8000
anti-war marchers demonstrated in Boston. Their banners
read:
“IS THIS A POPULAR WAR, WHY CONSCRIPTION?
WHO STOLE PANAMA? WHO CRUSHED HAITI?
WE DEMAND PEACE.”
The parade was attacked by soldiers and sailors, on orders from their
officers.
July
1, 1944
A massive general strike and nonviolent protest in Guatemala led to the resignation of dictator Jorge Ubico who had harshly ruled Guatemala for over a decade.
Juan
José Arévalo Bermejo
Jorge
Ubico
On March 15 of the following year, Dr. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo took office as the first popularly elected president of Guatemala, and promptly called for democratic reforms establishing the nation’s social security and health systems, land reform (redistribution of farmland not under cultivation to the landless with compensation to the owners), and a government bureau to look after native Mayan concerns. A decade of peaceful democratic rule followed, until a CIA-backed coup in 1954 ushered in a new, even more brutal era of dictatorial and genocidal regimes. [see
June 27, 1954]
July
1, 1946
The United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.he
United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini
Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
July
1, 1968
Sixty-one nations, including the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union, signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which set up systems to monitor use of nuclear technology and prevent more nations from acquiring nuclear weapons. 190 countries are now signatories; Israel, India and Pakistan remain outside the Treaty. North Korea joined the NPT in 1985, but in January 2003 announced its intention to withdraw from the Treaty.
Text
of the Treaty
July
1, 1972
Publication of the first monthly issue of Ms. Magazine, founded by Gloria Steinem (“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off”), Letty Cottin Pogrebin (“Housework is the only activity at which men are allowed to be consistently inept because they are thought to be so competent at everything else”), and others.
The
first issue
Ms. Magazine today
July
1, 2000
Vermont's civil unions law went into effect, granting gay couples most of the rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities of marriage under state law. In the first five years, 1,142 Vermont couples, and 6,424 from elsewhere, had chosen a Vermont civil union.
July
2, 1776
New Jersey became the first British colony in America to grant partial women's suffrage. The new constitution (temporary if there were a reconciliation with Great Britain) granted the vote to all those “of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money,” including non-whites and widows; married women were not able to own property under common lawhites and widows; married women were not able to own property under common law.
July
2, 1777
Vermont became the first of the United States to abolish slavery.
July
2, 1809
Alarmed by the growing encroachment of whites squatting on Native American lands, the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh called on all Indians to unite and resist. By 1810, he had organized the Ohio Valley Confederacy, which united Indians from the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Winnebago, Menominee, Ottawa, and Wyandotte nations.
For several years, Tecumseh's Indian Confederacy successfully delayed further white settlement in the region.
Tecumseh’s efforts
Chief
Tecumseh
July
2, 1839
Slave
ship
Early in the morning, captive Africans on the Cuban slave ship Amistad, led by Joseph Cinquè (a Mende from what is now Sierra Leone), mutinied against their captors, killing the captain and the cook, and seized control of the schooner. Jose Ruiz, a Spaniard and planter from Puerto Principe, Cuba, had bought the 49 adult males on the ship, paying $450 each, as slaves for his sugar plantation.
read
more
Joseph
Cinquè
July
2, 1964
Jobs
and Freedom march April 28, 1963
Washington DC
U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, thus barring discrimination in public accommodations (restaurants, stores, theatres, etc.), employment, and voting. The law had survived an 83-day filibuster in the U.S. Senate by 21 members from southern states.
"We have lost the South for a generation," said Pres. Johnson to an
aide, immediately after signing the Act, referring to an expected shift in white
southern voting from the Democratic to the Republican party in response to the
law. Massive demonstrations a year earlier had helped ensure passage of the Act.
July
2, 1992
Pres. George H.W. Bush (the elder) announced that the United States had completed the worldwide withdrawals of all its ground- and sea-launched tactical nuclear weapons [see September
27, 1991].
July
3, 1835
Children employed in the silk mills at Paterson, New Jersey, went on strike for an eleven-hour workday and a six-day workweek rather than 12-14 hour days. With the help of adults, they won a compromise settlement of a 69-hour week.
More on the Baby Strikers
July
3, 1966
4000 Britons chanting, “Hands off Vietnam,” demonstrated in London against escalation of the Vietnam War. U.S. warplanes had recently bombed the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi as well as the port city of Haiphong. Police moved in after scuffles broke out at the demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square; 31 were arrested.
read
more
Actress
Vanessa Redgrave joins 25,000 two years later at Anti-Vietnam
war protest, Grosvenor Square.
July
3, 1974
At the Moscow Summit talks between Pres. Richard Nixon and Pres. Leonid Brezhnev, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to hold bilateral talks on the prohibition of chemical weapons.
July
4, 1776
The United States declared its independence from King George III and Great Britain, thus beginning the first successful anti-imperial revolution in world history. Signed in Philadelphia by 56 British subjects who lived and owned property in thirteen of the American colonies, the document asserted the right of a people to create its own form of government. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were members of the 2nd Continental Congress which had voted two days earlier to separate from the British crown.
Read
the Declaration
July
4, 1827
Slavery was outlawed in New York State as the result of the Gradual Emancipation law passed ten years earlier. This freedom applied only to those who had been 18 at the time of its passage. Enslaved children born during the subsequent ten-year period were not be freed until they reached the age of 21.
At the urging of Rev. William Hamilton, a freedman and carpenter, and others, the end of slavery was celebrated in churches. The Fourth of July had in the past been marred by young white men attacking black Americans.
More
on William Hamilton
July
4, 1894
Speaking at Boston’s Park Street Church, newspaper editor and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison gave a seminal speech on “Dangers to the Nation.” Though Massachusetts had banned slavery in 1781 and there was strong anti-slavery sentiment, most understood that a national ban of slavery would threaten the union of the states. Compensation to slaveholders and return of the enslaved to Africa was considered the best solution.
Garrison, on the other hand, called attention to the hypocrisy of celebrating the the day the document was signed declaring, “All men are created equal” while two million were in bondage. He proposed four propositions that day to guide the abolitionist movement: 1. Above all others, slaves in America deserve “the prayers, and sympathies, and charities of the American people.”
2. Non-slave-holding states are “constitutionally involved in the guilt of slavery,” and are obligated “to assist in its overthrow.”
3. There is no valid legal or religious justification for the preservation of slavery.
4. The “colored population” of America should be freed, given an education, and accepted as equal citizens with whites.
July
4, 1894
The Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed with Sanford B. Dole as president. It was recognized immediately by the United States government under Pres. Grover Cleveland. This was the result of the successful overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, then held by Queen Lydia Liliuokalani, and the support by white Americans involved in the sugar trade on the islands for annexation by the United States. Shortly after she had come to office, she had promulgated a new constitution which increased the power of the monarchy and that of native Hawaiians.
