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December 6
December 6 is the 6th day in December.
Events[edit]
1240 — Mongols under Batu Khan occupy and destroy Kiev.
1478 — Baldassare Castiglione lives. Italian humanist/diplomat/courtier, famous for his The Book of the Courtier (1528), which was translated into many languages and made Castiglione the arbiter of aristocratic manners during the Renaissance. Wrote also Italian and Latin language poems, and letters illustrating political and literary history. [1]
1631 — First predicted transit of Venus (Kepler) is observed. [2]
1670 — the Duke of Ormond is pulled from his coach and dragged unconscious toward Tyburn with the intention of hanging him. Source: 'Calendar Riots'
1712 — Richard Steele and Joseph Addison publish the last issue of "The Spectator".
1717 — Author Elizabeth Carter lives.
1788 — Author Thomas Ingoldsby (Richard Harris Barham) lives.
1797 — Mme de Stael meets Napoleon, who takes an immediate dislike to her.
1810 — Mexico: Miguel Hidalgo issues a decree abolishing slavery. [3]
1811 — England: Curfew is declared in Nottinghamshire to try to stop Luddites revolt; in response, 36 frames are destroyed in the next six days. [Source: 'Calendar Riots']
1865 — United States of America: 13th amendment ratified, abolishing slavery. Specifically excludes prisons, and was never applied against wage slavery.
1869 — United States of America: Meeting of first national black labor group, the Colored National Labor Convention, in Washington, DC.
1872 — Thomas Ala Edison records "Mary had a little lamb." First sound recording made.
1882 — Anthony Trollope dies, 67, Hastings, Sussex.
1882 — Outer Space: Atmosphere of Venus detected during transit.
1884 — United States of America: An aluminum capstone completes the Washington Monument, Washington, DC.
1886 — Poet Joyce Kilmer ("Trees") lives, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
1889 — United States of America: Great trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists begins. Again, national and international protest. When the Illinois Supreme Court rejected their appeal, George Bernard Shaw wrote (this is close to his exact words): "If the world must lose eight of its people, it can better afford to lose the eight members of the Illinois Supreme Court." [4]
1889 — Jefferson Davis, President of Confederate States of America (1861 — 1889), dies.
1893 — Sylvia Townsend Warner lives, Harrow, Middlesex, England. Self-proclaimed "accidental" writer whose career began when she was given paper with a "particularly tempting surface" and whose first novel, Lolly Willowes, or the Loving Huntsman (1926), was written because she "happened to find very agreeable thin lined paper in a job lot."
1893 — December Fortean Events "[Fall of a] lump of ice weighing four pounds, Texas (Scientific American, 68-58); The Complete Books of Charles Fort. New York: Dover, 1974. [p.185]." [5] [6]
1896 — Songster Ira Gershwin lives.
1900 — Agnes Moorehead lives.
1904 — United States of America: "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine asserts the American right to serve as international policemen anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
1906 — Brazil: First São Paulo State Congress, at Salão Excelsior, December 6 — 8th.
1907 — United States of America: 361 coal workers killed. In West Virginiaʼs Marion County, an explosion at a mine owned by the Fairmont Coal Company in Monongah is the worst mining disaster in American history.
1909 — Russia: Moishe Tokar, a young Russian Jewish anarchist and exiled member of Judith Goodmanʼs group in London before slipping back into Russia, attempts to assassinate Hershelman, the hated military commander of the Vilna Fortress.
1912 — United States of America: Anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman scheduled to lecture on syndicalism in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.
1914 — Mexico: The troops of Pancho Villa and the anarquista Emiliano Zapata enter Mexico City. [7]
1917 — Canada: The most devastating man-made explosion in the pre-nuclear age occurs as the S.S. Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with a Belgian relief ship in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Spectators had gathered along the waterfront to witness the spectacle of the blazing ship, and minutes later it brushed by a harbor pier, setting it ablaze. The Halifax Fire Department responded quickly, and were positioning their engine up to the nearest hydrant when the Mont Blanc exploded at 9:05 A.M. in a blinding white flash. The massive blast killed more than 1,600 people, injured over 8,000, and destroyed almost the entire north-end of the city of Halifax, rendering more than 10,000 homeless. The resulting shock wave shattered windows 40 miles away, and the sound of the explosion was heard hundreds of miles away. Property damage was estimated at $35 million.
