Working Class Calendar

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!workingclasscalendar@lemmy.world is a working class calendar inspired by the now (2023-06-25) closed reddit r/aPeoplesCalendar aPeoplesCalendar.org, where we can post daily events.

Rules

All the requirements of the code of conduct of the instance must be followed.

Community Rules

1. It's against the rules the apology for fascism, racism, chauvinism, imperialism, capitalism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and heterosexism and attitudes according to these isms.

2. The posts should be about past working class events or about the community.

3. Cross-posting is welcomed.

4. Be polite.

5. Any language is welcomed.

Lemmy

founded 2 years ago
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1
 
 

Immigration Act of 1864

Mon Jul 04, 1864

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Image: An artist's depiction of immigrants arriving in New York City, undergoing health inspection in 1866


Passed on this day in 1864, the Immigration Act legalized wage-based indentured servitude to encourage immigration to the United States, allowing immigrants to forgo a year's wages to pay for their passage into the country.

Employers, such as railroad and mining companies, would contract an immigrant workers to come to the United States under guidelines established by the federal government and withhold their wages accordingly.

This law provided corporations with cheap labor that could and would be used to break strikes by domestic workers. After years of rigorous opposition by labor organizations, Congress repealed the law in 1868.


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Anti-Rent Movement Begins (1839)

Thu Jul 04, 1839

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Image: A poster supporting the Anti-Rent Movement, aimed to end the patroon system in Rensselaer County, New York, United States. Its headline reads "ATTENTION! ANTI-RENTERS! AWAKE! AROUSE!" [Wikipedia]


On this day in 1839, tenant farmers on New York's oldest estate assembled in Albany County to adopt a declaration of independence from their landlord, initiating the longest rent strike in U.S. history, the "Anti-Rent War".

Their previous landlord, Stephen van Rensselaer III, who owned all 726,000 acres of the effectively feudal estate of Rensselaerwyck, had passed away a few months prior.

In their declaration of independence, the farmers stated "We will take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it and roll it to the final consummation of freedom and independence of the masses."

This began a six year rebellion known as the Anti-Rent War, the longest rent strike in U.S. history.

In those six years, the farmers fought off attempts to collect rent by force, repelling a 500-man posse led by the Albany County sheriff in December 1839.

In 1844, the movement formed a prominent political party, known as the "Antirenter" party. In 1846, provisions for tenants' rights - abolishing feudal tenures and outlawing leases lasting longer than twelve years - were added to the New York Constitution.


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Paterson Textile Strike (1835)

Fri Jul 03, 1835

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Image: Workers with rolls of finished silk in a Paterson silk factory in 1914. Image: Library of Congress


On this day in 1835, 2,000 workers, most of them children, from more than twenty textile mills in Paterson, New Jersey went on strike to demand working hours be reduced from their standard six day, seventy-eight hour work week.

In response to the strike, employers reduced hours to twelve on weekdays and nine on Saturday. This reduction broke the strike, and most of the workers returned to the mills.

Despite this concession, strike leaders and their families were permanently barred from employment in Paterson, blacklisted by the mill owners.


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Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 - 1935)

Tue Jul 03, 1860

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman, born on this day in 1860, was a prominent American humanist, author, socialist, and feminist, probably best known today for her loosely autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper".

Gilman served as a role model for future generations of feminists due to her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle, such as leaving her husband (rare for the era) and living with another woman in what was possibly, though unconfirmed, a romantic relationship.

Gilman is possibly best known today for her semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", authored after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis. The story depicts the way in which sick women are maligned in a sexist society.

She was also an advocate for assisted suicide for the chronically ill, and died from a self-inflicted chloroform overdose in 1935 after a struggle with breast cancer.

"To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something."

- Charlotte Gilman


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Patrice Lumumba (1925 - 1961)

Thu Jul 02, 1925

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Patrice Lumumba, born on this day in 1925, was a Congolese anti-colonial revolutionary who served as the first Prime Minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo from June until shortly before his assassination in 1961.