July
4, 1965
The first of an annual picket in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall was held by gay and Lesbian Americans. Jack Nichols and Frank Kameny and members of the New York and Washington Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis had earlier demonstrated in Washington, and wished to change the general perception that homosexuals were perverted or sick. “By those protesters coming out publicly, and placing themselves very strategically in front of the building that evoked the Declaration of Independence and the idea that all men are created equal, it suggested it [gay rights] was no longer a moral or national security or psychiatric issue ... it was a civil-rights issues,” David K. Johnson wrote in The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.
July
4, 1966
The Freedom of Information Act, P.L. 89-487, became law. It established the right of Americans to know what their government is doing by outlining procedures for getting access to internal documents.
July
4, 1969
“Give Peace a Chance” by the Plastic Ono Band was released in the United Kingdom.
The song was recorded May 31, 1969, during the “Bed-In” John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged at the Queen Elizabeth's Hotel in Montreal as part of their honeymoon. John and Yoko stayed in bed for 8 days, beginning May 26, in an effort to promote world peace.
Some of the people in the hotel room who sang on this were Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Petula Clark. Smothers also played guitar. This event promoting peace received a great deal of media attention.
Watch footage
from the hotel room recording session
July
4, 1969
A national anti-war conference in Cleveland, Ohio, mapped out activities against the Vietnam War and resulted in the founding of New Mobe (mobilization).
The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice began an eight week stay on a farm just outside the Seneca Army Depot near Romulus, New York. The purpose of the gathering was for the women to learn about and together protest the escalation of militarism and the weapons build-up being led at the time by the Reagan administration.
The flyer for the event
July
4, 2007
The first of several Peace Caravans (Caravanes de Paix) set out from South Kivu and traveled across Africa’s Great Lakes region, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. The Scout Associations of the countries in the violence-ridden area trained hundreds of young people in conflict resolution through their focus on education for peace. The classes and the caravans included hundreds of young people in Scouts and Girl Guides from many ethnic groups (often with a history of mutual hostility) who act as community mediators.
Learn how they put education for peace into action
July
5, 1827
The newly freed African-American population of New York, led by men on horseback, marched in an Emancipation Day Parade from the Battery at the foot of Manhattan to City Hall.
Follow the route of the
parade
July
5, 1894
Buildings erected for the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago's Jackson Park were set ablaze, seven reduced to ashes. The fire was part of the chaos in reaction to Pres. Grover Cleveland’s calling out federal troops to end the Pullman Strike.
The Pullman Palace Car Company produced the sleeping cars used by most of the railroads. The contingent of federal, state and local forces equalled the number of striking workers.
The Pullman employees, who lived in company-owned housing in Pullman, Illinois, had suffered massive layoffs and pay cuts averaging 25%. The company refused to cut the rent on the housing its employees were required to occupy, nor would it bargain with workers’ representatives.
The Pullman workers’ cause had been taken up by Eugene V. Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union, who helped organize a nationwide boycott of any train that included a Pullman car.
Federal troops guarding the Arcade Building
in Pullman, Illinois
The Pullman Strikers’ Statement
More on the Great Pullman Strike
July
5, 1934
On “Bloody Thursday,” police armed with machine guns opened fire against striking longshoremen and their supporters, killing two, wounding 32 more by gunfire, and injuring 75 others at Rincon Hill in San Francisco.
Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934, near Rincon Hill.
July
5, 1935
The National Labor Relations or Wagner Act (named for New York’s Sen. Robert Wagner) became law, recognizing workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively. It was signed into law by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
read
more about the act
July
5, 1989
Former National Security Council aide Oliver North received a $150,000 fine and a suspended prison term for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal. The scandal was a secret arrangement directed from the Reagan White House that provided funds to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels (despite specific congressional prohibition) from profits gained by selling arms to Iran (at war with Iraq at the time) in hopes of their releasing hostages, despite Pres. Reagan’s claim that he would never negotiate with hostage-takers.
North’s conviction was later overturned because evidence revealed in the congressional Iran-Contra hearings had compromised his right to a fair trial.
The
real details on
Ollie North’s activities
July
6, 1892
In
one of the worst cases of violent union-busting, a fierce
battle broke out between
the striking employees (members of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron and Steel Workers) of Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead
Steel Company and a Pinkerton Detective Agency private
army brought on barges down the Monongahela River in the
dead of night. Twelve were killed.
Henry C. Frick, general manager of the plant in Homestead,
near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had been given free rein by
Carnegie to quash the strike. At Frick's request, Pennsylvania
Gov. Robert E. Pattison then sent 8,500 troops to intervene
on behalf of the company.
read
more
July
6, 1942
In
Nazi-occupied Holland, thirteen-year-old Jewish diarist
Anne Frank and her family were forced to take refuge in
a secret sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse under
threat of arrest and deportation to a concentration camp
by the Einsatzgruppen (Task Force), a part of the German
Gestapo.
read
more
July
6, 1944
Irene Morgan, a 28-year-old black woman, was arrested for refusing to
move to the back of the bus eleven years before Rosa Parks
did so. Her legal appeal, after her conviction for breaking
a Virginia law (known as a Jim Crow law) forbidding integrated
seating, resulted in a 7-1 Supreme Court decision barring
segregation in interstate commerce.
read
more
July
6, 1965
As many as 500 students in Berkeley,
California, attempted to block trains carrying troops destined
for Vietnam along the Santa Fe Railroad tracks; there were
no casualties. Organized by the Vietnam Day Committee, this
was the first civil disobedience at UC-Berkeley against the
Vietnam War.
July
7, 1863
The
first military draft was instituted in the U.S. to provide
troops for the Union army in the American Civil War. Once
called, a draftee had the opportunity to either pay a commutation
fee of $300 to be exempt from a particular battle, or to
hire a replacement that would exempt him from the entire
war.
July
7, 1903
Labor
organizer Mary Harris "Mother" Jones led the "March
of the Mill Children" over 100 miles from Philadelphia
to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt's Long Island summer home in
Oyster Bay, New York, to publicize the harsh conditions
of child labor and to demand a 55-hour work week. It is
during this march, on about the 24th, she delivered her
famed "The Wail of the Children" speech. Roosevelt
refused to see them.
the
March of the Mill Children
“ Fifty
years ago there was a cry against slavery and men gave up
their lives to stop the selling of black children on the block.
Today the white child is sold for two dollars a week to the
manufacturers.” from
Mother Jones’s autobiography
read
more about Mother Jones
July
7, 1957
Convened
at the onset of the Cold War, a group of scientists held
their first peace conference in the village of Pugwash,
Nova Scotia, Canada. The mission of the Pugwash Conference
was to “. . . bring scientific insight and reason
to bear on threats to human security arising from science
and technology in general, and above all from the catastrophic
threat posed to humanity by nuclear and other weapons of
mass destruction . . . .”
