ON THIS DAY

TODAY: Monday December 10, 2018

45 years ago (1973)

We reported the Government still expected to avoid petrol rationing during the oil crisis.

In other news, an “all-Ireland” peace package had been agreed after 52 hours of talks between delegates from London, Dublin and Belfast in an effort to end the bloodshed in Northern Ireland.

Known as the Sunningdale Agreement, it established a Council of Ireland with equal representation between London, Eire and Ulster.

But hardliners such as Ian Paisley saw the deal as a sell-out and the council collapsed.

69 years ago (1949)

Communist troops of the People’s Liberation Army began their siege of Chengdu in the Chinese Civil War.

The fall of the last stronghold of the USbacked Kuomintang on the mainland forced its leader and former president Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan.

30 years ago (1988)

The death toll in the Armenian earthquake reached 25,000 as the Soviet Union declared an official day of mourning and President Gorbachev visited the devastated cities of Spitak and Leninakan.

The quake measured 6.9 on the Richter scale and struck at 11.41am on December 7 when children were at school and people were at work.