Lumumba played a significant role in the transformation of the Congo from a colony of Belgium into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and pan-Africanist, he led the Congolese National Movement (MNC) party from 1958 until his assassination on January 17th, 1961 in a coup by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, backed by Belgian colonizers.

Lumumba did not express a pro-capitalist or pro-communist ideology, attempting to remain neutral in Cold War politics. He sought assistance in stabilizing the new Congolese Republic from both the United States and the Soviet Union, accepting military aid from the latter after the U.S. refused to help him.

On Lumumba's legacy, his friend and colleague Thomas Kanza wrote "he lived as a free man, and an independent thinker. Everything he wrote, said and did was the product of someone who knew his vocation to be that of a liberator, and he represents for the Congo what Castro does for Cuba, Nasser for Egypt, Nkrumah for Ghana, Mao Tse-tung for China, and Lenin for Russia."


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Medgar Evers (1925 - 1963)

Thu Jul 02, 1925

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Medgar Evers, born on this day in 1925, was an American civil rights leader who achieved national prominence for his efforts in fighting racial oppression in Mississippi, work for which he assassinated by white supremacists.

Evers led boycotts against businesses that discriminated against black people, worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, and fought for fair enforcement of the right to vote. He also played a key role in securing the involvement of the NAACP in the murder of Emmett Till, helping publicize the events and secretly secure witnesses for the case.

Evers was assassinated on June 12th, 1963 by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council in Jackson, Mississippi. His murder and the resulting trials inspired a wave of civil rights protests; his life inspired numerous works of art, music, and film.

All-white juries failed to reach verdicts in the first two trials of Beckwith in the 1960s. He was convicted in 1994 in a state trial based on new evidence.

"I love my children and I love my wife with all my heart. And I would die, die gladly, if that would make a better life for them."

- Medgar Evers


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Boston Anti-War Parade (1917)

Sun Jul 01, 1917

On this day in 1917, approximately 8,000 anti-war activists organized a parade in Boston opposing World War I, conscription, and American imperialism. They carried banners that read:

IS THIS A POPULAR WAR, WHY CONSCRIPTION?

WHO STOLE PANAMA? WHO CRUSHED HAITI?

WE DEMAND PEACE.

According to the New York Call, 8,000 people marched, including "4000 members of the Central Labor Union, 2000 members of the Leftist Socialist Organizations, 1500 Lithuanians, Jewish members of cloak trades, and other branches of the party." The parade was attacked by soldiers and sailors, on orders from their officers.


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Homestead Strike Begins (1892)

Fri Jul 01, 1892

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The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike which began on this day in 1892, culminating in a battle between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and private security forces of the Carnegie Steel Company.

Unlike earlier strikes in U.S. history, such as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Homestead Strike was organized and purposeful, a sign of how labor agitation would develop in the modern era.

In order to break the union at the Carnegie Steel Factory, Henry Clay Frick locked union workers out of the factory on June 28th. On July 1st, thousands of workers, skilled and non-skilled, went on strike.

Frick hired the Pinkerton Agency to guard strikebreakers brought in via barge (the factory was on a river), but strikers patrolled a ten-mile stretch of the river to prevent them from making it to the factory.

On July 6th, the Pinkertons attempted to land under cover of darkness around four in the morning, however thousands of striking workers and sympathizers were waiting for them on the riverbank. When the agents tried to land, gunfire erupted, killing four people and injuring twenty-three on both sides. The Pinkertons surrendered, and many were beaten unconscious after leaving the boat.

The strike was forcibly put down by state militia, resulting in a defeat for the workers. The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers collapsed, and its workers returned in August.

For his role in breaking the union, anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.


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Lambing Flat Riots (1860 - 1861)

Sun Jun 30, 1861

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Image: An of-the-era white interpretation of what happened at the Burrangong goldfields, "Might versus Right", by Samuel Thomas Gill, c.1862-1863. Photograph: Samuel Thomas Gill/State Library of NSW [theguardian.com]


On this day in 1861, the worst violence of the Australian Lambing Flat Riots occurred when a mob of 3,000 white people attacked 2,000 Chinese miners and drove them off the Lambing Flat, destroying and looting their encampments.

