Indian-English general (born 1889)

Richard O'Connor

General Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor, was a senior British Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars, and commanded the Western Desert Force in the early years of the Second World War. He was the field commander for Operation Compass, in which his forces destroyed a much larger Italian army – a victory which nearly drove the Axis from Africa, and in turn, led Adolf Hitler to send the Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel to try to reverse the situation. O'Connor was captured by a German patrol on 6 April 1941 and spent over two years in an Italian prisoner of war camp. He eventually escaped after the fall of Mussolini in the autumn of 1943.

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1981

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Richard, in brief

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1981 Died

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What else happened on this day, through history

653 Pope Martin I is arrested and taken to Constantinople, due to his opposition to monothelitism.
1242 Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were burnt in Paris.
1300 Turku Cathedral is consecrated by Bishop Magnus I in the city of Turku (Swedish: Åbo).
1397 The Kalmar Union is formed under the rule of Margaret I of Denmark.

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The world in 1981

When Richard departed

april 10 Imprisoned IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands is elected to Westminster as the MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He died twenty-six days later.
april 11 A massive riot in Brixton, south London, results in almost 300 police injuries and 65 serious civilian injuries.
april 12 The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia) takes place: The STS-1 mission.
april 14 STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia, completes its first test flight.

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