Bertrand
Russell
Wealthy
industrialist and Pugwash son Cyrus Eaton had invited the
world’s greatest minds to his family home in Nova
Scotia and address the emerging threat of nuclear war.
The Conference became the basis for an ongoing organization
that deals with issues of weapons of mass destruction.
The 1995 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Joseph Rotblat
(one of the original signatories of the Pugwash Manifesto)
and to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Albert Einstein
Pugwash
home
Fifty
years later . . .
25 scientists, diplomats and former military officers from
15 countries gathered for a “Revitalizing Nuclear Disarmament” strategy
workshop. The meeting was held near the Thinkers’ Lodge,
the site of the first meeting in 1957.
“
Fifty years ago from Pugwash, Nova Scotia, nuclear scientists
helped alert the world to the dangers of nuclear weapons, and
especially the newly developed hydrogen bomb,” said Paolo
Cotta-Ramusino, Secretary General, Pugwash Conferences on Science
and World Affairs. “Today, we are working with experts
from around the world for global action to revitalize nuclear
disarmament and the final elimination of nuclear weapons.”
Senator Roméo Dallaire, Honorary Patron of the Pugwash
Peace Exchange, said “It is appalling to observe the
increasing potential for many regional nuclear arms races,
shameless plans to modernize nuclear arsenals and bald-faced
threats of pre-emptive nuclear use,” said Senator Dallaire. “Only
by revitalizing discussion and implementation of disarmament
leading to abolition can we ensure that these genocidal devices
will never again be used.”
July
7, 1977
The United States conducted its first test of the neutron bomb. The neutron
bomb was a tactical thermonuclear weapon designed to cause very little
physical damage through limited blast and heat but was designed to
kill troops through localized but intense levels of lethal radiation.
a
neutron bomb explosion at a test site
July
7, 1979
2,000
American Indian activists and anti-nuclear demonstrators
marched through the Black Hills of western South Dakota to
protest the development of uranium mines on sacred native lands.
July
8, 1777
Vermont became the first
British colony in America to abolish slavery when adopting
its first constitution following its breaking away from
New York.
read more
July
8, 1917
The
Women's Peace Crusade organized a protest against the first
world war in Glasgow, Scotland. Processions from two sides
of the city, accompanied by bands and banners, wound their
way toward the Glasgow Green where they merged into one
demonstration of some 14,000 people.
read
more
July
8, 1959
Vietnamese
guerillas ambushed two U.S. advisors, Maj. Dale Buis
and Sgt. Chester Ovnand, are killed by Viet Minh guerrillas
at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, making them the first U.S. casualties
in Vietnam since 1946.
July
8, 1965
Roy
Wilkins became the executive director of NAACP, the National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. He had edited the organization’s
magazine, Crisis, for fifteen years, and was one of the
most articulate of civil rights leaders.
Roy Wilkins
the
Roy Wilkins Memorial in Minneapolis
July
8, 1996
The
International Court Of Justice declared that, in almost all
circumstances, use of nuclear weapons is illegal.
July
9, 1917
During
World War I, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, leaders
of the No-Conscription
League, spoke out against the war and the draft. Both were
found guilty in New York City of conspiracy against the
draft, fined $10,000 each and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment
with the possibility of deportation at the end of their
terms.
more
about Emma and Alex
Emma
Goldman and Alexander Berkman in New York, 1917,
awaiting
trial on charges of opposing the draft during World War I.
July
9, 1955
Albert
Einstein
Albert
Einstein, Bertrand Russell and nine other scientists warned
that the development of weapons of mass destruction had
created a choice between war and survival of the human
species. The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was published in
London and became the basis for the Pugwash Conference
of scientists two years later.
read
the manifesto
Bertrand
Russell
“Here,
then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful
and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or
shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative
because it is so difficult to abolish war.
The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations
of national sovereignty....”
“We
have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to
ask ourselves ... what steps can be taken to prevent a
military contest of which the issue must be disastrous
to all parties?”
July
10, 1976
Ku
Klux Klan (KKK) members near Georgetown, Illinois, gathered
for an ill-fated cross-burning. The meeting started an
hour late. When the Klansmen went to plant their cross,
it was too heavy to move. Three hours later, after the
cross was chopped down to a portable size, it was planted,
but would not light.
Finally, the Klan members gave up
and went home.
The
ugly history of the KKK
July
10, 1985
The
Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior (named after a North
American Indian legend), was blown up in Auckland Harbour,
New Zealand, killing one and sinking the ship.
The Rainbow Warrior then
The attack had been authorized by French President
François Mitterand because the environmental organization
had plans to protest France’s nuclear bomb tests in the
South Pacific.
The Rainbow Warrior today
July
11, 1906
The
Niagara Movement, precursor of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), was formed in Buffalo, New York. Meeting at
the home of Mary Burnett Talbert were W.E.B. DuBois, John Hope
and 30 others who rejected the accommodationist approach of
Booker T. Washington (“The wisest among my race understand
that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest
folly . . . .”)
The Niagara Movement's manifesto was, in the words of DuBois, "We
want full manhood suffrage and we want it now . . . We are
men! We want to be treated as men. And we shall win."
Founders of The
Niagara Movement at Niagara Falls
read
more about the Niagara Movement
July
11, 1968
The
American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, by George Mitchell, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt
and 200 others. They gathered to organize in order to deal
with widespread and persistent poverty among native Americans,
and unjust treatment from all levels of government.
American
Indian Movement
more
background
July
11, 1969
The
federal appeals court in Boston reversed the convictions
of Dr. Benjamin Spock and Michael Ferber who had been found
guilty of conspiring to counsel evasion of the military
draft in 1968. The judges considered their activities opposing
the Vietnam War covered under the 1st Amendment right to
free speech
[see July 9, 1917].
Dr.
Benjamin Spock and
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
read
A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority co-authored by
Dr. Spock (1967)
July
12, 1974
John
Ehrlichman, former top aide to President Richard Nixon, and
three others were convicted of conspiring to violate a citizen’s
civil rights. Ehrlichman had approved a recommendation for
a covert investigation of Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 by writing
on a memo: "If done under your assurance that it is
not traceable."
Looking for information to discredit Ellsberg, agents of
Pres. Nixon’s re-election campaign broke into the office
of his psychiatrist. Ellsberg, a former Defense Dept. analyst,
had been responsible for public release of The Pentagon Papers,
a collection of documents outlining the U.S. history and strategy
in Vietnam, that had been classified as secret to avoid public
scrutiny.
John
Ehrlichman
A simple Watergate
chronology
July
13, 1863
Massive
New York City protests decrying the first-ever wartime
draft lottery led to a bloody riot as a mob of 50,000
burned buildings (including the Colored Orphan Asylum
on Fifth Avenue), stores and draft offices, and attacked
police. Some clubbed, lynched, and shot large numbers
of blacks, whom they blamed for the war.