The race riot came out of more than a decade of ethnic tensions between Chinese and European-born miners in Australia, tensions that became systematic violence the previous few years.

The violence was in part triggered in part by the Australian government rejecting a proposed restriction on Chinese immigration, as well as a false rumor that a new group of 1,500 Chinese people were en route to the area.

Despite the government's initial reject of an anti-Chinese immigration bill, the Lambing Flat Riots led the New South Wales government to pass the Chinese Immigration Act in November 1861, severely limiting the flow of Chinese people into the colony.


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Kwame Ture (1941 - 1998)

Sun Jun 29, 1941

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Kwame Ture, born on this day in 1941 as Stokely Carmichael, was a prominent civil rights activist, serving as "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party and later organizing with the global Pan-African movement.

Ture was a key leader in the development of the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later serving as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and then as a leader of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).

Ture was one of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961 under the leadership of Diane Nash. He became a prominent voting rights activist in Mississippi and Alabama after being mentored by Ella Baker and Bob Moses.

The FBI harassed and slandered him through the COINTELPRO program, leading Ture to flee to Africa in 1968. While there, the U.S. government continued its surveillance of him via the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

While in Africa, he adopted the name "Kwame Ture" to honor Sékou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah, who he began collaborating with. Three months after his arrival in Guinea, Ture published a formal rejection of the Black Panthers, condemning them for not being separatist enough and for their "dogmatic party line favoring alliances with white radicals".

Ture spent the last thirty years of his life campaigning internationally for revolutionary socialist Pan-Africanism via the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). In 1998, Ture died of prostate cancer at the age of 57, cancer he claimed was deliberately given to him as a means of assassination.

"If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you're anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist."

- Kwame Ture


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Congo Crisis (1960)

Thu Jun 30, 1960

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Image: Patrice Lumumba in 1960 [theafricareport.com]


On this day in 1960, the Republic of the Congo became independent from Belgian colonizers, beginning a four year period of civil war which killed approximately 100,000 people, including the country's first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. The complex period of political strife is known as the "Congo Crisis".

The Congo had been colonized by Belgium since the late 19th century, a process initiated by King Leopold II of Belgium, who was frustrated by Belgium's lack of international power and prestige.

A nationalist movement within the Belgian Congo began to gain momentum in the 1950s, consisting of rival factions such as the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), of which Patrice Lumumba (shown) was a leading figure, and Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu.

Following major riots in Stanleyville and Léopoldville in 1959, a Round Table Conference in Brussels was held in January 1960, with leaders from all the major Congolese parties in attendance.

Congolese leaders were successful in negotiating their independence to be granted within months, formally winning their independence from Belgium in late June. Within days, violence between white and black communities broke out, and the country descended into a civil war between rival political factions. Some factions, supported by powerful mining interests, began seceding from the newly founded Republic of Congo.

The United Nations sent in peacekeeping troops, which were initially welcomed by Lumumba and the central government with the idea that the UN would help suppress the secessionist states. Viewing the secessions as an internal political matter, the UN refused to use its troops to assist the central Congolese government against them.

Lumumba also sought the assistance of the U.S. government, led by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who refused to provide meaningful military aid. He then turned to the Soviet Union, which agreed to provide weapons, logistical and material support, which the state promptly used against the secessionists.

Despite Lumumba's public proclamations that he was not a communist, the United States viewed the acceptance of aid with alarm, and Lumumba became a target of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) surveillance. Lumumba was captured and, on January 17th, 1961, executed by Belgian-assisted forces.

The factional conflict continued in the wake of Lumumba's death, with fighting and intervention coming from Western states, the United Nations, and various political groups inside the Congo.

In 1964, a group known as the Simbas initiated a rebellion based on egalitarian ideals and witchcraft. In November 1964, the Simbas rounded up the remaining white population of Stanleyville, holding them hostage in the Victoria Hotel to use as bargaining tools with the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC).

