#OtD 5 Aug 1964 the US began bombing North Vietnam in Operation Pierce Arrow, after "intelligence" reported a North Vietnamese attack on US ships. These reports were false. In our podcast episode, Noam Chomsky explains the geopolitics of the Vietnam war: workingclasshistory.com/2018/10/31/e...

#OtD 5 Aug 1981 11,345 federal air traffic controllers were fired by US President Reagan for refusing his order to return to work after 2 days of strike action. Military air traffic controllers were used as scabs until new hires could be trained stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1049...

#OtD 5 Aug 1835 the first factory in Spain to use a steam engine to power machinery, the Bonaplata factory in Barcelona, was assaulted and burned to the ground by luddite gangs known as Bullangues stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1048...

#OtD 5 Aug 1936 James Colton (b 1860), a South Wales anarchist miner, who married exiled Lithuanian-American Jewish anarchist Emma Goldman to give her British citizenship, died of cancer. This is his short biography: stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1049...

#OtD 5 Aug 1993 the Japanese govt admitted it forced women to work in military brothels from 1932-1945. 200k women and girls, mostly from Korea and China, but also Japan, the Philippines and Dutch Indonesia were abducted/tricked into these brothels stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1049...

#OtD 5 Aug 1895 Friedrich Engels, communist and lifelong collaborator, friend and sponsor of Karl Marx, died in London aged 74. Most famously, he co-wrote the Communist Manifesto: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

New daily podcast: 5 August 1981: Air-traffic controllers fired

5 August 1981: Air-traffic controllers fired

On this day, 5 August 1981, after just two days on strike, 11,345 federal air traffic controllers were sacked by US president Ronald Reagan for refusing his order to return to work (content note: suicide).  The workers in the extremely stressful industry had gone on strike demanding a pay increase and a reduction in working hours from 40 per week over five days to 32 per week over four days. Despite the threat of firing, only 1,300 workers crossed picket lines and returned to work. And Reagan, himself a former union leader, then fired all of the remaining strikers. The workers were then banned from federal service for life (lifted over a decade later), their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, was legally dissolved later in October, and military air traffic controllers were used as scab replacements until new hires could be trained. Some workers and their partners died by suicide. One striker's wife was found hanged in her kitchen by a pile of unpaid bills. The dispute was a landmark event in the relationship between workers and employers in the US, similar to the great miners' strike in the UK in 1984-5 which was defeated by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. In both countries, much of the ability of workers to organise and win improved pay and conditions was destroyed, in a legacy which remains to this day. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10495/us-air-traffic-control-strike Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory. * See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today * Browse all Stories by Date here on the Date index: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/date * Check out our Map of historical Stories: https://map.workingclasshistory.com * Check out books, posters, clothing and more in our online store, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com * If you enjoy this podcast, make sure to check out our flagship longform podcast, Working Class History

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#OtD 4 Aug 2016 Dwayne Stafford attacked an accused white supremacist church-mass murderer at the Charleston County jail, telling an NBC reporter, “I beat Dylann Roof’s ass.” After the attack, donors helped raise money to pay his bail and get out

#OtD 4 Aug 1919 three days of rioting and looting in Liverpool, UK, came to end with the arrival of 3,000 troops. Quick-witted locals had decided to take advantage of a strike of half of the city's police officers stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

#OtD 4 Aug 1980 the US-backed military dictatorship in South Korea handed down jail sentences of between one and five years to 30 people who had been involved in an insurrection of coal miners and their families in Sabuk the previous April stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

#OtD 4 Aug 2011 Mark Duggan was shot and killed by the London Metropolitan police. In response, days of rioting broke out across the UK, in a British precursor to the #blacklivesmatter movement stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

#OtD 4 Aug 2011 violent clashes erupted between protesters and security forces in an escalation of a popular movement demanding education reform in Chile around such things as access to higher education and the needs of Indigenous Mapuche students stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

#OtD 4 Aug 1765 French actor and revolutionary Claire Lacombe was born. She took part in the 1792 Paris insurrection and co-founded the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, an organisation so radical it led all women's organisations to be banned stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

#OtD 4 Aug 1792 radical Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born. His most famous poem, penned after the Peterloo massacre, ends: "Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew... Ye are many—they are few!" workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e15-...