By
the time troops returning from Gettysburg finally
restored order, 1200 had died over five days.
New Yorkers, spurred on by the Democratic leadership of Tammany
Hall and tired of the seemingly endless war, had been angered
by Pres.
Abraham Lincoln’s recent call for 300,000 more troops.
They especially resented the legal provision allowing a cash
payment ($300 commutation fee) as a way for those with the
means to avoid military service in the Union Army.
New York City draft riot , 1863
read
more about the 1863 draft riots
July
13, 1985
The first Live Aid concert raised $75 million for agricultural
and technical assistance to Africa, many times what was
expected. Described as the Woodstock of the ‘80s,
the world's biggest rock festival (in London, Philadelphia,
Moscow and Sydney, Australia, simultaneously and linked
by satellite) was organized by Boomtown Rats singer Bob
Geldof to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
Bob
Geldof
The
Republic of Ireland (Éire) gave the most donations
per capita, despite being in the throes of a serious economic
depression at the time. The single largest donation (£1m)
came from the ruling family of Dubai (Al Maktoum).
more
about Live Aid '85
July
14, 1789
Bastille
Day in France: Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops
stormed and dismantled the Bastille, a royal fortress converted
to a state prison, that had come to symbolize the tyranny
of the Bourbon monarchy. This dramatic action was proof that
power no longer resided in the King as God's representative,
but in the people, and signaled the beginning of the French
Revolution and the First Republic.
July
14, 1798
A
mere 22 years after the Declaration of Independence, Congress
passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to ".
. . unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent
to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the
United States . . . or to excite any unlawful combinations
therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United
States, or any act of the President of the United States
. . . ."
The Declaration: “...whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government....”
read
the act
July
14, 1887
Adrian
C. “Cap” Anson, both manager and captain
of the Chicago Whitestockings (National League), refused to
let his baseball team take the field as long as the Newark
Little Giants included their starting African-American pitcher,
George Stovey, in the lineup. "Get that nigger off the
field!" Anson was heard to say. Newark refused to allow
him to dictate the use of their personnel, but the game was
ruled a forfeit to Chicago.
The same day, the directors of the International League (which
included Newark) barred any of their teams from hiring black
players in the future. By the following year there were only
six black players left in four leagues. All-black teams were
formed, but the last of them, the Acme Colored Giants from
Celeron, New York of the Iron and Oil (I&0) League, stopped
playing in 1898. No African-American would play in white organized
baseball again until Jackie Robinson nearly 50 years later.
July
14, 1955
The
Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 became law, the first in
a series of laws that ultimately became the Clean Air Act
in 1963.
This first law merely provided funding to the Public
Health Service to conduct research.
read
more
July
14, 1958
A
group of Iraqi army officers staged a coup in Iraq and
overthrew the monarchy of King Faisal II (who had ascended
to the throne at age four). The new government, led by
Abdul Karim el Qasim, was ousted in 1963 by a coup helped
by the CIA and led by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party—later
dominated by Saddam Hussein.
read
more
King
Faisal II
July
15, 1834
The Spanish Inquisition, a centuries-long brutal effort by
the Catholic Church to root out heresy, begun in 1481,
was officially abolished by King Bonaparte. Spain’s
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had chosen Catholicism
as their religion and asked the pope to help purify the
people of Spain. Many thousands were forced to convert,
were tortured to encourage confession, or burned at the
stake.
more
on the Inquisition
witch
burning during the Inquisition
July
15, 1919
Following
World War I, the U.S. War Department announced that it had
classified more than 337,000 American men as "draft
dodgers."
read
a brief history of Conscientious Objection in America
July
15, 1978
The
Longest Walk, a peaceful transcontinental trek for Native
American justice, which had begun with a few hundred departing
Alcatraz Island, California, ended this day when they arrived
in Washington, D.C. accompanied by 30,000 marchers.They
were calling attention to the ongoing problems plaguing
Indian communities
throughout the Americas:
lack
of jobs, housing, health care, as well as dozens of pieces
of legislation before Congress
canceling treaty obligations of the U.S. government toward
various Indian tribes.
They
submitted petitions signed by one-and-a-half million Americans
to Pres. Jimmy Carter.
Alcatraz
is not an island
July
16, 1099
Soldiers
from all over Catholic Europe, known as Crusaders, overtook
the defenses of Jerusalem and slaughtered both the Jewish
and Muslim populations. “Many fled to the roof of the
temple of Solomon, and were shot with arrows, so that they
fell to the ground dead. In this temple almost ten thousand
were killed. Indeed, if you had been there you would have
seen our feet colored to our ankles with the blood of the
slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left
alive; neither women nor children were spared,” according
to Fulk of Chartres in his contemporaneous account.
Pope Urban II initiated the effort to wrest the Holy Land
from the hands of the “Infidel” (the city had
been under Islamic rule for 460 years) and assured those
who joined the
first crusade that God would absolve them from any sin associated
with the venture.
The
Sacking of Jerusalem
read
first-hand accounts of the seige of Jerusalem
July
16, 1877
Firemen
and brakemen for the Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio
Railroads refused to work, and refused to let replacements
be sent in. They managed to halt all railroad
traffic at the Camden Junction just outside of Baltimore. The
railroad companies had cut wages and shortened the workweek.
After a second pay cut in June, Pennsylvania RR announced that
the same number of workers would be expected to service twice
as many trains.
The work stoppage spread west and eventually became the first
nationwide strike.
A
contemporary artist’s rendering of the clash in Baltimore
between workers
and the Maryland Sixth Regiment during the
Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
The governor had called out
the troops on behalf of the railroad company.
Background
and growth of the Strike
July
16, 1945
The
U.S. Army’s
Manhattan Project succeeded as its first hand-made experimental
atomic bomb, known as the “Gadget,” was successfully
detonated at the top of a 30m (100 ft.) tower in the desert
near Alamogordo, New Mexico (at the Trinity test site now part
of the White Sands Missile Range). The original $6,000 budget
for the intensive and secret weapons development program during
World War II eventually ballooned to a total cost of nearly
$2 billion (more than $25 billion in current dollars).
"Gadget"
explodes
Assembled
in the McDonald Ranch house nearby, the orange-sized plutonium
core, weighing 6.1 kg (13.5 lbs.), yielded an explosive
force of more than 20 kilotons (equivalent of 20,000 tons
of TNT).
The "Gadget" just
before the Trinity test July 16, 1945.
The
official Trinity site
What
it’s like there today
July
16, 1979
The largest
release of radioactive material in the U.S. occurred in the
Navajo Nation. More than 1200 metric tons (1,100 tons) of
uranium tailings (mining waste) and 378 million liters (100
million gallons) of radioactive water burst through a packed-mud
dam near Church Rock, New Mexico. The river contaminated
by the spill, the Rio Puerco, showed 7,000 times the allowable
standard of radioactivity for drinking water downstream from
the broken dam shortly after the breach was repaired.