To recover the hostages, Belgian parachute troops were flown to the Congo in American aircraft. More than 70 hostages and 1,000 Congolese civilians were killed in the rescue mission, but the vast majority of hostages were evacuated.

Following chaotic elections in 1964, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu took power in a military coup, assuming sweeping powers and instituting widespread political repression. Mobutu, who had played a key role in Lumumba's execution, ruled until 1997, enjoying support from the United States, France, Belgium, and China.


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Henry Gerber (1892 - 1972)

Wed Jun 29, 1892

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Henry Gerber, born on this day in 1892, was a German-American queer rights activist who, in 1924, founded the first American pro-homosexual organization, known as the "Society for Human Rights" (SHR).

Gerber was in Passau, Bavaria, moving to the United States in 1913. In 1917, Gerber was briefly committed to a mental institution because of his homosexuality.

When the U.S. declared war on Germany, Gerber was forced to choose between becoming interned as an enemy alien or enlist in the Army. Gerber chose the latter and served in the Army for approximately three years.

During his time in Germany, Gerber learned about the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld's advocacy to decriminalize and normalize homosexuality. He also traveled to Berlin, which had a thriving gay subculture.

Inspired by Hirschfeld's work, on December 10th, 1924, Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights, the first pro-gay organization in the United States. A black clergyman named John T. Graves signed on as the organization's first president while Gerber and six others were listed as directors.

Gerber set out to expand the Society's membership beyond the original seven, but had difficulty interesting anyone other than working class queer people in joining. More affluent members of Chicago's gay community refused to join his society, not wanting to ruin their reputations by being associated with homosexuality.

The Society was only a chartered organization for a few months before police arrested Gerber and several other members. Gerber was subjected to three highly publicized trials, and his defense, while ultimately successful, cost him his life savings.

Unable to continue funding the Society, the group dismantled, and Gerber left for New York City, embittered that the more affluent gays of Chicago had not come to his aid for a cause he believed was designed to advance the common good.

"Is not the psychiatrist again putting the cart before the horse in saying that homosexuality is a symptom of the neurotic style of life? Would it not sound more natural to say that the homosexual is made neurotic because his style of life is beset by thousands of dangers?"

- Henry Gerber


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Samar Badawi (1981 - )

Sun Jun 28, 1981

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Image: **


Samar Badawi, born on this day in 1981, is a Saudi Arabian feminist activist who participated in the driving campaigns of 2011-12, sued the government for the right to vote, and was imprisoned by the state for her activism. Her brother, Raif Badawi, is also a civil rights activist who was imprisoned by the government, released on March 11th, 2022.

In 2011, Samar filed suit against the Saudi Arabian government for the right to vote, making her the first person to file a lawsuit for women's suffrage in the country.

Samar has been arrested multiple times for her activism and non-compliance with laws that restrict rights for women. This includes participating in a women's driving campaign, violating the law that prohibits women from driving, a law that was repealed in 2018.

After Badawi missed several trial dates relating to charges of disobedience under the Saudi Arabian male guardianship system (brought by her father, who physically abused her), she served six months in jail.

In 2018, Badawi and several other feminist activists were arrested by the Saudi authorities, sparking a major diplomatic dispute between Canada and Saudi Arabia when the former demanded Badawi's immediate release. In June 2021, Badawi was released from prison.


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Chris Hani (1942 - 1993)

Sun Jun 28, 1942

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Chris Hani, born on this day in 1942, was a leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of "uMkhonto we Sizwe", the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

Hani was passionate about fighting apartheid even as a child - when he was 12 years old, after hearing his father's explanations about apartheid and the African National Congress, he wished to join the ANC but was still too young to be accepted. He joined the organization three years later.

Hani received military training in the Soviet Union and served in campaigns during the Zimbabwean War of Liberation, also known as the Rhodesian Bush War.

Despite Hani's extensive experience with armed struggle, he supported the suspension of the ANC's armed resistance against apartheid in favor of peaceful negotiations after becoming head of the party in 1991.

