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Angelo Sbardellotto Executed (1932)

Fri Jun 17, 1932

Angelo Sbardellotto was an Italian anarchist executed by the state on this day in 1932 for plotting to assassinate Benito Mussolini. He refused to beg for clemency, instead telling the court he regretted not succeeding in his plan.

Sbardellotto was born into a poor family who was compelled to emigrate to find work. Angelo and his father left Italy in October 1924, living in France, Luxembourg, and Belgium, where Angelo worked as a miner and a machine hand.

While working as a miner, he joined the anarchist committee of Liege, and was active in the activities to bring about the general strike in Belgium in solidarity with framed Italian-American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

Already under surveillance as a suspected communist subversive, Sbardellotto was stopped by police in Piazza Venezia, Rome in 1932, found armed with two rudimentary bombs and a pistol, as well as possession of a Swiss passport.

Admitting to having entered Italy clandestinely with the intent of avenging socialist Michael Schirru by killing Mussolini (Schirru himself had attempted to assassinate Mussolini), Sbardellotto was interrogated and likely tortured by police before his trial a week later on June 11th.

When Sbardellotto's lawyer requested that he write to Mussolini directly to ask for his life to be spared, he refused, stating that he was only sorry that he had not carried out the attempt on Mussolini.

On June 17th, 1932, at twenty-four years old, he was put in front of the firing squad at the Bretta Fort. He refused last rites from a priest. Angelo's last words before being shot were "Long live anarchy!"

• Date: 1932-06-17
• Learn More: libcom.org, it.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Assassinations, #Anarchism, #Fascism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Charleston Church Massacre (2015)

Wed Jun 17, 2015

Image: A photo showing the nine people killed in the Charleston Church Massacre: Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Ethel Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Cynthia Hurd, Myra Thompson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Susan Jackson, and Tywanza Sanders

On this day in 2015, the Charleston Church Massacre took place in Charleston, South Carolina when a white supremacist entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and shot twelve people, killing nine (shown). The shooter targeted the church in part due to its stature; Emanuel AME is one of the oldest black churches in the United States and has long been a center for organizing events for civil rights campaigns.

In 2016, he was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges and later sentenced to death. The Charleston massacre was tied with a 1991 attack at a Buddhist temple in Waddell, Arizona for the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. place of worship.

Since then, however, two deadlier shootings have occurred at places of worship: the Sutherland Springs church shooting in 2017 and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018.

• Date: 2015-06-17
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.npr.org.
• Tags: #Massacre.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

East German Uprising (1953)

Tue Jun 16, 1953

Image: Soviet T-34-85 in East Berlin on June 17th, 1953 [Wikipedia]

On this day in 1953, in what became an uprising of more than one million people, 300 East German construction workers protested at government buildings, demanding the reversal of a 10% increase in work quotas.

Due to an economic slump, the East German government had increased worker quotas (called "norms") by 10% across all state-owned factories. At the same time, the prices of food, health care, and public transportation had all significantly increased, leading to an effective monthly wage cut of 33%, according to historian Corey Ross.

Although the government quickly conceded on the matter of work quotas, the protests took on an anti-government character and spread quickly throughout all of East Germany. News of the initial strike had spread both through word of mouth and the Western "Radio in the American Sector" (RIAS), which provided sympathetic coverage of the protests.

Soviet troops and tanks entered East Berlin on the morning of June 17th and violently clashed with the protesters, who had stormed government headquarters. The East German Stasi engaged in mass arrests of thousands of people.

According to historian Richard Millington, around 39 people were killed during the uprising, the vast majority of them demonstrators. Seven Berlin victims were given an official state funeral in West Berlin on June 23rd, 1953.

Following the uprising's successful repression, many workers lost faith in East Germany's socialist state. According to historian Gareth Pritchard, there was a widespread refusal by workers to pay their trade union dues and support the ruling party.

In response to the incident, the East German state expanded its surveillance of workers to more closely monitor discontent, creating what journalist Chris Hedges called "the most efficient security and surveillance state" of its time.

• Date: 1953-06-16
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, libcom.org.
• Tags: #Protests, #Labor.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Espionage Act (1917)

Fri Jun 15, 1917

Image: A mugshot of Eugene V. Debs with his prisoner number in 1920. He was imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for speaking out against the draft during World War I. [npr.org]

The Espionage Act, passed on this day in 1917, is a federal U.S. law which has been used to suppress labor and political activism from American dissidents such as Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, Daniel Ellsberg, and Edward Snowden.

