Born Oct. 16, 1890, near Clonakilty, County Cork; died Aug. 22, 1922, in Beal-na-Blath. Irish politician and statesman. The son of a farmer.
Collins participated in the Irish rebellion of 1916. In 1918 he became a member of the Irish parliament. He was minister of finance in the revolutionary government of the Sinn Fein from 1919 to 1922. As a plenipotentiary of the Irish delegation, he signed the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 that gave Ireland the status of a dominion with Northern Ireland remaining under British rule. In 1922 he became chairman of the provisional government. Collins organized the armed struggle against leftist republican forces.
Born Oct. 31, 1930, in Rome, Italy. US pilot and astronaut, lieutenant colonel in the air force.
In 1952, Collins graduated from the United States Military Academy. He served as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base. In 1963 he became one of the astronauts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was J. Young’s copilot on the space flight of July 18–21, 1966, in Gemini 10. During the flight Collins made two space walks. During a link-up with an Agena 8 target rocket, he removed a device for studying micrometeorites from it. On July 16–24, 1969, as pilot of the command module of the Apollo 11 spaceship, he participated in the historic flight during which N. Armstrong and E. Aldrin first walked on the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969. From July 19 to July 22 he was in various lunar orbits (30 in all) totaling 59 hrs, 27 mins, 55 sees, maintaining communications between the earth and the astronauts on the moon; he helped guide the separation and docking of the lunar module with N. Armstrong and E. Aldrin aboard. A crater on the far side of the moon is named for Collins.