Hani was assassinated by Janusz Walus, an anti-communist Polish immigrant, on April 10th, 1993. Walus was aided in the killing by the South African Conservative Party. The first democratic elections of South Africa took place just a year later, on April 27th, 1994.

"Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas.

It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market. As long as the economy is dominated by an unelected, privileged few, the case for socialism will exist."

  • Chris Hani

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Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940)

Sun Jun 27, 1869

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Emma Goldman, born on this day in 1869, was an anarchist writer and activist in the United States whose works, including "My Disillusionment in Russia" and her journal Mother Earth, influenced anarchist movements all over the world.

Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a renowned writer and lecturer. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of "propaganda of the deed".

Frick survived the attempt on his life, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control.

After their release from prison, Goldman and Berkman were again arrested and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power, Goldman changed her opinion in the wake of the Kronstadt rebellion, denouncing the Soviet Union for its repression of political dissent. She left the Soviet Union and, in 1923, published a book about her experiences, "My Disillusionment in Russia".

Goldman was an extremely well-known anarchist in her lifetime, with a reputation as a powerful orator. Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, free love, and homosexuality.

"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

- Emma Goldman


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Olive Morris (1952 - 1979)

Thu Jun 26, 1952

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Olive Morris, born on this day in 1952, was a Jamaican Black Panther, squatter's rights activist, and founder of the Brixton Black Women's Group who died prematurely from illness at the age of 27. When Morris was nine years old, she and her brother, Basil, left their maternal grandmother in Jamaica and joined her parents in Lavender Hill, South London.

On November 15th, 1969, Morris was beaten and sexually harassed by London police for interfering when they were beating Nigerian diplomat Clement Gomwalk for existing while black outside "Desmond's Hip City", Brixton's first black records store. Basil described her injuries from the incident, saying that he "could hardly recognize her face, they beat her so badly".

Olive later became a member of the youth section of the British Black Panther Movement (later called the Black Workers Movement), along with activists such as Linton Kwesi Johnson, Clovis Reid and Farrukh Dhondy. Olive was also a founding member of the Brixton Black Women's Group.

Morris also squatted at 121 Railton Road, Brixton in 1973. This squat became a hub of political activism and hosted community groups such as Black People Against State Harassment. The building was also the site of the Sabarr Bookshop, one of the first black community bookshops in the area. The site subsequently became an anarchist project, known as the 121 Centre, which existed until its eviction in 1999.

In 1979, Morris died prematurely from non-Hodgkinson's lymphoma at the age of 27.


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Salvador Allende (1908 - 1973)

Fri Jun 26, 1908

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Salvador Allende, born on this day in 1908, was a Chilean physician and politician who became the first Marxist leader to be elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy. He was ousted by CIA-assisted fascists in 1973.

Allende, whose political career spanned nearly four decades, achieved the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition, serving from 1970 to 1973.

As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education and improve the living standards of the working class. His administration gave educational grants to indigenous children, implemented literacy programs in impoverished areas, and established a minimum wage for workers of all ages.

On September 11th, 1973, the military ousted Allende in a coup d'état assisted by Henry Kissinger and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his final speech to the public, vowing not to resign. Later that day, Allende died of a gunshot wound, concluded to be a suicide by an investigation conducted by a Chilean court with the assistance of international experts in 2011.

"Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seed which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have strength and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested neither by crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history."

- Salvador Allende, September 11th, 1973


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Korean War Begins (1950)

Sun Jun 25, 1950

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Image: Marking the beginning of the "independence" of the Republic of Korea, Syngman Rhee, President of the Republic of Korea, embraces his guest U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded UN troops in Korea during the war, unknown year


On this day in 1950, the northern Korean People's Army crossed the 38th parallel in an offensive to crush the Republic of Korea, an imperialist puppet state established by the U.S., marking the beginning of the Korean War.

Although June 25th, 1950 is where the beginning of the Korean War is traditionally marked, other interpretations of the conflict exist.

Historian Stephen Gowans, author of "Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom", notes that some analysts, including a member of the U.S. State Department, consider the Korean War to have begun with the creation of the U.S.-imposed Republic of Korea on August 15th, 1948, and some consider the conflict of 1950-53 an extension of a civil war that began in 1932, when Kim Il-sung formed his first guerrilla unit to fight Japanese colonizers.

