Working Class History
@workingclasshistory
History isn't made by kings or politicians, it's made by us: billions of ordinary people.
#OtD 12 Aug 2017 32-year-old anti-racist Heather Heyer was killed and 19 injured in a neo-Nazi terror attack in Charlottesville, VA. Heather was one of many protesting a white supremacist rally when a Nazi drove his car deliberately into the crowd stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8376...
#OtD 11 Aug 2017 demonstrators gathered on the steps of Los Angeles’ city hall in protest at the city’s 2028 Olympics bid. They held signs calling for “homes not games”. Learn more in episode 93 of our podcast, available for our supporters on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/111544...
#OtD 11 Aug 1979 2000 riot police attacked 187 women workers in Seoul, South Korea, who had been occupying the HQ of the New Democratic Party in protest at closure of the factory they worked at. One woman was killed and union leaders were arrested workingclasshistory.com/2021/03/24/e...
#OtD 11 Aug 1958 young African Americans in Wichita, Kansas won a key early sit-in protest against segregated lunch counters at Dockums Drug Store. They confronted bosses, police and racists for 23 days until they won. More info in this short history: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8272...
#OtD 11 Aug 1964 18-year-old Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie was arrested in Madrid, Spain with explosives to assassinate dictator Franco. He was wearing a kilt, which confused the Argentinian press, who described him as "a Scottish transvestite" stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8273...
#OtD 11 Aug 1984 during the great miners' strike, 23,000 women marched in London against pit closures. Women Against Pit Closures played a crucial role in supporting the strike more info in our podcast: workingclasshistory.com/2018/10/30/e...
#OtD 11 Aug 1965 after an altercation between a Black family and Los Angeles police officers, the Watts neighbourhood exploded into six days of rioting with mass looting and anti-police violence in a turning point in the civil rights movement stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8274...
#OtD 10 Aug 1956 André Achiary, a former French military intelligence officer, alongside the Union Française Nord-Africaine terrorist group, planted a bomb in the Casbah, Algiers, killing 73 people as part of a campaign against Algerian independence stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8177...
#OtD 10 Aug 2005 the Gate Gourmet dispute began at Heathrow airport in London, where hundreds of outsourced workers, mostly Asian women, tried to fight changes to working conditions. Eventually their union, the TGWU, accepted the inferior conditions stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8178...
#OtD 10 Aug 1889 Polish WWII resistance activist Zofia Kossak-Szczucka was born. During Nazi occupation she founded a group to help save Jewish people. She was sent to Auschwitz but got out, joined the Warsaw uprising and survived the war stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8173...
#OtD 9 Aug 1956 20,000 women in Pretoria, South Africa, marched against pass laws: apartheid laws curtailing freedom of movement for Black and Indian people. A wave of civil disobedience followed. The day is commemorated in South Africa as Women's Day stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1088...
#OtD 9 Aug 1945 the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of civilians. General Dwight D. Eisenhower said it "was completely unnecessary… as a measure to save American lives." More info here: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1087...
#OtD 9 Aug 1970 150 people, including the British Black Panthers, marched on London police stations to demand an end to raids on the Mangrove Caribbean restaurant. Nine were arrested and charged with conspiracy, but all were later acquitted stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1088...
#OtD 9 Aug 2014 Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking mass protests across the US stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1088...
#OtD 9 Aug 1914 5000 people gathered on Glasgow Green, Scotland to denounce the declaration of WWI as "the outcome of capitalism." Unlike a similar rally in Edinburgh the day before, no jingoistic mob attacked. The war would claim over 16 million lives stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1087...
#OtD 9 Aug 1979 187 women workers of the YH wig-making company in Seoul, South Korea occupied the New Democratic Party HQ in protest of closure. Their violent repression provoked mass anger and uprisings later that year. More South Korean history here: workingclasshistory.com/tag/south-ko...
#OtD 8 Aug 1936 the French govt closed the border with revolutionary Spain, forcing those wanting to join the fight against fascism to cross the Pyrenees mountains. Thousands still came from around the world to aid the Spanish workers and peasants workingclasshistory.com/2020/06/17/e...
#OtD 8 Aug 1883 over 3000 people attended a benefit ball and concert for striking telegraphers in NYC's Madison Square Garden. 800 of the strikers, fighting for equal pay for men and women and an eight-hour day, led the procession into the ballroom stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1077...
#OtD 8 Aug 1845 UK Parliament passed an enclosure act taking away public land and appointing officials who could enclose more land without approval from MPs – one of 5,000 such acts passed. This dispossession created the working class stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1076...
#OtD 8 Aug 1879 Emiliano Zapata, revolutionary and leading figure of the peasant army which helped overthrow Porfirio Diaz in the 1910 Mexican revolution, was born. We have his biography as well as posters available here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...
#OtD 8 Aug 1942 Spanish Civil War veteran, Maria Perez Cruz, was executed by the Franco regime on trumped up charges. A former nurse in the anarchist Iron Column militia, she was arrested in 1939 and charged with various offences stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1077...
#OtD 8 Aug 1897 Michele Angiolillo, an Italian anarchist, assassinated the repressive Spanish PM Antonio Cánovas del Castillo in revenge for the torture and execution of anarchists and Filipino rebel José Rizal stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1077...
#OtD 8 Aug 1842 a general strike of 500,000 workers in the UK began. The strikers, fighting wage cuts and for universal suffrage for men, sabotaged equipment and set up committees to provide essential services. The govt sent in troops but some mutinied stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1076...
#OtD 7 Aug 1931 workers building the Hoover Dam went on strike after 30 workers had their pay cut, demanding better conditions and a maximum 8-hour day. After a week, the strike was largely beaten but employers did agree to improve water and housing stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7977...
#OtD 7 Aug 1936 rebels near Madrid conducted a ceremonial "execution" of the Monument of the Sacred Heart. It was shot by a firing squad of working-class people who had risen up against a fascist military coup backed by the Church. More in our podcast: workingclasshistory.com/2020/06/17/e...
#OtD 7 Aug 1842 a mass meeting of 18,000 workers took place in the UK, organised by the Chartist movement. They decided to call a general strike beginning the following day, demanding universal male suffrage stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1068...
#OtD 7 Aug 1963 Ramon Vila Capdevila, aka 'Burntface', was killed by Guardia Civil (police) in Manresa, Spain. A @CNTsindicato union militant, he fought in the Spanish Civil War, French resistance and the postwar anti-Franco underground stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1068...
#OtD 7 Aug 1900 the first copy printed of Mexican anarchist newspaper, Regeneración, founded by the Magón brothers as the official organ of the anarchist Mexican Liberal Party, was published stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1068...