A
month later, only 5% of the tailings had been cleaned out.
Warnings not to drink the contaminated water were issued
by officials, but non-English-speaking Navajo never heard
them, having no electrical power for TV or radio. Humans
and livestock continued to drink the water.
July
16, 1979
Saddam
Hussein became president of the Iraqi republic, secretary
general of the Ba’ath Party Regional Command, chairman
of the Revolutionary Command Council, and commander-in-chief
of the armed forces. He had been the ambitious protegé of
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who resigned on this day.
Ironic
but factual video about how
Saddam Hussein rose in power
July
16, 1983
During
a time of increasing tension between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
(Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), and an escalating
nuclear arms race, 10,000 peace activists formed a human
chain linking the two superpowers’ embassies
in London,
England.
The
same day, members of the Greenham Common Women's Peace
Camp painted the
U.S. spy plane, Blackbird, and composed
this song for their activities:
[to the tune of Count Basie’s “Bye, Bye, Blackbird”]
"Here
I stand paint in hand
Speaking low, here I go
Bye bye blackbird
Just a dab of paint or two
Here I stand paint in hand
Speaking low, here I go
Bye bye blackbird
Just a dab of paint or two Grounds
you for a week or two
Bye bye blackbird.
No
one in the base could undermine you
Till we did some countersigning on you
Now you're just a silly joke
Invented by some macho bloke
Blackbird bye bye."
July
17, 1927
In
a significant early use of close air support, a U.S. Marine
squadron of seven airplanes dive-bombed rebels and peasants
surrounding Marines and Nicaraguan military (then under
direct U.S. control) in Ocotal, Nicaragua, killing more
than 100. The rebels were opposed the presence of U.S.
forces, essentially continuous since 1909.
Why was the
U.S. in Nicaragua?
July
17, 1976
The opening ceremony of the 21st Olympic Games in Montreal
was marked by the withdrawal of more than twenty African
countries, Iraq and Guyana, and their 300 athletes.
They had demanded that New Zealand be banned from participation
because its national rugby team had toured South Africa,
itself banned from the Olympics since 1964 for its
refusal to end the racially separatist policy of apartheid.
The Soweto Massacre, in which 150
children were killed by South African troops, had occurred
just one month earlier. The apartheid government had been using
international sport as a means to build respectability. The
following year, however, in reaction to the Olympic boycott,
the nations of the British Commonwealth (which includes New
Zealand)adopted the Gleneagles Agreement, discouraging all
sporting contacts with South Africa.
read
more
Gleneagles Agreement
July
17, 1979
Fighters of the Sandinista National
Liberation Front overthrew the U.S.-supported dictatorial
regime of Anastasio Somoza in the Central American republic
of Nicaragua and forced him to flee the country. The
notorious and feared U.S.-trained National Guard crumbled
and its surviving commanders negotiated a surrender,
despite their superiority in armaments.
The Sandanista
Revolution
Anastasio
Somoza
Girls
born after the historic Sandinista victory.
Legal voting age
in Nicaragua is 16 years.
The overthrow
July
18, 1872
Great
Britain, under the leadership of William Gladstone, passed
a law requiring voting by secret ballot. Previously, people
had to mount a platform in public and announce their choice
of candidate to the officer who then recorded it in the poll
book. Secrecy served to prevent the possibility of coercion
and retaliation for one’s vote.
a
ballot box used in the 1872 election
July
18, 1918
Mandela
photo gallery
Nelson
Mandela was born. He was one of the leaders in the successful
fight against apartheid in South Africa and became its
first black president. In 1993 he was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize.
read
more about Nelson Mandela
Mandela at 19
July
19, 1848
The
first Women's Rights Convention in the U.S. was held at
Seneca Falls, New York.
Its "Declaration of Sentiments" launched the movement
of women to be included in the constitution.
The
Declaration used as a model the U.S. Declaration of Independence,
demanding that the rights of women as individuals be acknowledged
and respected by society. It was signed by sixty-eight
women and thirty-two men.
The impetus came from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia
Mott, both of whom had been excluded, along with all the
other female
American delegates, from the World Anti-Slavery Convention
(London, 1840) because of their sex. Frederick Douglass, the
former slave and abolitionist leader attended the convention
on supported the resolution for women’s suffrage.
When
suffrage finally became a reality in 1920, seventy-two
years after the first organized demand in 1848, only one
signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration, Charlotte Woodward,
then a young worker in a glove manufactory, had lived long
enough to cast her first ballot.
read about
the convention
read
the declaration
July
19, 1958
Several
black teenagers, members of the local NAACP chapter (National
Association
for the Advancement of Colored People), entered downtown
Wichita’s Dockum Drug Store (then the largest drug
store chain in Kansas) and sat down at the lunch counter.
The store refused to
serve them because of their race.
They returned at least twice a week for the next several weeks.
They sat quietly all afternoon, creating no disturbance, but
refused to leave without being served. Though the police once
chased them away, they were breaking no law, only a store policy.
This was the first instance of a sit-in to protest segregationist
policies.
Wichita sit-in sculpture
July
19, 1974
Martha
Tranquill of Sacramento, California, was sentenced
to nine months’ jail time for refusing to pay
her federal taxes as a protest against the Vietnam
War.
July
19, 1993
President
Bill Clinton announced regulations to implement his "Don't
Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military,
saying that the armed services should put an end to “witch
hunts.” The policy was developed by Gen. Colin
Powell, then Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and
eventually summarized as “don’t ask, don’t
tell, don’t pursue, don’t harass.”
More
about the policy
July
19, 2000
A
federal administrative law judge ordered white supremacist
Ryan Wilson to pay $1.1 million in damages to fair housing
advocate Bonnie Jouhari and her daughter, Dani. The decision
stemmed from threats made against Jouhari by Wilson and
his Philadelphia neo-Nazi group, ALPA HQ.
Bonnie
and Dani Jouhari
July
20, 1967
The
first Black Power conference was held in Newark, New
Jersey, calling on black people
in the U.S. "to unite, to recognize their heritage
and to build a sense of community."
read
more
July
20, 1971
The first labor contract in the history of the
federal government was signed by postal worker unions
and the newly re-organized U.S. Postal Service through
the collective bargaining process.
read
about the history of the
APWU
(American Postal Workers Union)
July
21, 1878
Publication
of "Eight Hours," written by Rev. Jesse H. Jones
(music) and I.G. Blanchard (lyrics), the most popular labor
song until "Solidarity Forever" was published
by the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) in 1915.
“Eight
hours for work,
Eight hours for rest;
Eight hours for what we will.”
All
the lyrics
The
eight-hour was an established concept before the song.
Shown
is an 1856 banner from Melbourne, Australia.