In any case, the Korean War of 1950-53 was fought between two states that both lay claim to all of the Korean Peninsula, the northern Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the southern Republic of Korea (ROK).

The ROK had been established by the occupying U.S. military government in 1948. In 1945, the same military government had banned the left-leaning People's Republic of Korea, which was based on a network of worker's committees whose program consisted of pro-labor reforms, such as the abolition of child labor and the eight hour day.

On June 25th, 1950, the DPRK People's Army crossed the 38th Parallel into ROK territory, intending to crush the state of U.S.-collaborationists. Two days later, the United Nations Security Council, then boycotted by the Soviet Union for not acknowledging the People's Republic of China (PRC), recommended member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea.

The conflict became a proxy war between global superpowers, with the DPRK supported by the Soviet Union and PRC and the ROK supported by the U.S. On July 27th, 1953 the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, creating the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea. Despite this, no peace treaty was ever signed and the two governments remain at war to this day.

The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities, 10% of the total Korean population, a larger proportional civilian death toll than both World War II and the Vietnam War according to historian Charles Armstrong.

The U.S. led a massive, scorched earth bombing campaign against North Korea, making North Korea one of the most heavily bombed countries in human history. Armstrong writes "U.S. planes dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea - that is, essentially on North Korea - including 32,557 tons of napalm, compared to 503,000 tons of bombs dropped in the entire Pacific theatre of World War II. It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea's major cities."

This campaign of destruction was essential to the success of U.S. intervention: American General Matthew Ridgway stated that, except for air power, "the war would have been over in 60 days with all Korea in Communist hands".


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Battle of Little Bighorn (1876)

Sun Jun 25, 1876

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On this day in 1876, the Battle of Little Bighorn took place, a major defeat of the U.S. Army by the combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho that caused the death of Colonel George Custer. The event, also known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was one of the most significant military actions in the Great Sioux War.

The battle began on the morning of June 25th when Colonel Custer led an attack on an encampment of combined tribes. His strategy was to seize as many "non-combatants" as possible (i.e., women, the disabled, and children), and force the men to surrender to protect their families.

Custer drastically underestimated the amount of indigenous people present, however, and no member of his attacking battalion survived their charge on the camp. Despite the victory, the seizure of indigenous lands continued unabated. Days after the battle, Crazy Horse (a leader in the Sioux resistance) surrendered to the government and died in state custody.

As a result of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the U.S. government threatened to withhold all food aid to reservations if the Sioux did not cease hostilities and cede South Dakota land. Threatened with starvation, they complied in 1877.


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Radom Riots (1976)

Thu Jun 24, 1976

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Image: Workers' protests in June 1976 in Radom. [tvpworld.com]


The Radom Riots began in Poland on this day in 1976 when tens of thousands of people began protesting and rioting in response to government increases in the price of food, chanting "We want bread and freedom" and fighting with police. This uprising took place in the context of social unrest throughout the country.

That morning, workers at multiple factories across Radom went on strike. By 11 am, thousands of protesters surrounded an administrative building in the city.

After waiting for an official decision on the issue of food increases for several hours, the crowd broke into the building, which had been evacuated, looting and setting it on fire and barricading the surrounding streets.

Because the state did not plan on Radom having an uprising of this size, police forces were initially overwhelmed and reinforcements did not arrive until later that afternoon.

Approximately 20,000 people battled with police forces. 198 people were wounded, 634 arrested, and several were killed. A few weeks after the uprising, a Roman Catholic priest died after being beaten by police, having joined the rioters and criticized the government in his sermons.

Despite the government crackdown, the price raises were reversed within 24 hours. The 1976 workers' protest against official economic policy was a watershed moment in dissent against the Polish People's Republic.


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Carl Braden (1914 - 1975)

Wed Jun 24, 1914

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Carl Braden, born on this day in 1914, was a left-wing trade unionist, journalist, and activist who was charged with sedition by the state of Kentucky after purchasing a home in an all-white neighborhood on behalf of a black family. He was married to Anne Braden, a prominent civil rights activist in her own right.