1917 — Finland: Independence declared from Russia.
1918 — United States of America: Department of War abolishes the practice of manacling defiant prisoners to the walls of their cells in solitary confinement, used to torture conscientious objectors in US prisons during World War I.
1921 — Ireland: The Irish Free State, composing four-fifths of Ireland, is declared under an historic peace agreement. However, Eamon DeValera, the President of Ireland objected that his state remained part of the British Commonwealth. Not until 1949 did the Irish Free State sever all ties with Britain, as the Republic of Eire.
1922 — William P. McGivern lives. American novelist, screenplay writer, who published over 20 novels covering the wide genre of thrillers — homicide detection, espionage, political corruption, the world of psychopath, and the crooked cop. [8]
1933 — United States of America: Ban on James Joyceʼs Ulysses lifted. You may ask how a country so proud of its "freedom" could have banned a book to begin with. Then again you may not. Daily Bleed Saint, December 6, 2001 [9]
1933 — United States of America: Dorothy Day and others start Catholic Worker newspaper, New York City; the House of Hospitality opened soon after. (or on May 1?). Day and the Catholic Workers are that anamoly of being Catholics and anarchists at the same time.
1933 — Germany: Kandinsky and Klee leave for France and Switzerland respectively; 60,00 other artists (authors, actors, painters, musicians) flee the woundrous Nazi regime between 1933—39.
1936 — Spain: In "Solidaridad Obrera" Jaume Balius publishes an article entitled "Durruti's Testament" in which he claims "Durruti bluntly asserted that we anarchists require that the Revolution be totalitarian in character." [10] [11]
1937 — The IWA meets in extra-ordinary congress in Paris (December 6 — 17) to examine the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo’s struggle in Spain, especially the problematic entry of anarchists into leading positions within the government.
1942 — Novelist Peter Handke lives. Handke speaks of "history as the great fairy tale of the world, of mankind."
1949 — Blues legend Leadbelly dies, New York City. Influenced Woody Guthrie, The Weavers, Bob Dylan, Martin Mull, myriad others. [12]
1955 — James Koehnline, long-time (jubilee) gardener, lives, Columbus, Ohio.
1956 — Cuba: Fidel Castroʼs revolution. An improvement over the American and Mafia version, but ultimately just one authoritarian government replacing another. [13]
1956 — Resat Nuri Güntekin dies. A popular Turkish writer, educated at a French school in Smyrna and at Istanbul University, and saw his first publication in 1917. Wrote about social problems based on realistic observations, and Cevdet Kudret, Faruk Nafiz Çamlibel, Yasar Nabi Nayir, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu, Halit Fahri Ozansoy, Nazim Hikmet, Vedat Nedim Tör and Necip Fazil Kisakürek concentrated on problems stemming from structural changes in society.
1957 — United States of America: The first American attempt to launch an artificial satellite, a sphere fully 6.4 inches in diameter, fails as the Vanguard rocket rises less than five feet before it topples over and explodes.
1958 — England: Forty-six enter Thor rocket site in order to prevent construction. North Pickenham, Norfolk.
