August 15

August 15 is the 15^th day of August. It is also known as

• Chauvin day, the patron saint of all Chauvinists.
• In Florida, and New York: Our Lady of the Flowers Festival, with Polish Celebrants parading in floats, & picking of an Onion Queen. A blessing of herbs & spices.
• In Loule, Portugal: Assumption Day. The ascension of the Virgin Mary bodily into Heaven. Votive lights, skyrockets, brass band plays while running uphill to the shrine. Hundreds of guitars, bagpipes, drums, & a definite "pagan" flavour.
• In the Scottish Highlands First Fruits Festival. Hand-picked, sun-dried corn is ground in a quern, kneaded in a sheep skin & made into a bannock, baked over a fire of rowan wood.
• Dormition of Theotokos.

Famous births

• Karl Korsch. Marxist-anarchist philosopher, communist.

Events

The following events took place on August 15:

• 778 - Roncevalles: Charlemagne's rear guard, returning from Spain, attacked by Basques; Death of Roland.
• 1515 - A "forger of coins" is executed in the "Iron Maiden of Nuremberg".
• 1623 - Spain: Male impersonator Catalina de Erauzo is convicted of murder. Led a life of adventure & earned a reputation for gambling, dueling & purse-snatching. Fought & won innumerable duels, killing at least seven people. In one fight, she stabbed three men to death. She avoids execution by revealing her sex. Freed & given permission to wear men's clothing, the Pope absolves her of her sins.
• 1750 - French revolutionary & poet Sylvain Maréchal lives. Can be labeled an anarchist avant la lettre, although the Marxists also claim him. Created a Revolutionary Calendar. & we thought the Daily Bleed had no rivals....
• Sylvain Marechal was a poet whose Manifest of the Equals was too much even for the egalitarian conspiracy of Gracchus Babeuf. He also was author of an Almanach des Honnêtes Gens, in which he proposed a new calendar replacing the names of the Saints with those of the "benefactors of humanity" — philosophers, writers & scientists.
• 1769 - Napoleon Bonaparte, resident of Elba, lives.
• 1771 - Walter Scott lives, Edinburgh. Scottish writer, a born storyteller & master of dialogue, one of the greatest historical novelists.
• 1785 - Famous opium addict Thomas De Quincey lives, Manchester. Wrote Confessions of an English Opium-Eater & studies about such German philosophers as Kant, Lessing, Richer. His influence in depicting nightmarish movements of mind is later seen in the works of Edgar Allan Poe & Charles Baudelaire.
• 1799 - In Milan, Italy, Giuseppe Parini (Il giorno) dies.
• 1845 - Walter Crane lives, Liverpool. Artist & libertarian socialist. Deeply influenced by Morris's pamphlet "Art & Socialism," Crane became involved in both the Art Workers' Guild & the Arts & Crafts Society. Like Morris, Crane created designs for wallpapers, printed fabrics, tiles & ceramics.
• (A now famous collection of Crane's political cartoons, Cartoons for the Cause, was published as a souvenir of the International Socialist Workers & Trade Union Congress that met in London in 1896. (infamous for excluding all the anarchists there.))
• 1865 - Italy: Pietro Gori lives, in Messina. Italian lawyer, ardent defender of the anarchists & himself an anarchist & labor propagandist. Forced into exile numerous times. Founder of the (FORA (in Argentina), the review "Criminologia moderna" &, with Luigi Fabbri, the journal "Il pensiero". Wrote poetry & plays & author of the famous song Addio Lugano bella. Died at age 46.
• 1894 Gori escaped the repression in Italy, attending conferences & agitating in England & the US. Returned to Italy in 1898 to defend the many defendants (including Malatesta) indicted after the General Strike against the increase of bread prices on January 17-18, in Ancône. The movement grew &, on May 7, riots took place in Milan. The army fired on demonstrators, killing hundreds. Repression was wild & Gori went into exile in Buenos Aires, & initiated, in 1901, the FORA (Federation Obrera Regional Argentina). He returned to Europe in 1902. The FORA grew to 250,000 members. In 1909 split into two organizations, FORA du IXe Congrès (reformist), & FORA du Ve Congrès (maintaining the libertarian ideals).
• 1870 - France: Louise Michel, anarchist, takes part in a demonstration organized in favor of the Blanquists Eudes & Brideau, stopped the day before. She carries to the General Trochu, military governor of Paris, a petition in their favor, launched by Michelet.
• 1870 - US: Transcontinental Railway actually completed.
• 1871 - Belgian novelist/short-story writer Stijin Streuvels dies in Ingooigem, near Courtrai.
• 1886 - Germany: Karl Korsch lives, Tostedt. With the likes of Herman Gorter & Anton Pannekoek, a radical infantile left-communist according to Lenin.
• 1887 - Novelist/playwright Edna Ferber lives, Kalamazoo, Michigan. She believes "The ideal view for daily writing, hour on hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible."
• 1888 - Author of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), lives, Tremadoc, Caemarvonshire, Wales. British archeological scholar, adventurer, military strategist, & writer.
• 1889 - US: Emma Goldman arrives in New York City, meets Alexander Berkman at Sachs Restaurant.
• Emma meets Johann Most, editor of Die Freiheit, & Alexander Berkman; gains employment doing piece work for a silk waist factory. Goldman's political activities include support work at the office of Die Freiheit, & help with the organization of the second anniversary commemoration of the hanging of the anarchist Haymarket martyrs.
• Goldman & Berkman become lovers. She shares an apartment with him, his cousin Modest Stein, & their mutual friend Helen Minkin. Berkman & she contemplate returning to Russia when they hear about political repression there, but lack the necessary financial resources.
• 1893 - US: No longer allowed exclusive rights in Bering Sea.
• 1894 - France: Jeronimo Santo Caserio guillotined. The Italian anarchist stabbed Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader French President Sadi Carnot to avenge the execution of Auguste Valliant. Carnot died from the wounds.
• 1900 - US: Riots erupt in NY City as a white plainclothes policeman is killed in a fight with an African-American man. The fourth racial riot in the city's history.
• 1901 - Arch Rock, danger to Bay shipping, blasted with 30 tons of nitro. Triggers the 1906 earthquake.
• 1906 - US: At the second meeting of the Niagara Movement at Harpers Ferry, W.E.B. DuBois demands equal citizenship rights for African-Americans, saying, "We will not be satisfied to take one jot or little less than our full manhood".
• 1906 - US: First freight delivery tunnel system begins, lower Chicago.
• 1907 - Spain: Carmen Conde, known as Florentina, lives, in Carthagène. Militant anarchist ffeminist. In 1936 she joined the "Mujeres libres" (free women), & during the Spanish Revolution collaborated on their journal of the same name, as well as doing lecture tours. She died in Madrid, January 8, 1996.
• 1912 - US: Yankee Guy Zinn sets record by stealing home twice in a baseball game.

