All about history and fact around the world

On this day, 11 September 1973, right-wing general Augusto Pinochet launched a coup against the elected left-wing egovernment in Chile of Salvador Allende. Pinochet had been appointed by Allende as head of his armed forces the previous month, and used the position to orchestrate the coup. (Content note: this post contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual violence) On day one, the new government began rounding up thousands of people - mostly working class activists and left-wingers - in the national stadium, killing many. The brutal military dictatorship, which was backed by western powers like the US and UK, implemented the harsh right-wing economic ideology of the neoliberal Chicago Boys. While international observers heralded the resultant "economic miracle" in reality living standards declined for the vast majority of the population, with wages falling and spending on healthcare, education and housing being cut. Any workers who attempted to resist were murdered,...

On this day, 3 September 1942, Jewish residents of the Łachwa Ghetto in modern-day Belarus staged an uprising against the Nazi army occupying their community. It was a response to the planned mass killing of Jewish inhabitants of the area, which had begun the previous day.  Long before this order was made public, though, the Jews of Łachwa had been organising across lines of political affiliation and class to build an underground resistance against the Nazis. This underground was primarily led by young people, such as Issac Rosczyn (pictured, left), Asher Hafets, Hersz Migdalowicz, and more who built a core group of 30 residents.  Violent rebellion began that morning when Dov Lopatin (right), another leader in the area, set fire to a government building to signal the rest of the community. Working off the plans of the underground, Jewish residents set dozens of other buildings ablaze, then rushing to the surrounding forest in an attempt to escape. Meanwhile, members of the un...

On this day, 7 May 1945, Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered, leading to the end of World War II in Europe. But rather than be punished for their crimes, many Nazi and fascist leaders continued to hold onto power and wealth. In West Germany, despite "denazification", most Nazi war criminals went unpunished, and many were rehired in official positions as the Cold War with the eastern bloc heated up. For example, out of around 1 million people involved in the Holocaust, only around 600 received life imprisonment or death sentences. Even convicted war criminals like Hanns Martin Schleyer rapidly regained power: Schleyer himself quickly became president of Germany's main employer associations, helping to break unions. Many Nazi scientists were employed to work in the US as part of Operation Paperclip, while others were put to work in the Soviet Union under Operation Osoaviakhim. In Greece, the US and UK backed Greek fascists and Nazi supporters in a brutal civil war aga...

On this day, 4 November 1947, at around 1:30pm, six individuals arrived at the house of Ferruccio Gatti, a former general in Mussolini's Nazi-backed National Republican Army. Four stood guard while two rang the bell before forcing their way in and shooting Gatti while he ate lunch. He died from his wounds nine days later. Gatti had been part of the original blackshirt squads of the 1920s. At the end of the war, he was tried and found guilty of war crimes for which he was convicted to over eight years in prison, but was then absolved on appeal. Upon his release, he returned to fascist activism, assuming leadership of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action, the most significant far-right paramilitary organisation in postwar Italy. Gatti's assassins were members of the Volante Rossa, a group of former partisans who continued to attack fascists following the end of World War II. 

On this day, 13 April 1985, Danuta Danielsson, a woman of Polish-Jewish origin whose mother had been put in a concentration camp during World War II , hit a neo-nazi on the head with her handbag in Växjö, Sweden.  The Nordic Reich Party (NRP), originally named Sweden’s National Socialist Struggle, had organised a march in the town. Especially in the 1980s, many members of the party involved in carrying out acts of terrorism, and crimes including murder, bombings, harassment and assault. During their march, photographer Hans Runesson captured this iconic image of 38-year-old Danielsson hitting one of the Nazis.  Approximately 2500 residents of the town many left-wingers, also took to the streets and attacked the Nazis. First they threw eggs and tomatoes, then fights broke out. One Nazi was kicked unconscious, and in the end the Nazis fled, and had to be escorted out of the town by police for their own safety. Local authorities in Växjö blocked plans to erect a monument to Danie...

On this day, 8 June 1967, Israeli forces attacked the US Navy research ship, USS Liberty, killing 34 and injuring 171 people. The Liberty was off the coast of El Arish, Egypt, operated by the National Security Agency. It was tasked with monitoring communications during the Six-Day War between Israel and Arab states including Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. First, the ship was attacked by air, then by torpedoes and artillery. Badly damaged, the crew launched three lifeboats but these were also attacked, which is considered a war crime under international law. While official investigations by the US and Israel concluded that the attack was accidental, as Israeli forces believed the ship to be Egyptian, others disagree. Journalist James Bamford in his book Body of Secrets argued that the Liberty’s ability to intercept Israel’s communications could have been the motivation for the attack, in order to cover up war crimes such as the massacre of unarmed Egyptian prisoners in El Arish.  NSA Dep...

On this day, 8 February 1943, Lepa Svetozara Radic, a 17-year-old anti-Nazi partisan from Bosnia-Herzegovina (former Yugoslavia) was captured by the Germans during World War II. Along with her sister Dara, she fought in the 7th partisan company of the 2nd Krajina detachment, and on February 8, was attempting to help refugees, mostly women and children, escape the Nazi 369th and 7th SS Division. Surrounded during a fierce battle, she used up all of her ammunition, then called on her comrades to fight with their bare hands, until she was overpowered by blows from German rifle butts. She was to be hanged, but as the noose was tied around her neck her captors offered her her life if she gave up the names of her comrades, but she responded that she was not a traitor and her comrades would reveal themselves when they avenged her death.  By February 11, a German SS officer named Schmidthuber received a report stating: "A bandit hanged in Bosanska Krupa showed an unprecedented incarnation...

