack near Saint-Julien during the Second Battle of Yprés. With over 600 killed the Royal Dublin Fusiliers were effectively wiped out as a fighting unit.
25 /1315
The Bruce invasion of Ireland began, when Edward, younger brother of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots, landed at Larne, Co. Antrim, with 6,000 battle-hardened troops.
29 /1985
Some 39 football fans, mainly Italian, died and over 300 were injured when British soccer hooligans charged Italian football supporters during the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus at Heysel stadium, Brussels.
JUNE
02/1765
Francis Bindon, architect and portrait painter, notably that of the blind harpist Turlough Carolan, which hangs in the National Gallery, died.
13 /1865
William Butler Yeats, writer, poet, dramatist and essayist, born in Sandymount, Dublin, the eldest son of the painter, John Butler Yeats.
14 /1865
John Mitchel, editor of the Daily News a Democratic newspaper that had opposed the Civil War, was convicted on a charge of writing seditious articles and imprisoned in Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Released in October that year, his health never recovered.
15 /1215
Magna Carta was signed by King John and his barons on the banks of the River Thames at Runnymede.
18 /1815
The Battle of Waterloo, ‘a damned near run thing’ in the words of the commander of Coalition forces, the Duke of Wellington, ended with the defeat of Napoleon’s French army after an eight-hour engagement. Casualties on both sides estimated at 62,000.
22 /1965
Piaras Béaslaí, Liverpool-born journalist, soldier, Irish language activist and author of a controversial biography of Michael Collins (1925) died.
23 /1985
Air India Boeing 747 flight 182, en route from Vancouver to New Delhi, was blown up by a bomb planted on board by Sikh extremists some 100 miles off the southwest coast of Ireland. All 307 passengers, mostly Canadians of Indian descent, and 22 crew on were killed. It was the deadliest terror attack in aviation history prior to 9/11.
24 /1995
Harold Wilson, British Labour Party leader and Prime Minister (1964-’70, 1974-’76) who won four general elections, died.
26 /1945
The Charter of the United Nations, the foundational treaty of the organisation, was signed in San Francisco.
30 /1915
Jerimiah O’Donovan Rossa, republican, and convicted felon whose mistreatment in prison (1865-1871) became a cause célebre, died in New York.