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• 1913 - Ireland: Dublin General Strike & lockout.
• 1914 - Italy: Il ministro degli esteri inglese acconsente alle richieste dello stato italiano di compensi territoriali, ma i successi militari tedeschi sono, per il momento, estremamenti dissuasivi di una immediata entrata in guerra.
• 1917 - Salvadoran religious leader Oscar Romero lives, Ciudad Barrios.
• 1918 - Russia: The American 27th Infantry lands in Vladivostok ("to steady any efforts at self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance") & immediately spearheads a Japanese-initiated attack against Bolshevist forces.
• 1918 - "The Sinking of the Lusitania," first feature length cartoon, released.
• 1918 - US: Librado Rivera et Ricardo Flores Magón sont condamnés à quinze et vingt ans de prison pour avoir publié le 16 mars 1918, dans le journal "Regeneración" le manifeste "Aux anarchistes du monde et aux travailleurs en général". Ils seront conduits au pénitencier de Mc Neil Island near Seattle.
• 1922 - Leonard Baskin lives. American artist.
• 1923 - Germany: Mid-August: Emma Goldman & her niece Stella are arrested by the Bavarian police following their arrival in Munich. Police allege that Emma conducted a secret mission in 1893 (during the period when she was imprisoned at Blackwell's Island). Both are ordered to leave Bavaria. Stella later returns to the US.
• 1925 - Oscar Peterson lives, Montreal, Canada. Classically trained in the piano, works with top Canadian jazz bands until 1949, when he first appears in New York City's Carnegie hall. A jazz innovator who forges a synthesis of bop & swing into his own unique style.
• 1928 - Italy: Anarcho-syndicalist Spartaco Stagnetti dies, banished on the island of Ustica. See Spartaco Stagnetti: un sindacalis, G. Manga (1991).
• 1931 - Ernest Lassy completes longest canoe journey without port (6,102 miles).
• 1935 - US: Willey Post & passenger Will Rogers killed in a plane crash, Point Barrow, Alaska.
• 1935 -- Paul Signac dies (of "smallpox"?). French artist, pointillist (a technique some contemporary critics described as "painted confetti" or "artistic smallpox"). Best known for his his association with his fellow anarchists Maximilien Luce, Félix Fénéon, Camille Pissarro & Georges Seurat. Close friend of Matisse, Marquet, Camoin, Valtat & Van Dongen, et al.
• 1935 - Italy: Pur di scongiurare l'aggressione italiana in Etiopia, il governo francese e quello inglese arrivano persino a ipotizzare un protettorato congiunto sull'Etiopia (paese facente parte della Società delle Nazioni) con la preponderanza amministrativa e militare dello stato italiano. Mussolini definisce il piano un tentativo di "umiliare l'Italia nel peggiore dei modi".
• 1938 - Spain: Lincoln Brigade sent back to front, to Sierra Pandols southeast of Gandesa; the battalion strength is down to 300, with fewer than 100 Americans; they are bombarded by artillery & aircraft for 10 days, but hold Hill 66.
• 1939 - US: "Wizard of Oz" premiers at Grauman's Chinese Theater, Hollywood.
• 1939 - EG, anarchist feministThe fiftieth anniversary of Emma Goldman's entry into anarchist ranks; she organizes a celebration for September to mark the occasion & to create a long-term Spanish Relief Fund.
• 1945 - US: Riot in San Francisco celebrating end of World War II.
• 1947 - Indian Independence Day proclaimed in India & Pakistan. After two decades of nonviolent activism, India becomes the first major Third World country in the 20th century to win independence from colonial rule. Dozens more countries follow in the next 20 years.
• 1947 - "I was born in the city of Bombay...once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. & the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more...On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact."