July
21, 1925
The
so-called "Monkey Trial" ended
in Dayton, Tennessee, with high school teacher John T. Scopes
convicted of violating a state law against teaching Darwin's
theory of evolution. It was considered to contradict the Bible’s
description of creation in Genesis.
The trial pitted two of America’s leading advocates as
the opposing lawyers: William Jennings Bryan, thrice the Democratic
presidential candidate (1896, 1900, 1908), the state’s
prosecutor; and Clarence Darrow, a lawyer famous for representing
the underdog, for the defense. Referred to as “the trial
of the century” even before it began, it was the first
trial ever broadcast (on radio). Bryan became ill and died
shortly after the trial’s end; the conviction was later
overturned by Tennessee’s Supreme Court.
The Defendant
John
T. Scopes
The Attorneys: Darrow & Bryan
The
Verdict:
Thou Shall Not Think
Interest
in the trial by the populace and the media (and the heat
in the courtroom) prompted Judge John T. Raulston to
move the trial outdoors to the courthouse lawn. Bryan
himself was called as a witness on the literal interpretation
of scripture.
Attorney General Thomas Stewart, in response to Darrow’s questioning, asked, "What
is the meaning of this harangue?" "To show up fundamentalism," shouted
Mr. Darrow, "to prevent bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the educational
system of the United States."
Mr. Bryan sprang to his feet, his face purple, and shook his fist in Darrow’s
face: "To protect the word of God from the greatest atheist and agnostic
in the United States."
July
21, 1954
Major
world powers, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, reached
agreement on the terms of a ceasefire for Indochina,
ending nearly eight years of war. The war began in 1946
between nationalist forces of the Communist Viet Minh,
under leader Ho Chi Minh, and France, the occupying colonial
power following Japanese control during World War II.
The Geneva conference included France, the United Kingdom, the U.S., the U.S.S.R.,
People’s Republic of China, Cambodia, Laos, and both Vietnamese governments.
It
ended with a peace treaty that called for independence
for Vietnam and a 1956 election to unify the country. However,
only France and Ho Chi Minh's DRV (Democratic Republic of
Vietnam) signed the document.
The United States did not approve of the agreement. Instead,
they backed Emperor Boa Dai and Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem’s
government in South Vietnam and refused to allow the elections,
knowing, in Pres. Eisenhower’s words, that “Ho
Chi Minh will win.” The result was the Second
Indochina War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War.
The
treaty is signed What
followed the treaty
July
21, 1976
Plaza de Mayo mother
A
military junta under General Jorge Rafael Videla took power
in Argentina on March 24, disbanding parliament and taking
over all labor unions. The military kidnapped hundreds
of people from two villages of Jujuy province in northern
Argentina, thirty of whom never returned from a clandestine
detention center. Most of those disappeared worked for
the Ledesma sugar refinery. Since
1983, on the Thursday closest to July 21, Madres de Plaza
de Mayo (an organization of mothers and wives of the
missing) are joined by others, and walk the 7 km (4.3
miles) from Calilegua to San Martin, demanding answers
about their loved ones. Madres de Plaza de Mayo
is supported by Amnesty International and the United
Nations Human Rights Commission.
read more
July
22, 1756
The "The
Friendly Association for gaining and preserving Peace with
the Indians by Pacific Measures." was founded in Philadelphia.
It was comprised primarily of Quakers (members of the Society
of Friends) who wished to pursue peaceful coexistence between
the native peoples and the European immigrants to the Pennsylvania
region.
read
more
July
22, 1877
A general
strike, part of the railroad strike that had paralyzed
the country, was called in St. Louis, where workers briefly
seized control of the city. Within a week after it began
in Martinsburg, West Virginia, the railroad strike reached
East St. Louis,Illinois, where 500 members of the St. Louis
Workingmen's Party joined 1,000 railroad workers and residents.
Strikers in St. Louis continued operation of non-freight
trains themselves, collecting the fares, making it impossible
for the railroads to blame the workers for loss of passenger
rail service.
More
about the 1877 general strike
July
22, 1966
Federal
Judge Claude Clayton issued a sweeping injunction ordering
the police of Grenada, Mississippi, to stop interfering with
lawful protest, ordering them instead to protect demonstrations,
and requiring certain rules to be set down for the conduct
of marches.
This ruling followed weeks of arrests and beating of demonstrators
who had been attempting to integrate all the businesses and
other institutions in their town.
July
22, 1987
Pres.
Ronald Reagan signed into law the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless
Assistance Act (named for a member of Congress from Connecticut)
which provided emergency relief provisions for shelter, food,
mobile health care, and transitional housing for homeless
Americans.
history
of federal homeless assistance
visit NCH
(National
Coalition for the Homeless)
July
23, 1846
Author
Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay the
poll tax as a protest against the Mexican war, which
in turn led to his writing "Civil Disobedience." This
essay became a source of inspiration for Leo Tolstoy,
Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
From
Thoreau’s essay: “Unjust laws exist: shall
we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend
them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall
we transgress them at once?”
the
entire essay (in annotated form)
Daguerreotype of Henry David
Thoreau
Out
of Thoreau's jailing grew a legend: The great Ameriacan
philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in
jail. Emerson asked, "Henry,
why are you here?" Thoreau
replied, "Why are you not here?" “Under
a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for
a just
man is also a prison.”
read
the whole story
Thoreau
was not alone in his opposition: Thomas Corwin of Ohio denounced
the war as merely the latest example of American injustice
to Mexico: “If I were a Mexican I would
tell you,‘Have
you not room enough in your own country to bury your dead.’ ” Henry
Clay [former speaker of the House and presidential candidate]
declared, "This is no war of defense, but
one of unnecessary and offensive aggression." Abraham
Lincoln also opposed the war, and lost his seat in Congress
as a result.
July
23, 1967
Detroiters angry at loss of jobs
and especially at the abusive, and virtually all-white, police
department started rioting in what became known as the Detroit
Rebellion.
The
initiating incident was an early-morning raid on a blind
pig (Detroit for after-hours drinking club) on 12th Street.
The violence spread elsewhere in the city, and led to Pres.
Lyndon Johnson’s calling out 8000 members of the National
Guard. Order was not restored for six days.
In
the end, there were 43 known dead, half of them police
or National Guardsmen, 347 injured, 3800 arrested, 1000
families homeless. Thirteen hundred buildings burned to
the ground and twenty-seven hundred businesses were looted.
Online
documentary on all aspects of what happened, “Ashes
to Hope”
July
24, 1974
The United States Supreme
Court (U.S. v. Nixon) unanimously ordered Pres. Richard
Nixon to surrender tape recordings of White House conversations
regarding the Watergate affair. Speaking for the Supreme
Court in front of a packed and hushed courtroom, Chief
Justice Warren E. Burger (a Nixon appointee) rejected President
Nixon's claims of executive privilege (virtually total
confidentiality for the White House) because the need for
fair administration of criminal justice must prevail.