#OtD 4 Aug 1990 the term "Two-Spirit", for Indigenous people "who embody diverse (or non-normative) sexualities, genders, gender roles, and/or gender expressions", was adopted at the 3rd Annual Gathering of Native American Gays and Lesbians stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

#OtD 4 Aug 1887 the first public event by the new anarchist bakers' union took place in Buenos Aires. Radical bakers came up with many of the names of Argentinian pastries mocking government, police and the Church, like bolas de fraile (friar's balls) stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1040...

New daily podcast: 4 August 1941: Moengo miners strike

4 August 1941: Moengo miners strike

On 4 August 1941, shovel operators in the Moengo bauxite mine in the then-Dutch colony of Suriname went on strike. The walkout of mostly Javanese and Creole workers was swiftly followed by mill, shipping and tow boat crews. They were soon all offered substantial pay increases, and the strikes ended. Mill workers also had their working days reduced from 12 to eight hours per day. Powerhouse workers were then given a pay increase without a strike, and workers in the electric shop threatened to strike and were given pay increases of 30 to 40%. Workers were demanding pay increases because the cost of living had gone up with the background of World War II. And they would strike again a few months later. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7953/moengo-miners-strike Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon. If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory. * See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today * Browse all Stories by Date here on the Date index: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/date * Check out our Map of historical Stories: https://map.workingclasshistory.com * Check out books, posters, clothing and more in our online store, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com * If you enjoy this podcast, make sure to check out our flagship longform podcast, Working Class History

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#OtD 3 Aug 1947 UK-wide antisemitic riots began in Manchester after two British soldiers in Palestine were killed by Zionist Irgun fighters. Antisemitism had already been inflamed by politicians and the media, such as Ernest Bevin and the Sunday Times workingclasshistory.com/2020/02/17/e...

#OtD 3 Aug 2010 two contractors at Canada Post in Edmonton were told their pay would be cut by nearly 8%, so they walked out and were followed by the rest of the contractors, mostly non-union African immigrants. The boss then promptly reversed the cut stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1016...

#OtD 3 Aug 1945 a homeless ex-soldier in Sydney, Australia squatted an empty home on Marion Street, Auburn. "Forcible possession of homes will not solve the housing problem... But what other avenue is open to a man in desperate circumstances like me?" stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1016...

#OtD 3 Aug 2019 the El Paso mass shooting took place when an anti-immigrant gunman murdered 22 people and injured dozens more at a Walmart store in the predominantly Latine city, later telling police he wanted to kill as many "Mexicans" as possible.

#OtD 3 Aug 1913 in California, the Wheatland hop riot took place after a farm labourers' meeting with the revolutionary @IWW union was broken up by police, leaving four dead and two leading organisers framed on murder charges stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1015...

#OtD 3 Aug 1945 a group in Melbourne called the Australian Soldiers' Legion (ASL) helped the Wagglens family, which included a homeless, wounded WWII veteran, his wife and children, squat a empty house in Bell Street, Hawthorn stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1016...

#OtD 3 Aug 1492 Columbus set sail from Spain for the "Indies", with disastrous consequences for the people who already lived there. He landed in the Bahamas, where he began enslaving and murdering the Arawak people. More in this book: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

#OtD 2 Aug 1894 work resumed at the Pullman factory after its strike was defeated. US troops had killed 34 and injured and arrested many others, the AFL refused to call sympathy action, and the union further isolated itself by excluding Black members stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1247...

#OtD 2 Aug 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed, creating the United States of America and taking land, profits and political power away from the British Empire and created a consensus of popular support for a new privileged elite stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9161...

#OtD 2 Aug 1901 Jewish revolutionary and author Ida Mett was born in Smarhoń, Belarus. She was involved in the Russian revolution and was a member of the anarchist-communist Dielo Truda (Workers' Cause) group from 1925 to 1928 stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9162...

#OtD 2 Aug 1917 a walkout began on the railways in New South Wales, which spread across the country and became known as the Great Strike or Australian general strike, before union leaders called it off with no concessions on 9 Sep stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9164...

#OtD 2 Aug 1917 the general strike in Rio de Janeiro ended as employers agreed to a 10% pay increase and a maximum 56-hour work week. The stoppage began with just one furniture worker the previous month. stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9165...

#OtD 2 Aug 1917 a multi-ethnic armed uprising took place in rural Oklahoma in opposition to conscription during WWI, in what would later become known as the Green Corn rebellion stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9163...