In 1954, to sidestep the residential race segregation in Louisville, Kentucky, the Bradens purchased a house in an all-white neighborhood and deeded it over to the Wades, an African-American family who had been unsuccessfully seeking a suburban residence. White segregationists responded by burning a cross in the yard, shooting into the home, and eventually destroying the building entirely with dynamite.

For his role in the affair, Carl Braden was charged with sedition, his work for racial integration being interpreted as an act of communist subversion. He was convicted on December 13th, 1954 and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Immediately upon his conviction, Carl Braden was fired from his job and blacklisted from local employment. He served seven months of his sentence before he was released on a $40,000 bond, the highest bond ever set in Kentucky up to that time.

On appeal, Carl's case made it to the Supreme Court (Braden v. United States, 1961), which ruled that Braden's conviction was constitutional, although this was later overturned.

In 1967, the Bradens were again charged with sedition for protesting the practice of strip-mining in Pike County, Kentucky.


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June Days Uprising Begins (1848)

Fri Jun 23, 1848

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Image: "On the barricades on the Rue Soufflot, Paris, 25 June 1848 (1848-49)", a painting by Horace Vernet [Wikipedia]


On this day in 1848, more than 40,000 French workers initiated the June Days Uprising after the state closed National Workshops that provided work to the unemployed, causing 10,000 casualties and 4,000 workers to be deported to Algeria.

The National Workshops had only been formed a few months earlier, when, on February 25th, a group of armed workers interrupted a session of the provisional government to demand "the organization of labor" and "the right to work".

In late June, the Second Republic began planning to close the workshops, leading to a national uprising. In sections of the city, hundreds of barricades were thrown up. The National Guard was sent in to quell the rebellion, and workers seized weapons from local armories to fight back.

The violence, which lasted just three days, resulted in more than 10,000 casualties and 4,000 participants to be deported to Algeria. Among the dead was Denis Auguste Affre, Archbishop of Paris, killed while trying to negotiate peace with an angry crowd.

The rebellion was successfully crushed, and the episode put a hold on revolutionary ambitions of radical Republicans at the time. In its aftermath, the French Constitution of 1848 was adopted, mandating that executive power be wielded by a democratically elected president.

The first president under this framework was Napoleon Bonaparte, who dissolved the constitution during his first term in office.


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Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

Mon Jun 23, 1947

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Image: A massive 1947 union rally in Madison Square Garden. A large sign reads "MR PRESIDENT: VETO THE HARTLEY-TAFT SLAVE-LABOR BILL"


On this day in 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act became U.S. law after a heavily bipartisan vote, greatly restricting the legal rights of organizing workers during an unprecedented wave of strikes after World War II.

The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act, was enacted despite the veto of President Harry S. Truman, with many Democrats defecting from the party line to support the union-busting measure.

The Act was introduced in the aftermath of a major, unprecedented wave of strikes in the aftermath of World War II, from 1945-1946. Strikes were strongly repressed during World War II to not hamper the war effect. When the wartime restrictions ended, millions of workers across the country went on strike.

The Taft-Hartley Act prohibits unions from engaging in "unfair labor practices." Among the practices prohibited by the act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The Act also allowed states to pass right-to-work laws banning union shops.

A pamphlet supporting a third, progressive party, published in 1948, had this to say on the vote:

"Every scheme of the lobbyists to fleece the public became law in the 80th Congress. And every constructive proposal to benefit the common people gathered dust in committee pigeonholes. The bi-partisan bloc, the Republocratic cabal which ruled Congress and made a mockery of President Roosevelt's economic bill of rights, also wrecked the Roosevelt foreign policy. A new foreign policy was developed. This policy was still gilded with the good words of democracy. But its Holy Grail was oil...

The Democratic administration carries the ball for Wall Street's foreign policy. And the Republican party carries the ball for Wall Street's domestic policy. Of course the roles are sometimes interchangeable...

