On this day in 1818, Bernardo O'Higgins helped to secure the independence of Chile from Spain in the Battle of Maipú. O'Higgins, then Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, was the illegitimate son of Ambrosio (formerly Ambrose) Bernardo O'Higgins, an Irishman from Co. Sligo who had moved to Spain as a young man and received colonial postings of increasing importance from the … [Read more...] about April 5, 1818