Seeds of Fire July 12 July 12, 1450: Jack Cade, leader of a popular revolt against the tyrannical rule of King Henry VI of England, is killed. The king had pardoned Cade and others who rebelled, but broke his promise and took bloody vengeance as soon as the rebels laid down their arms. July 12, 1812: An American force under General William Hull crosses the Detroit River and launches an invasion of Canada. July 12, 1817: Birth of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author, naturalist, and abolitionist. Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience, which makes a strong case for resisting the acts of an unjust state, was an important influence on the thinking of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. July 12, 1892: US: State militia move in to break a 12-day labour strike against Carnegie Steel Corp. in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Strikers, protesting wage cuts of 18-26%, suffer seven deaths in attacks on them by Pinkerton detectives. Pennsylvania National Guardsmen arrive to protect strikebreakers and remain until October. The strike is called off on November 20 and workers - except those blacklisted by the company - return to work on the company’s terms. July 12, 1904: Birth of Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Chilean poet and Communist. July 12, 1917: The Bisbee Deportation: A sheriff’s posse rounds up 1,200 striking copper mines in Bisbee, Arizona, at gunpoint, ships them out of town on a freight train, and dumps them in the desert without water or food. One miner, Jim Brew, is murdered by company-hired vigilantes during the ‘deportation’. July 12, 2007: An American helicopter fires on a group of journalists in Baghdad, injuring them, and then fires on a van that stops to help the injured men. Two children in the van are wounded and their father is killed. A video showing the event, which also records the soldiers in the helicopter laughing and cheering as they fire away at the unarmed civilians, comes into the possession of Bradley Manning, an American soldier with a conscience. Manning eventually releases the video, along with other evidence of crimes committed by the U.S. military, to Wikileaks, which makes the material public. Manning is subsequently arrested by the U.S. military, imprisoned, subjected to torture, and eventually put on trial. Seeds of Fire: A People’s Chronology - compiled by Ulli Diemer for Connexions – connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/SeedsofFire.htm
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 04:01:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015