• 1951 - US: New York, la première du "Living Theatre" a lieu au domicile même de Julian Beck et de Judith Malina, faute d'avoir pu trouver une salle et de l'argent pour financer le spectacle. Quatre pièces sont jouées ce soir-là : De l'anarchiste Paul Goodman "Childish Jokes"; de Gertrude Stein "Ladies'Voices"; de Brecht "He who says yes and he who says no" et de Garcia Lorca "The dialogue of the manikin and the young man".
• 1963 - US: 170 women sit-in to protest employment discrimination by bank, E. St. Louis, Illinois.
• 1963 - US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Governor Ross Barnett attempts to bar the graduation of James Meredith on grounds that the University of Mississippi's first black had violated a school order against inflammatory remarks.
• 1967 - US: Martin Luther King, Jr. urges civil disobedience drive in northern cities & support of peace candidate in 68 (at Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta).
• 1967 - US: Picasso's gift sculpture unveiled in Chicago. 162-ton bronze thingee in Daley Plaza immediately across from a sculpture by Joan Miro.
• 1967 - Belgium's famed surreal painter Rene Magritte dies.
• 1967 - US: Count Basie & his Orchestra & Chuck Berry at the Fillmore Auditorium.
• 1967 - US: At a convention of the National Student Association, Allard K. Lowenstein & Curtis Gans formally launch the "Dump Johnson" movement—an effort to oppose the renomination of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson.
• 1969 - US: Temporary Autnomous Zone Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens for three days on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. Over 400,000 attend, most without tickets, prompting officials to say the festival is open & free. On stage come Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, The Who, the Grateful Dead, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Crosby, Still Nash & Young & the Jefferson Airplane among others. Things that helped make Woodstock a unique event included, but were not limited to, rampant drug use, not enough food or sanitation, three deaths, two births & four miscarriages. Oh, & lack of cops.
• 1971 - England: In solidaric response to internment, the Angry Brigade Moonlighters Cell bombs the army recruitment centre on Holloway Road, London.
• 1971 - US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Dick M Nixon imposes 90-day wage-price freeze. The freeze is in large part a response to the climate of worker unruliness & independence, typified by the defiant phone workers. Aside from related economic considerations, the freeze & the ensuing controls were adopted because the unions needed government help in restraining the workers. Sham strikes clearly lose their effectiveness if employees refuse to play their assigned roles remaining, for example, on strike on their own. George Meany, AFL-CIO head, had been calling for a wage-price freeze since 1969, & in the weeks prior to August 15 held a number of very private meetings with Nixon. Though compelled to publicly decry the freeze as "completely unfair to the worker" & "a bonanza to big business," he did not even call for an excess profits tax; he did come out strongly for a permanent wage-price control board & labor's place on it, however.
• 1973 - US bombing of Cambodia ends.
• 1975 - US: Joanne Little — accused of murder in killing her jailer, in self-defense against rape — acquitted.
• 1982 - Members of 7th International Nonviolent March swim across "closed" border between Spain & Gibraltar.
• 1991 - US: Paul Simon plays a free concert at New York's Central Park in front of an estimated 750,000 people.
• 1995 - China: Greenpeace action in Tian an Men Square, members from Europe & the USA unfurl a banner on Tian an Men Square in Beijing, reading "Stop all atomic testing, stop atomic testing in China". They are arrested, interrogated & deported.