#OtD 2 Dec 1984 the world's worst industrial disaster took place in Bhopal, India, when the Union Carbide chemical plant leaked poisonous gases to 5 million people, killing, blinding and disabling tens of thousands. No bosses were punished
Working Class History
#OtD 2 Dec 1816 a meeting by 1000s of radical Spenceans was violently dispersed by police in Spa Fields, London. Four were arrested and charged with high treason, though found not guilty. Mass anti-govt working-class agitation in Britain followed
Working Class History
#OtD 1 Dec 1955 Rosa Parks, a Black civil rights activist, refused her bus driver's order that she give up her seat to a white passenger, triggering a widespread bus boycott and boosting the civil rights movement.
Working Class History
#OtD 25 Nov 1865 Mississippi passed a Black Code to reintroduce slavery post-civil war. They prevented Black people from renting land, required them to work for whites and barred them from changing jobs. Violators could be jailed & enslaved legally
Working Class History
It is with sadness that we learned that Viola Fletcher, the oldest survivor of the Tulsa racist massacre, has died at the age of 111. Learn more about this event here:
Working Class History
#OtD 23 Nov 1912 anarcho-syndicalist union, Unione Sindacale Italiana, was founded in Modena mainly by radical metal workers, builders, farm workers and miners. It played a key role in both the factory occupation movement and anti-fascist resistance
Working Class History
#OtD 23 Nov 1936 over 500,000 people came out onto the streets of Barcelona to attend the funeral of anarchist militant, Buenaventura Durruti, killed during the Spanish Civil War: the biggest funeral in Spanish history. Related historical fiction:
Working Class History
#OtD 21 Nov 1927 a massacre took place in Columbine, Colorado, when police and militia fired into a crowd of striking miners and their families, killing at least six and injuring more than 60 in an effort to break the @npub1xy35...0fsc union
Working Class History
#OtD 19 Nov 1900 German communist and anti-Nazi activist Anna Seghers was born in Mainz. She wrote a novel in 1932 warning of the dangers of fascism, Die GefΓ€hrten, which led her to be arrested by the Gestapo, but she survived
Working Class History