On this day, 26 December 1862 the largest mass execution in US history took place when 38 Native American Dakota peoples were hanged during the US-Dakota War of 1862.  Hundreds of Native Americans had been arrested and given brief military trials, accused of crimes like murder, robbery and rape. Most of the defendants did not speak English, and  had no lawyers. Some of the trials lasted less than five minutes, and many defendants did not even know that they were on trial for various crimes. One man who was aware of his situation, Hdainyanka (Rattling Runner), wrote a letter complaining to a relative: "I have not killed, wounded or injured a white man or any white persons… and yet today I am set apart for execution."  Following the show trials, 303 Dakota people were sentenced to death. President Abraham Lincoln personally reviewed all of the cases, and despite the clear miscarriage of justice, he approved the death penalty in 38 cases. 4000 white people assembled to watch...

On this day, 22 August 1943, the Statesman magazine published this photograph of starving people during the Bengal famine in British colonial India.  The governor of Bengal had ordered rice across much of Bengal to be removed or destroyed in 1942 to prevent it getting into enemy hands, and they confiscated 46,000 boats from local people, devastating the fishing industry. Authorities then began diverting food from rural areas, where there were already  to people deemed a "priority", namely wealthier and better educated people, and those working in war industries and the civil service. Flooding damaged farmland, putting food supplies at risk, however Winston Churchill's government did not act on these warnings.  When the famine began, instead of providing relief, the government forbade the colony from using its own financial reserves or ships to import food, and instead continued to export thousands of tonnes of rice for Europeans, and put excess food from elsewhere in the ...

On this day, 24 September 1968, 14 people raided a federal office in downtown Milwaukee , took 10,000 draft cards, and set them on fire with homemade napalm in protest against the Vietnam war. The group included five catholic priests, a Scientology minister, and other Catholics and peace activists. The group were all arrested and charged with crimes including burglary and arson. They were all convicted and jailed, and one participant, an Irish man named Michael Cullen, was deported back to Ireland. 

On this day, 12 December 1947, at 9:15 pm, Italian fascist Italo Toffanello was kidnapped from his home in Milan by members of the Volante Rossa.  Volante Rossa  (pictured) was a group of former anti-fascist partisans who, outraged at so many Nazis and war criminals getting an amnesty for their crimes, continued their fight against former fascist officials and Nazi collaborators. Earlier on the evening of December 12, Giulio Paggio, one of the Volante Rossa's leaders, had arrived at the group's headquarters and declared that they were going to "teach a fascist a lesson." After Toffanello was taken from his home, he was put in a van in which there were about 20 members of the Volante Rossa. He was driven around Milan for a few hours before being forced at gunpoint to strip down to his underwear before being dropped off in Piazza del Duomo (Milan's main central square) on a freezing winter night. Toffanello had been a member of the Republican Fascist Party during th...

On this day, 27 January 2010, US libertarian socialist historian, activist and former World War II air force bombardier Howard Zinn, died aged 87. Through his extensive writings on history from a grassroots perspective, especially his seminal People's History of the United States, he helped inspire a new generation in the concept of history from below, including us at Working Class History.  Zinn observed that "Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience." And while his work does examine huge rebellions and brave deeds, he also stressed the importance of how we act in our everyday lives: "We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world."

On this day, 9 August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of civilians. This was never called a "war crime", as history is written by the victors. This is a selection of comments from senior US military and political sources demonstrating how unnecessary the bombing was, including some from General Dwight Eisenhower: "I had been conscious of depression and so I voiced to (Sec. Of War Stimson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.' "

On this day, 6 August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians, despite many military and government officials believing it was unnecessary. Numerous senior US military officers confirmed that the bombing was not needed to defeat Japan, however at the end of World War II the US wanted to issue a warning to its eastern bloc "allies". General Dwight D. Eisenhower explained: "Japan was at the moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of 'face'. It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Admiral William D. Leahy, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated "that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was ta...

On this day, 15 June 1990, the Battle of Century City took place , as police in Los Angeles attacked striking janitors and their supporters during a peaceful Service Employees International Union demonstration. Janitors in the Century City office complex, most of whom were employed by cleaning contractor ISS, had gone out on strike on May 29 demanding improvements to pay and conditions. On the June 15 protest, LAPD officers brutally attacked the workers and their supporters, leaving several people seriously injured, including one pregnant woman who miscarried as a result. Rather than deter the workers, the violence caused mass outrage. And ISS subsequently agreed to recognise the workers' union, provide for family health coverage and pay a living wage. The event also began to be commemorated with the creation of an annual June 15 Justice for Janitors Day.

On this day, 10 July 1945, the left-wing Daily Herald newspaper spoke out against the Brighton Vigilantes, a group of World War II ex-servicemen who began squatting empty homes.  “The motives that inspire the authors of this movement are humane and understandable,” its leader stated: “yet it is obvious that, if the movement were allowed to grow, a chaotic and dangerous situation might result. There are too many ill-disposed persons in this country who would only too readily attach themselves to such a cause in order to use it for their own ends. Those ends might be a variation of Chicago gangsterism or an attempt for political purposes to disrupt the law and order of the land.” The group was also denounced by the Communist Party.  The Vigilantes' campaign started in seaside towns where large houses were left empty all year to be rented out at high prices during the holiday season.  To try to recuperate the movement, the government swiftly took action to enable local auth...