The
White House feared review of the recordings by a U.S.
district judge would reveal, among other crimes, impeachable
offenses.
Great
resources (including for teaching) on this case:
Listen to the tapes online
July
24, 1983
Canadians and Americans crossed the international
border at Thousand Islands Bridge, linking New York and
Ontario, to protest nuclear weapons and border harassment
of peace activists.
Thousand
Islands Bridge
July
24, 1983
Women
tagged a U.S. warplane with anti-nuclear graffiti at
Greenham Common, an air base in England. The Greenham
Common Women's Peace Camp was set up just outside the
perimeter of the base in 1981 to get U.S. Cruise missiles,
some of which were deployed at the base, out of their
country. Other tactics included disrupting construction
work at the base, blockading the entrance, and cutting
down parts of the fence.
read
more about The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
photo:
Isia Brecciaroli
July
25, 1898
With
16,000 troops, the United States invaded Puerto Rico
at Guánica, asserting that they were liberating
the inhabitants from Spanish colonial rule, which had
recently granted the island’s government limited
autonomy. The island, as well as Cuba and the Philippines,
were spoils of the Spanish-American War which ended the
following month. Puerto Rico remains a U.S. commonwealth
today.
N.Y.
17th Volunteer Regiment marching through Puerto Rico
Famed
American poet Carl Sandburg saw active service in Puerto
Rico, beginning with the invasion in Guánica. Sandburg
wrote about these experiences in his book entitled “Always
the Young Strangers” (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, 1953).
more
on the invasion
July
25, 1946
The
first underwater atomic device was detonated at Bikini
Atoll, one of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific.
It was the second of two bombs, Able and Baker, that comprised
Operation Crossroads; each weapon had a yield equivalent
to 23,000 tons of TNT (23 kilotons). The U.S. Navy conducted
the tests to determine the effect of such weapons on ships
at sea.
read
more
More
than 130 newspaper, magazine and radio correspondents
from seven nations were present for the tests.
Gallery
of U.S. Navy artwork from Operation Crossroads:
July
25, 1947
The National
Security Act of 1947 was passed by Congress, uniting the
armed forces under control of the National Military Establishment,
which soon became Defense, the only cabinet-level military
department, in place of separate ones
for War, Army and Navy.
The law also created the National Security Council, the Central
Intelligence Agency, and gave statutory responsibility to
the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.
July
25, 1963
The
Limited Test Ban Treaty was initialed following 10
days of intense negotiations among the the U.S.S.R.*,
U.S. and United Kingdom. The treaty prohibits nuclear
weapons tests “or any other nuclear explosion” in
the atmosphere, in outer space, or under water; it
does not ban underground tests. The nuclear powers
(only three then, nine today) accepted as a common
goal “an end to the contamination of man's environment
by radioactive substances.” 185 countries have
signed the treaty so far but Israel, Pakistan, Iran
and North Korea never signed or later withdrew.
*
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly referred
to as the Soviet Union, included Russia and 14 countries
and was dissolved in the early ‘90s.
States
with nuclear weapons today
July
25, 1965
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
participated in protests against housing segregation in
Chicago. His Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
joined with the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations
(CCCO), led by Al Raby, a black schoolteacher, in the Chicago
Freedom Movement.
more
on the CCCO
Martin
Luther King talks to Al Raby of Chicago's Coordinating
Council of Community Organizations (CCCO)
as
they lead the march down State Street.
To
King's right is Jack Spiegel of the United Shoeworkers,
and to Raby's left is King assistant Bernard Lee.
July
26, 1953
In his first move to overthrow the U.S.-backed
dictatorship of Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista, 26-year-old
Fidel Castro led 134 other young revolutionaries to unsuccessfully
attack the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba.
Castro had concluded that armed struggle was the only way
to unseat Batista, who had taken power in a military coup
in 1952.
The Cuban Revolution is known as the July 26 Movement,
and is celebrated annually there.
The
Moncada Barracks, still showing a few bullet holes and pockmarks
from that fateful early morning assault in 1953, is now both
a historic site and an elementary school.
July
26, 1967
H.
Rap Brown, then head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) was ordered arrested by then-Gov. Spiro
Agnew, who accused him of inciting a riot through his
speech two days earlier at a civil rights rally in Cambridge,
Maryland.
At
the event, Brown declared, “Black folks built America,
and if America don’t come around, we’re going to
burn America down.” Shortly after the speech, brown was
hit in the head by buckshot from a policeman’s shotgun.
That night the segregated elementary school and 20 businesses
burned down (there was no looting), some along Race Street,
the racial divide which neither black nor white were expected
to cross.
H. Rap Brown
following the disturbances in Cambridge, Maryland.
What
happened in Cambridge
More
on Brown and Agnew
July
26, 1990
The
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into
law by Pres. George H.W. Bush. It prohibited discrimination
based on disability in employment, in public accommodation
(e.g., hotels, restaurants, retail stores, theaters,
health care facilities, convention centers, parks), in
transportation services, and in all activities of state
and local governments.
July
27, 1919
A race riot began in Chicago when
police refused to arrest a white man who was responsible for
the death of a young
black man, Eugene Williams. The 29th Street Beach on Lake
Michigan was used by both black and white Chicagoans. But
the man had been throwing stones at the black boys swimming
there before hitting Williams.
The Coroner’s report on the riot described the events
as follows: “Five days of terrible hate and passion let
loose, cost the people of Chicago 38 lives (15 white and 23
colored), wounded and maimed several hundred, destroyed property
of untold value, filled thousands with fear, blemished the
city and left in its wake fear and apprehension for the future
. . . .”
The city’s booming economy, especially jobs in the stockyards,
had drawn many blacks during the Great Migration from the South,
more than doubling their population in just three years. Only
one policeman died in the chaos, Patrolman John Simpson, 31,
an African American working out of the Wabash Avenue Station.
July
27, 1953
After
three years of bloody and frustrating war leading to stalemate,
the United States, the People’s Republic of China
and North Korea agreed to a truce, bringing the Korean
War—and America's first experiment with the Cold
War concept of "limited war"—to an end
(the South Korean president, Syngman Rhee, opposed the
truce and refused to sign). U.S. Pres. Dwight Eisenhower
had taken office six months earlier, and Soviet leader
Josef Stalin had died that March.
The
armistice signed that day ended hostilities and created
the 4000-meter-wide (2.5 miles) demilitarized zone (DMZ), a
buffer between North and South Korean forces, but was not a
permanent peace treaty. It also set up a system for exchange
of prisoners of war: 12,000 held by the North, 75,000 by South
Korea, the U.S. and the U.N. allied forces. There
were four million military and civilian casualties, including
16,000 from countries which were part of the U.N.-allied forces,
415,000 South Korean, and 520,000 North Korean dead.