Within a month of the law's passing, the Department of Justice used it as a justification to raid Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) headquarters, seizing property and arresting over one hundred members on various charges.

Among those charged with offenses under the Act are Victor L. Berger, Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden.

A 2015 study by the PEN American Center found that almost all of the non-government representatives they interviewed, including activists, lawyers, journalists and whistleblowers, "thought the Espionage Act had been used inappropriately in leak cases that have a public interest component."

PEN wrote "experts described it as 'too blunt an instrument,' 'aggressive, broad and suppressive,' a 'tool of intimidation,' 'chilling of free speech,' and a 'poor vehicle for prosecuting leakers and whistleblowers.'"

• Date: 1917-06-15
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, pen.org.
• Tags: #IWW, #Anarchism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Michael Prysner (1983 - )

Wed Jun 15, 1983

Michael Prysner, born on this day in 1983, is an American veteran and anti-war activist who produces and co-writes The Empire Files with Abby Martin and co-hosted "Eyes Left" with Afghanistan War veteran Spenser Rapone.

Prysner served in Iraq as a corporal and cites his duties there, including ground surveillance, home raids, and the interrogation of prisoners, as leading him to take an anti-war stance.

Prysner has also co-founded "March Forward!", an organization of active-duty members of the U.S. military and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that encourages current active-duty service personnel to resist deployment.

In 2011, Prysner gave a speech now known as the "Our Real Enemies" address, in which he argued that domestic enemies pose a greater threat to the average U.S. resident than foreign ones. An excerpt reads:

"We need to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land...The enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable. It's the insurance companies who deny us health care when it's profitable. It's the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not five thousand miles away. They are right here at home."

• Date: 1983-06-15
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, soundcloud.com.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896)

Fri Jun 14, 1811

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Harriet Beecher Stowe, born on this day in 1811, was an American abolitionist and author, best known for her anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin", published in 1852.

Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut to a large and deeply religious family that produced other notable theologians and abolitionists, such as Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher.

Harriet's own politics were influenced by direct experiences with black people terrorized by race riots in the 1820s and 1830s, as well as the Lane Debates on Slavery, which led to the founding of Oberlin College after a mass exodus of students from Lane Theological Seminary.

Later in life, she was an outspoken critic of slavery and supported the Underground Railroad, temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in her home. It was during this period, in the decade before the Civil War, that she authored "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Within a year of its publication, the book sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies and was widely read in both the United States and Great Britain.

Harriet Stowe was also an early feminist thinker, connecting the struggle for black liberation to the struggle for women's liberation more broadly, writing in 1869 that "the position of a married woman...is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband...Though he acquired a fortune through her, or though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny".

• Date: 1811-06-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.womenshistory.org.
• Tags: #Feminism, #Birthdays, #Abolitionism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

David Barsamian (1945 - )

Thu Jun 14, 1945

David Barsamian, born on this day in 1945, is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder of Alternative Radio, a Colorado-based syndicated weekly public affairs program heard on ~250 radio stations worldwide.

Barsamian has interviewed and edited the works of many important leftist thinkers, including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Richard Wolff, Eqbal Ahmad, and Edward Said.

"I'm using dissonance in a musical sense...we're given this harmonic construction [by the media] 'The world is good; America is great.' I want to trouble that harmonic construction with some dissonant notes."

- David Barsamian

• Date: 1945-06-14
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.alternativeradio.org.
• Tags: #Birthdays.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Walter Rodney Assassinated (1980)

Fri Jun 13, 1980

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Walter Rodney was a Guyanese historian, educator, public intellectual, and Pan-African Marxist who was assassinated by the state on this day in 1980, at 38 years old.

Rodney attended the University College of the West Indies in 1960 and was awarded a first class honors degree in History in 1963. He later earned a PhD in African History in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England, at the age of 24.

Rodney traveled extensively and became well-known as an activist, scholar, and formidable orator. He taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from 1966-67 and 1969-1974, and in 1968 at his alma mater University of the West Indies.

On October 15th, 1968, the government of Jamaica declared Rodney a "persona non grata" and banned him from the country. Following his dismissal by the University of the West Indies, students and poor people in West Kingston protested, leading to the "Rodney Riots", which caused six deaths and millions of dollars in damages.

On June 13th, 1980, Rodney was killed in Georgetown, Guyana via a bomb given to him by Gregory Smith, a sergeant in the Guyana Defence Force, one month after returning Zimbabwe. In 2015, a "Commission of Inquiry" in Guyana that the country's then president, Linden Forbes Burnham, was complicit in his murder.

