From the 1880s to the 1950s, Americans played a carnival game to throw balls at a black person. #ThisDayInHistory in 1908 a man in Pennsylvania was struck rapidly, "pretty well used up", "with internal injuries which may prove fatal." Photo from a 1942 #YMCA summer camp brochure.
#thisdayinhistory
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On #ThisDayInHistory in 1976, Chile's #Pinochet régime carried out a car-bomb #assassination in the heart of Washington, DC. It killed refugee #socialist economist #OrlandoLetelier and his American assistant #RonniMoffitt. The US did not object because the victims were leftists.
This Day in History – Sept 21, 1981
Sandra Day O’Connor is confirmed as the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
It only took, checks notes, 192 years for America to accept what I’ve always known:
The mom is always right.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1973, US citizen #FrankTeruggi was killed by agents of the #Pinochet régime in Santiago, Chile. Because he was a member of #IWW, i.e. a leftist, the US government sought no justice. In fact, records later declassified showed the US gov. backed the killing.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1967, the #QueenElizabeth2 (#QE2) of the #Cunard line was launched in the UK. The last large ocean liner built on the Clyde in Scotland, she served for decades as the only transatlantic liner in service, until replaced by the French-built Cunarder #QM2.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1920, UK war criminals the #BlackAndTans rampaged through #Balbriggan, #Ireland, burning 50 homes and businesses, looting and beating residents, and killing two locals. Violence of this sort is a common feature of #colonial #occupation everywhere.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1918, #EugeneVDebs was sentenced under the 1917 Espionage Act. He gave one of this country's most moving speeches to the court. As I cannot record it, I found someone else who did, though regretfully they left out some parts.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1947, the #CIA was founded when Truman signed the #NationalSecurityAct. Created intentionally without much oversight or presidential control, the agency was empowered to attack countries deemed a threat to #capitalist interests. This list is incomplete:
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1970, we lost guitar great #JimiHendrix. He died a couple of months before his 28th birthday from taking too many sleeping pills. Here is his searing protest track Machine Gun, calling out the senseless violence of the #VietnamWar.
This Day in History – Sept 18, 1931
Japan staged the Mukden Incident, blowing up their own railway and blaming China—launching the invasion of Manchuria.
False flags like Mukden aren’t rare.
They’re routine.
Ems Dispatch. Reichstag Fire. Gleiwitz. Winter War. Northwoods. Lavon Affair. Tonkin. Iraq. Again and again.
So I wrote a poem.
https://wittgensteinsmonster.substack.com/p/the-spark-that-wasnt
Eshu’s Substack · 🚨 The Spark That Wasn’t
#Capitalism makes fully moral behaviour impossible; the markets will lead us to extinction. On #ThisDayInHistory in 2011, the #OccupyWallStreet movement began. It should never have ended. Here is a clip of #DavidGraeber, one of the early voices of #Occupy. #WeAreThe99Percent #IWW
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1991, #LinusTorvalds released the first #Linux kernel. This made the #GNU project complete, offering a free (as in freedom) alternative to #Unix systems. I've been using GNU/Linux since 1994, and I haven't had to touch a #Windows machine since quitting IT.
(1/2) On #ThisDayInHistory in 1982, the #SabraAndShatilaMassacre took place in Lebanon, from the evening of 16th to morning of 18th September. Israel trained the #LebaneseForces #FarRight militia, showing them #Holocaust films, and sent them into two #Palestinian refugee camps...
A coördinated international effort during #WWI saw #capitalist 'democracies' targeting #leftist groups. On #ThisDayInHistory in 1917, Eva Lynch was arrested in #Australia whilst training women speakers to keep #IWW going (the male leadership of the #union was already imprisoned).
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1963, the #KKK bombed a church in Alabama, killing four young girls and wounding 22. #FBI knew the identity of all four shitbag #WhiteSupremacist terrorists involved by 1965, but the government never prosecuted them. It was too busy murdering black people.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1935, #Nazis passed #NürnbergerGesetze (the #NurembergLaws), which stripped citizenship from Jews and banned intermarriage. The success of #AfD shows that the #racist ideals behind such laws have not been overcome 90 years later.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-nazis-anti-jewish-nuremberg-laws-90-years-later-v2/a-73964767
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1960, #MobutuSeseSeko launched a coup with #CIA help against the first president of #CongoKinshasa, #PatriceLumumba. MSS brutally held power until 1997, and for much of that time #Congo was called #Zaire. Lumumba was later butchered & dissolved in acid.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1867, #KarlMarx published the first volume of #Kapital. An instant classic, it defined and described the operation of #capitalism in the 19th c. Despite massive changes in the world economy, its analysis is foundational to any study of political economy.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1911, inspired by workers' strikes that year, school children in Hull organized a #strike against corporal punishment. The strikes spread to other schools, with many hundreds involved. Alas, it stayed legal for teachers to beat & cane students until 1985.
On #ThisDayInHistory in 1973, the US CIA and #AugustoPinochet overthrew the #socialist government of #Chile. Here is President #SalvadorAllende speaking at the UN, months before his murder, on the impact of multinational #corporations, in whose interests the US acts as enforcer.