On occasion President Truman still likes to lay an occasional verbal wreath on the grave of the New Deal. But the hard facts of roll call votes show that Democrats are voting more and more like Republicans. If the Republican Taft-Hartley bill became law over the President's veto, it was because many of the Democrats allied themselves to the Republicans."


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Sanrizuka Struggle Begins (1966)

Wed Jun 22, 1966

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Image: Helmeted demonstrators on a grassy bank, armed with flagpoles, c. 1970s. Photo credit Takashi Hamaguchi


On this day in 1966, the Japanese government announced the construction of an airport on farmland in rural Sanrizuka, without permission of displaced locals. The plans led to decades of resistance from locals in alliance with leftist groups.

The area around Sanrizuka had been farmland since the Middle Ages, and, prior to the 1940s, much of the land had been privately owned by the Japanese Imperial Household.

Many locals were economically reliant on the Imperial estate at Goryō Farm, and local farmers had a strong economic and emotional attachment to the land. After Japan's defeat in World War II, large tracts of royal land were sold off and subsequently settled by poor rural laborers.

In the 1960s, the Japanese government planned to build a second airport in the Tokyo area to support Japan's rapid economic development. After meeting resistance from locals on the site's first chosen location, the rural town of Tomisato, the government was donated remaining land in Sanrizuka by the Imperial Family.

Locals in Sanrizuka were outraged when the government announced its plans. The Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Opposition League Against the Construction of Narita Airport (or Hantai Dōmei) was formed in 1966, and began to engage in a variety of tactics of resistance, including legal buy-ups, sit-ins, and occupations.

Meanwhile, the Japanese radical student movement was growing, and the League soon formed an alliance with active New Left groups; one major factor drawing the groups the together was that, under the US-Japan Security Treaty, the US military had free access to Japanese air facilities. As a result, it was likely the airport would be used for transporting troops and arms in the Vietnam War.

The demonstrators built huts and watchtowers along proposed construction sites. On October 10th, 1967, the government attempted to conduct a land survey, backed by over 2000 riot police. Clashes quickly broke out, and Hantai Domei leader Issaku Tomura was photographed being brutalized by police, further inflaming anti-airport sentiment.

Protests further grew and intensified over the next few years as the state pressed on with attempts to build the airport. Protestors would dig into the ground, build fortifications, and arm themselves against police. Construction was delayed by years, and the conflict would cost the government billions of yen.

On September 16th, 1971, three police officers were killed during an eminent domain expropriation. Four days later, police forcibly removed and destroyed the house of an elderly woman, an incident that became yet another symbol of state oppression to the opposition.

One student committed suicide, saying in his suicide note that "I detest those who brought the airport to this land". In 1972, the protestors built a 60 meter-high steel tower near the runway in order to disrupt flight tests. Conflict continued through much of the 1970s.

In 1977, the government announced plans to open the airport within the year. In May, police destroyed the tower while demonstrators attempted to cling on to it, provoking a new wave of widespread conflict. One protestor was killed after being struck in the head by a tear gas canister. In March 1978, the first runway was set to open, but a few days prior, a group of saboteurs burrowed into the main control tower, barricaded themselves inside, and proceeded to lay waste to the tower's equipment and infrastructure, delaying the opening yet again to May 20th, 1978.

Resistance continued after the airport was opened. Although many locals began to accept the airport and leave the land, the focus of Hantai Dōmei shifted to opposing plans for additional terminals and runways, as the airport's current size still only reflected a fraction of initial plans.

Clashes continued through the 1980s - on October 20th, 1985, members of the communist New Left group Chukaku-ha broke though police lines with logs and flagpoles, successfully attacking infrastructure in one of the last large-scale battles of the resistance campaign. Guerilla actions and bombings continued as late as the 1990s.

Although this campaign of resistance has largely shifted out of public attention in Japan, its presence is still felt: until 2015, all visitors were required to present ID cards for security reasons, and the airport still remains only a third of its initially-planned size. The Sanrizuka Struggle has never completely ended, and the Opposition League still exists and holds rallies.


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