Working Class History 5 hours ago

#OtD 10 Jan 1859 Catalan educator and anarchist, Francesc Ferrer was born. He developed the idea of the "Modern School": radical, secular education particularly for working-class children. He was later framed and executed by the state. Learn more:

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Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader

Edited by Mark Bray and Robert H. Haworth  On October 13, 1909, Francisco Ferrer, the notorious Catalan anarchist educator and founder of the Mode...

Working Class History 3 days ago

#OtD 7 Jan 1977 200 residents of the Nou Barris district of Barcelona broke into an asphalt plant and occupied it. They destroyed equipment and soon turned it into the collectively-run Ateneu Popular de Nou Barris cultural centre. More info and map:

Working Class History

Working Class History 4 days ago

#OtD 6 Jan 1945 four women were hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for their role in a prisoner rebellion the previous October: Ala Gertner, Roza Robota, Estusia Wajcblum and Regina Safirsztajn stole and smuggled explosives

Working Class History

Working Class History 2 weeks ago

#OtD 27 Dec 1831 the Christmas rebellion in Jamaica escalated as 60,000 enslaved people rose up and went on strike. Causing £50 million damage, the uprising helped lead to slavery being largely abolished across the British Empire within two years

Working Class History

Working Class History 2 weeks ago

#OtD 26 Dec 1862 the largest mass execution in US history took place when 38 Native American Dakota people were hanged. Some trials lasted less than five minutes, and Pres Lincoln personally reviewed the trial paperwork and approved the death penalty

Working Class History

Working Class History 2 weeks ago

#OtD 26 Dec 1936 George Orwell checked into the Hotel Continental in Barcelona. His room would be raided in June 1937 during the persecution of the POUM. The first transcript of his book 'Homage to Catalonia' was taken and never seen again

Working Class History

Working Class History 2 weeks ago

#OtD 25 Dec 1837 the Africans and Native Americans who formed Florida's Seminole nation defeated a vastly superior US invading army bent on cracking this early rainbow coalition and returning the Africans to slavery

Working Class History

Working Class History 2 weeks ago

#OtD 22 Dec 1989 Irish author and French resistance activist Samuel Beckett died in Paris aged 83. Living in France during WWII, he joined the resistance, helping as a courier and storing weapons. More information, sources and map:

Working Class History

Working Class History 3 weeks ago

#OtD 17 Dec 1933 sexual contact between men was re-criminalised in the USSR, after it had been decriminalised in 1922 in the wake of the 1917 revolution. After it was introduced, gay and bisexual men began to flood into the gulags

Working Class History

Working Class History 3 weeks ago

#OtD 14 Dec 2008 journalist @muntazer_zaidi threw his shoes at President George W Bush in protest at the US occupation of Iraq, shouting "This is from the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq." He resumed activism after 6 months jail

Working Class History

Working Class History 0 months ago

#OtD 13 Dec 1971 6000 Indigenous Ovambo workers in what is now Namibia went on strike against an exploitative apartheid forced contract work system. By January, they were victorious

Working Class History

Working Class History 1 month ago

#OtD 11 Dec 1981 a Reagan-backed death squad massacred around 1000 people in El Mozote, El Salvador. Prior to being killed, many of the victims were tortured and girls as young as 10 were raped by the US-trained troops

Working Class History

Working Class History 1 month ago

#OtD 10 Dec 2006 former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, died. His regime, supported enthusiastically by the UK and US, saw thousands of radicals, trade unionists and others rounded up and executed, with tens of thousands more jailed and tortured

Working Class History

Working Class History 1 month ago

#OtD 6 Dec 1918 Black British soldiers stationed in Taranto, Italy, violently mutinied against appalling and racist treatment. Though heavily repressed, many later returned home to the Caribbean and joined worker strikes and anti-colonial unrest

Working Class History

Working Class History 1 month ago

#OtD 6 Dec 1928 the banana massacre took place in Ciénaga, Colombia, when soldiers killed up to 2000 striking workers of the United Fruit Co., and their wives and children, who were fighting for one day off per week and pay in money rather than coupons

Working Class History

Working Class History 1 month ago

#OtD 4 Dec 1853 Errico Malatesta, mechanic and key anarchist theorist and organiser was born in Italy. Despite being repeatedly jailed, exiled and sentenced to death 3 times, he remained active and lived until the age of 78. Learn more in this book:

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Life and Ideas: The Anarchist Writings of Errico Malatesta

With the timely reprinting of this selection of Malatesta’s writings, first published in 1965 by Freedom Press, the full range of this great anar...

Working Class History 1 month ago

#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

Working Class History 1 month ago

#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

Working Class History 1 month ago

#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

Working Class History 1 month ago

#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