1961 — Frantz Fanon, 36, having completed Wretched of the Earth, dies, Washington, DC. The book appears in English in 1965. Daily Bleed Saint, December 6, 2002 [14]
1965 — Rose Pesotta dies. Dressmaker, anarchist and labor activist, the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU) from 1933—1944, engaged in a 10-year fight to organize workers, running up against the opposition of the communist faction. Her face was lacerated during a strike in 1937 with a razor. Rose Pesotta met Sacco and Vanzetti and collaborated on the anarchist newspaper "Road to Freedom". Rose Pesotta became close a friend of Emma Goldman, with whom she traveled to Europe and England. See her autobiography Bread Upon the Waters, which appeared in 1946 and reprinted with a new introduction by Ann Schofield (Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1987); and Elaine Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993); To Do and To Be: Portraits of Four Women Activists, 1893-1986 Gertrude Barnum, Mary Dreier, Pauline Newman, Rose Pesotta by Ann Schofield (Northeastern University Press). Bread Upon the Waters dustjacket [15] [16]
1965 — Address to the Revolutionaries of Algeria and All Countries. Reprinted as a brochure in French, German, Spanish, English and Arabic; reprinted in "Internationale Situationniste" #10, Paris. [17]
1966 — United States of America: Rally at Madison Square Garden. SANE and 36 supporting organizations, Floyd McKissick, I.F. Stone, Pete Seeger participate. Hundreds of balloons with peace doves released. [18]
1969 — Rolling Stones play a free "thank you" concert for 300,000 fans at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California after they were denied use of Golden Gate Park. The hastily organized event rapidly falls into a disaster when four people die, including one who was stabbed by a Hell's Angel who was hired to act as a security guard. The murder is filmed and included in the film "Gimme Shelter" which premiers exactly one year later. Marked the end of the San Francisco Rock era. The infamous free concert at Altamont. Featured The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Crosby Sills Nash and Young , Flying Burrito Brothers. Turned to tragedy when a spectator was fatally stabbed by a Hell's Angelʼs security guard. Infamous Last Words: Before the concert Mick Jagger sez it would be "a microcosmic society which sets an example to the rest of America as to how one can behave in large gatherings."
1970 — Japan: Taiji Yamaga (1892 — 1970) dies. Anarchist militant, born in Kyoto. Advocate of Esperanto language and a long-time secretary of international relations for the Anarchist Federation of Japan. [19] http://www.antorcha.net/biblioteca_virtual/filosofia/tao/tao.html [20]
1972 — England: The Stoke Newington Eight trial ends. It began 1972 May 30, the longest trial in British history. Four defendants are sentenced to ten years after a plea for clemency by the jury, and four are acquitted. [21] [22]
1973 — United States of America: Gerald Ford sworn-in as first unelected Vice President, succeeding an arrogant rightwinger Spiro T. Agnew (who?). Agnew was, surprisingly, a crook and got caught and lost his office. If the worn out part hadnʼt been replaced with the new, Agnew would have been the next President. [23]
1978 — United States of America: Sid Vicious, out on bail from Rikerʼs Island Detention Center in New York after being charged with the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, smashes glass in the face of Patti Smithʼs brother Todd during an altercation at New York rock club Hurrah. Damn anarchists.
1981 — Japan: 2,000 women march in Tokyo in remembrance of the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor with a banner, "We Will Not Allow The Way To War."
1982 — Ireland: Eleven soldiers and six civilians die by bomb planted by Irish National Liberation Army exploded in a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland.
1984 — Philippines: Children picket the Mendiola Bridge in Manila, demanding release of their parents, who are being held as political prisoners by the US-supported Marcos regime.
1985 — Hugo Gellert (1892 — 1985) dies, Freehold, New Jersey. Radical illustrator/artist. [24] [25] [26]
1986 — Spain: Conscientious objectors occupy government office for conscientious objectors, Madrid.
1986 — France: Riot in the Latin Quarter of Paris: cars trashed and shops looted for fun; a newspaper kiosk is set alight — "Donʼt do that! It belongs to a worker." Up runs a guy: "I work here … burn it, burn it!" [Source: Calendar Riots]
1988 — Songster Roy Orbison dies of cardiac arrest at the age of 52. [27]
1989 — Canada: Fourteen female students are assassinated at a L'ecole Polytechnique in Montreal by a man vowing to kill feminists.
1989 — Frances Beauvier actress, dies at 86.
1990 — United States of America: Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who was barricaded inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discover the man was standing beside them, shouting "Please come out and give yourself up!!" [28]
1992 — India: Riots follow Hindu attack on Ayodha Mosque.
1994 — Maltese Falcon auctioned for $398,590. [29] [30]
1995 — Spain: VIII Congreso Confederal, Granada, del 6 al 10 de diciembre. [31]
2002 — United States of America: Philip Berrigan (1923 — 2002) dies. Radical Roman Catholic priest, anti-war activist and christian anarchist. Along with his brother Daniel Berrigan, also a priest and anarchist, he was for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for actions against Vietnam war. [32] [33]
2003 — England: The 5th Manchester Radical Bookfair. A day of Anarchism, Peace, Direct action, Social change, Books, Stalls, Ideas, Discussions, Workshops… [34]
