On April 9th in history: In 1553 François Rabelais, French writer, died. In 1626 Francis Bacon, English scientist, lawyer, philosopher and politician, died. In 1806 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, English engineer, was born. In 1821 Charles Baudelaire, French poet, was born. In 1834 silk workers in Lyon, France, revolted against a ban on trade unions. In 1865 Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ending the American Civil War. In 1866 Congress overrode the veto of President Andrew Johnson to pass the Civil Rights Act guaranteeing the civil rights of all those born in the US regardless of colour. (Native Americans were excluded from the provisions!) In 1867 the US Senate ratified the treaty to buy Alaska Territory from Russia by 1 vote. In 1872 Léon Blum, French politician and prime minister of the 1936 Popular Front government, was born. In 1882 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English Pre-Raphaelite painter, died. In 1893 Victor Gollancz, English left-wing publisher, was born. In 1898 Paul Robeson, African American singer and political activist, was born. In 1919 a mutiny began in the Black Sea Fleet of the French Navy against intervention in Soviet Russia. In 1927 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian American anarchists, were sentenced to death precipitating worldwide protests. In 1928 Tom Lehrer, American singer and satirist, was born. In 1936 Calerie Solanas, radical feminist and author of “The SCUM Manifesto”, best known today for attempting to assassinate Andy Warhol, was born. In 1940 Vidkun Quisling, leader of the Norwegian Nazis, seized power. In 1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi activist, was executed by the Nazis. In 1947 the Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial “Freedom Ride” through the upper southern states of the USA in defiance of Jim Crow laws, started. In 1948 Zionist paramilitaries from Irgun and Lehi militias attacked Deir Yassin, killing over 100 Palestinian civilians. In 1952 the Bolivian government was overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution initiating a period of agrarian, political and economic reform. In 1969 the “Chicago Eight” pleaded not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to riot at the Democratic Party Convention in Chicago in August 1968. In 1975 the South Korean dictatorship executed 8 people alleged to be members of a non-existent organisation called the “Peoples Revolutionary Party”. In 1976 Phil Ochs, American protest singer, committed suicide. In 1981 Bobby Sands, Irish Republican activist on hunger strike for political status in the notorious H-Blocks of Long Kesh, was elected to the British parliament as an Anti-H_Block candidate. In 1982 Robert Havemann, German scientist and left-wing GDR dissident, died. In 1989 the Soviet Army dispersed peaceful demonstration and hunger-strike for Georgian independence in Tbilisi resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injured. In 1991 Georgia declared independence of the Soviet Union. In 1992 a US federal court sentenced the former Panamanian dictator and CIA agent Manuel Noriega to 30 years imprisonment for alleged drug and racketeering offences. In 2000 Tony Cliff, Palestinian/British Trotskyist and founder of the International Socialist tradition, died in London. In 2005 Andrea Dworkin, American feminist, died.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 09:31:58 +0000
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