August 13, 2019: A look back at what happened on this day in years gone by

We take a trip down memory lane and check out what happened on this day in years gone by by looking back at some Irish Examiner front pages and highlighting other events which went down in history across the world.

August 13 - 50 years ago

The dangerous instability in the North was really taking hold on this day 50 years ago as Catholics and Protestants clashed in vicious street battles. More than 80 police officers were injured in the clashes in Derry which followed the annual Orangemen Apprentice Boys parade.

The trouble flared around Rossville St in the city, which would also hit the headlines three years later on Bloody Sunday.

The Cork Examiner reported on August 13, 1969, that a young couple who gave away their baby girl to a childless couple in exchange for a radiogram, had since sold the radiogram for IR£3.

20 years ago

On this day 20 years ago, it was reported that the Government was to carry out the first shake-up of censorship laws in 50 years.

It was intended to clamp down on all kinds of hardcore pornography. The announcement coincided with the banning of the magazine In Dublin, which had been running adverts for massage parlours.

John McKeown, a self-confessed informer, claimed he had received up to £10,000 from the RUC over 10 years.

He said he had been recruited after being caught with stolen meat from a factory in Newry, Co Down, a decade earlier.

At a press conference held in Sinn Féin’s offices, he was asked if he was afraid of the consequences of his confession, Mr McKeown said: “I am, yes.”

10 years ago

Fastforward to 2009 and, as the economy was collapsing, a liquidator was appointed to one of the country’s leading property developers, Liam Carroll.

The Irish Examiner reported that ACC Bank had moved swiftly to seek repayment of €136m owed to it by two of six firms in Mr Carroll’s Zoe Developments group.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe was claiming that changes to the Maths curriculum would address the fact that only one in six students sat higher level in the subject in the Leaving Cert that year.

5 years ago

Five years ago, the world was remembering the troubled comedic genius Robin Williams, who died as a result of an apparent suicide aged 63.

Property developers were still making the headlines at that point, with the Irish Examiner reporting that Cork developer Michael O’Flynn had upped the ante in his battle to retain control of his building empire by revealing he could immediately repay the €16.7m in loans demanded by the company which took over his Nama loans, as well as the remaining €8.2m he owed in personal loans.

Last year

On this day 12 months ago, before he was confirmed as President for a second time, this newspaper was reporting that the Public Accounts Committee was considering an examination of the cost of Michael D Higgins’s first term in office amid fears that ongoing questions over the amount of money being spent could overshadow the presidential race.

The summer weather was so much better last year that on this day in 2018, there was talk of getting post vans stocked with bottled water which could be handed out to the elderly in an attempt to negate some of the impact of the ongoing drought.

Meals-on-wheels, prescriptions, and some groceries were also potential new deliveries to be made by postal workers.

Across the world on this day ...

Notable moments

Anglo-Austrian army defeats French and Bavarians, Alfred Hitchcock is born, electric guitar pioneer Les Paul dies, swimmer Michael Phelps breaks 2,168-year-old record.

1704: The Battle of Blenheim took place in southern Germany, in which the Anglo-Austrian army under the command of John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, inflicted a decisive defeat on the French and Bavarian armies. The victors lost 6,000 soldiers compared with 21,000 French and Bavarian troops.

1792: French revolutionaries imprisoned the royal family of Louis XVI and on September 21 proclaimed the French Republic.

1814: The Netherlands formally ceded the Cape of Good Hope to Britain. The colony was established in 1652 as a resupply point for the Dutch East India Company, a community of Huguenots arriving there in 1687 escaping religious persecution.

1826: French physician Rene Laennec, inventor of the stethoscope, died.

1860: Annie Oakley born as Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses. She was a markswoman and member of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show which toured America. Heroine of the musical Annie Get Your Gun.

1868: A series of earthquakes began in Peru and Ecuador, which killed about 25,000 people.

1888: John Logie Baird, Scottish engineer and pioneer of television, is born.

1898: US forces under George Dewey captured Manila during the Spanish- American war after a three-month blockade of Manila Bay.

1899: Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, Hollywood master of suspense whose films included such classics as The Thirty- Nine Steps, Psycho, and The Birds, was born in Leytonstone, England.

1914: France declared war on Austria- Hungary, as Europe was sucked deeper into the First World War.

1926: Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary who fought and overthrew the regime of Fugencio Batista in 1959, was born.

1960: The Central African Republic gained independence from France.

1961: The border between East and West Berlin was closed at the Brandenburg Gate and barricaded to halt the flight of refugees as construction began on the Berlin Wall.

1964: The last executions in Britain took place when Peter Allen and John Walby were hanged for murder at jails in Liverpool and Manchester.

1993: More than 120 people died in a hotel collapse in Thailand.

1995: Kashmiri separatists murdered a Norwegian tourist and threatened to kill four other hostages unless India freed 15 militants.

1996: Data sent back by the Galileo space probe indicated there could be water on one of Jupiter’s moons, heightening the possibility that it could support a primitive life form.

1999: A British High Court judge ruled that Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and his partner of 20 years, model and actress Jerry Hall, were never legally married. They married in 1990 in an unofficial, mainly Hindu ceremony in Bali.

1999: German tennis star Steffi Graf, nicknamed Fraulein Forehand, announced her retirement, ending a 17-year career that included 22 Grand Slam titles.

2001: The IRA rescinded its offer to begin weapons decommissioning, angered by the 24-hour suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

2001: Nasa’s giant solar-powered “flying wing”, Helios, set a new altitude record for non-rocket-powered aircraft, reaching 29,413m after its launch from Hawaii.

2004: The Olympic Games returned to Athens, Greece, birthplace of the ancient Games, and where the first revival in the modern era was hosted in 1896.

2009: Les Paul, whose pioneering electric guitars were used by a legion of rock stars, died aged 94. He developed one of the first solid-body electric guitars, which went on sale in 1952 and contributed to the birth of rock. His other innovations included multi-track recording and overdubbing, and he invented the eight-track tape recorder.

2016: US swimmer Michael Phelps won his 23rd Olympic gold medal, taking his overall tally to 28. By winning a 13th individual gold medal he broke the 2,168- year-old record of Leonidas of Rhodes.

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