"If there is to be any proving of our humanity it must be through revolutionary means."

- Walter Rodney

• Date: 1980-06-13
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, www.marxists.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Marxism, #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Pentagon Papers Released (1971)

Sun Jun 13, 1971

Image: Daniel Ellsberg, co-defendant in the Pentagon Papers case, talks to media outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles on April 28th, 1973. Photo credit Wally Fong, AP [nbcnews.com]

On this day in 1971, the Pentagon Papers, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, were published by the New York Times, detailing secret information about the history of and disinformation about U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The Pentagon Papers were the result of a study conducted by the Department of Defense which Ellsberg had contributed to.

The study revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scope of its actions in the Vietnam War with coastal raids on North Vietnam and Marine Corps attacks, and that the Johnson administration had routinely lied to both Congress and the American public about involvement in Vietnam.

For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property. These charges were later dismissed after prosecutors investigating the Watergate scandal discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called "White House Plumbers" to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.

On January 3rd, 1973, Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Due to governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, he was dismissed of all charges on May 11th, 1973.

The Pentagon Papers were only fully declassified in June 2011.

• Date: 1971-06-13
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.nytimes.com, www.washingtonpost.com.
• Tags: #Journalism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Medgar Evers Assassinated (1963)

Wed Jun 12, 1963

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Medgar Evers was an American civil rights leader who achieved national prominence for his efforts in fighting racial oppression in Mississippi, work for which he was assassinated by white supremacists on this day in 1963.

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

• Date: 1963-06-12
• Learn More: www.blackpast.org, web.archive.org, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: [#Civil Rights](/search?q=%23Civil Rights&type=Posts&listingType=All&page=1&sort=New), #Assassinations.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Ratification of the Platt Amendment (1901)

Wed Jun 12, 1901

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On this day in 1901, under duress of occupation by the United States military, the newly independent Cuban government ratified the Platt Amendment, giving the U.S. legal control over the Cuban state and economy.

The occupying force had remained in Cuba following the conclusion of the Spanish-American War, and the U.S. government refused to withdraw occupying troops from Cuba until the seven conditions of the Platt Amendment were ratified in the new Cuban constitution.

These conditions defined the terms of Cuban-U.S. relations to be an unequal one of U.S. dominance over Cuba, both politically and economically. Among these provisions were the government of Cuba consenting to the right of the United States to "intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty".

Following acceptance of the amendment, the United States ratified a tariff that gave Cuban sugar preference in the U.S. market and protection to select U.S. products in the Cuban market. Over $200 million was spent by American companies on Cuban sugar between 1903 and 1913, and this investment into sugar led to land being concentrated into the hands of the largest sugar mills, with estimates that 20% of all Cuban land was owned by these mills.

• Date: 1901-06-12
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.historyisaweapon.com.
• Tags: #Imperialism.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org

Davis Day (1925)

Thu Jun 11, 1925

Image: Davis Day Ceremony, Stellarton 2012. Photo from Adam MacInnis, New Glasgow News. [museumofindustry.novascotia.ca]

Davis Day, also known as Miners' Memorial Day, is a day of remembrance observed annually on this day in Nova Scotia coal mining communities, recognizing all miners killed in the province's coal mines.

Davis Day was initiated by the United Mine Workers of America in memory of William Davis, a coal miner who was killed when company police hired by the British Empire Steel Corporation fired on a crowd of protesting coal miners during a long strike near the town of New Waterford.

When the strike began in March 1925, the corporation cut off credit at the company stores. Coal miners were able to survive on relief payments and donations from supporters as far away as Boston and Winnipeg. After three months of a work stoppage, the corporation planned to resume operations without any settlement with workers.

To maintain the shutdown, coal miners seized and shut down the power plant that served both the company's mines and the city of New Waterford in early June. The shortage of water and power affected New Waterford citizens, but the miners drew on local wells and set up a volunteer service to deliver water to the hospital.

On June 11th, a force of company police recaptured the power plant. Hundreds of coal miners, possibly more than 2,000 in number, marched to Waterford Lake in protest. It was there that the company police fired on the crowd, killing 38 year old William Davis.

This annual commemoration to all miners killed in labor struggle and industrial accidents became official in Nova Scotia in 2008, officially recognized as William Davis Miners' Memorial Day.

• Date: 1925-06-11
• Learn More: museumofindustry.novascotia.ca, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Labor, #Protests.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org