There were also an estimated 900,000 Chinese casualties. 36,516
died out of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who served in
the conflict.
Korean
War Memorial
photo:
Heather Stanfield
Causes
of the war
July
27, 1996
Known
as the "Weep and Disarm for Children Plowshares," four
women were arrested for pouring their own blood on weaponry
at the Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut, on the
morning of the launch of the last-built Ohio-class submarine,
the U.S.S. Louisiana. The 18 such submarines carry about half
of the U.S. nuclear deterrent – 24 Trident I & II
missiles with a range of 7400 km (4600 miles), each with several
warheads known as MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry
vehicles).
read
more about the Weep for Children Plowshares
Trident
sub being loaded
July
28, 1868
Passed
in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing due process, equal protection
of the law, and full citizenship to all males over 21, including
former slaves, went into effect.
More on the amendment and
the context of post-Civil War Reconstruction
The text of the amendment:
July
28, 1932
Federal
troops, under command of General Douglas MacArthur, forcibly
dispersed the so-called ''Bonus Expeditionary Force,'' or
Bonus Army. They were World War I veterans who had gathered
in Washington, D.C., to demand money they had been promised
but weren't scheduled to receive until 1945. Most of the
marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial
straits during the Great Depression.
read more
Film of the
confrontation in Washington
July
28, 1965
President
Lyndon Johnson ordered 50,000 troops to Vietnam to join
the 75,000 already there. By the end of the year 180,000
U.S. troops will have been sent to Vietnam; in 1966 the
figure doubled. By the summer of 1967, 80,000 Americans
had been killed or wounded in the Vietnam War, in addition
to countless Vietnamese. President Johnson explained: "We
intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated
by force of arms or by superior power."
David Douglas Duncan, photographer.
Lyndon Johnson told the nation
Have no fear of escalation
I am trying everyone to please
Though it isn’t really
war
We’re sending fifty thousand more
To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese
"Pfc.
John L. Lewis decorates his helmet with good luck tokens.
[Khe Sanh, February 1968.]" Life [Asia edition]. 18 Mar.
1968. cover.
–part of
Tom Paxton’s anti-Vietnam war song the whole song
July
28, 1982
San Francisco
became the first U.S. city to ban the sale and possession
of handguns. The law was struck down by state courts, ruling
the local law to be in violation of the California constitution
which gives the state the sole power to regulate firearms.
July
29, 1972
After
a five-year strike, the United Farm Workers (UFW) signed
a contract with the table grape growers in California, ending
the first grape boycott.
read more
Signing the contract
July
29, 1972
Supreme
Court ruled the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment
by a 5-4 vote. The Court called the wide discretion in application
of capital punishment, including the appearance of racial
bias against black defendants, “arbitrary and capricious” and
thus in violation of due process guarantees in the 14th Amendment
[see July 28, 1868 above].
Influence
of race on imposition of the death penalty
July
30, 1492
The
same month Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain for his “expedition
of discovery to the Indies [actually the Western Hemisphere]," was
the deadline for all “Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms
to depart and never to return . . .” lest they be executed.
Under the influence of Tomas de Torquemada, the leader of the
Spanish Inquisition, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had
ordered the expulsion of the entire Jewish community of 200,000
from Spain within four months. Spain’s Muslims, or Moors,
were forced out as well within ten years.
The
edict of expulsion from Spain signed by
King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella
All
were forced to sell off their houses, businesses and possessions,
were pressured to convert to Christianity, and to find
a new country to live in. Those who left were known as
Sephardim (Hebrew for Spain), settling in North Africa,
Italy, and elsewhere in Europe and the Arab world.
Most went to Portugal, were allowed to stay just six months, and then were enslaved
under orders of King John. Those who made it to Turkey were welcomed by Sultan
Bajazet who asked, "How can you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king, the
same Ferdinand who impoverished his own land and enriched ours?"
July
30, 1996
Four
Ploughshares activists in Liverpool, England, were acquitted
of all charges (illegal entry and criminal damage) on the
basis of preventing a greater crime, after having extensively
damaged an F-16 Hawk fighter jet to be sold to the Indonesian
government for use in its genocidal occupation of East Timor.
read more
a chronology of plowshares
disarmament actions
July
31, 1896
The
National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was established
in Washington, D.C. Its two leading members were Josephine
Ruffin and Mary Church Terrell. Founders also included some
of the most renowned African-American women educators, community
leaders, and civil-rights activists in America, including:
Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Margaret Murray Washington,
and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
read
more
Mary Church Terrell
The
original intention of the organization was "to furnish
evidence of the moral, mental and material progress made
by people of colour through the efforts of our women.” However,
over the next ten years the NACW became involved in campaigns
favoring women's suffrage and opposing lynching and Jim Crow
laws.
By the time the United States entered the First World
War, membership had reached 300,000.
read
more
July
31, 1986
25,000
people rallied in Namibia for freedom from South African
colonial rule. In June, 1971 the International Court of Justice
had ruled that the South African presence in Namibia as illegal.
Finally, open elections for a 72-member Constituent Assembly
were held under U.N. supervision in November, 1989. Three
months later Namibia gained its independence, and maintains
it today.
read more
Namibian flag
Learn more about peacemakers
in Africa:
July
31, 1991
The
United States and the Soviet Union, represented by Pres.
George H.W. Bush and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev,
signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START
I. It was the first agreement to actually reduce (by 25-35%)
and verify both countries’ stockpiles of nuclear
weapons at equal aggregate levels in strategic offensive
arms.
The Soviet Union dissolved several months later, but Russia
and the U.S. met their goals by December, 2001. Three other
former republics of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine,
have eliminated these weapons from their territory altogether.
Comprehensive
info from the Federation of American Scientists:
July
31, 1991
The
United States and the Soviet Union, represented by Pres.
George H.W. Bush and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev,
signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START
I. It was the first agreement to actually reduce (by 25-35%)
and verify both countries’ stockpiles of nuclear
weapons at equal aggregate levels in strategic offensive
arms.
The Soviet Union dissolved several months later, but Russia
and the U.S. met their goals by December, 2001. Three other
former republics of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine,
have eliminated these weapons from their territory altogether.
Comprehensive
info from the Federation of American Scientists:
This
Week In History compiled by peacebuttons.info from various
sources
which are available upon request.
Submissions are always welcome. Please furnish sources. cb@peacebuttons.info
Reproduction
of this calendar for non-profit purposes
is permitted and encouraged. Please credit/link to www.peacebuttons.info
Actress
Vanessa Redgrave joins 25,000 two years later at Anti-Vietnam
war protest, Grosvenor Square.
John
Ehrlichman
Bob
Geldof
"Gadget"
explodes
Anastasio
Somoza
Mandela
photo gallery 
