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December 9
December 9 is the 9th day in December.
Events[edit]
656 — ʼAliʼs forces win the Battle of the Camel in the first Muslim civil war. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1292 — Saʼdi, great Persian poet (Orchard; Rose Garden) dies.
1460 — Madcap medieval rhymester John Skelton lives. [Source: Calendar Riots]
1531 — Mexico: Virgin of Guadalupe appears to an Indian boy.
1570 — Geuzen under Herman de Ruyter occupies Loevestein.
1608 — British “Paradise Lostâ€: epic writer John Milton lives, Bread Street, Cheapside, London.
1640 — New World: Settler Hugh Bewitt is banished from colony of Massachusetts when he declares himself to be free of original sin.
1777 — England: Reverend Benjamin Russen executed at Tyburn, for rape.
1801 — German writer Johann Gottfried Seume starts his tour on foot from Saxony, crosses the Alps and walks through Italy to Sicily. His return trip takes him through Switzerland and even to Paris. The whole trip takes only eight months and results in Spaziergang nach Syrakus im Jahre (A Stroll to Syracuse).
1842 — Russia: Prince Peter Kropotkin, important geographer and anarchist communist, lives, Moscow. “The prince who became a revolutionist.†[1]
1848 — Folklorist Joel Chandler Harris lives, Putnam County, Georgia. Discovers Tar Baby syndrome. Creator of Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit. [2]
1854 — Alfred Tennysonʼs The Charge of the Light Brigade published six weeks after the Battle of Balaclava.
1868 — Italy: Paolo Lega lives (1868-??). In 1894 the young anarchist attempts to shoot Francesco Crispi, président du conseil Italien. The bullet lodged in Crispiʼs car rather than Crispi; Lega was arrested and did 20-years in prison for his poor aim. [Source: Ephéméride anarchiste]
1869 — United States of America: Knights of Labor founded in Philadelphia, as a secret society open to all members of the producing classes except “parasites†including stockbrokers, gamblers, and lawyers. Founded by Uriah Stevens and five other garment workers. Stevens, a tailor who once studied for the Baptist ministry, leads the order. [3]
1889 — United States of America: The Press expedition arrives in Port Angeles to begin exploring the Olympic Mountains (Washington State). [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1889 — United States of America: First issue of “Golden Argosy†magazine is published. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1892 — George Bernard Shaw play “Widowersʼ Houses†premiers, London. [Source: Robert Braunwart] [4]
1893 — France: Auguste Vaillant throws a small bomb into the Chamber of Deputies. A symbolic gesture, meant to wound rather than kill, Vaillant is condemned to death, and guillotined 1894 February 5. The deputies use the event to suppress the anarchists and their presses. Auguste Vaillant explained why he, an anarchist who strove for a society of peace, resorted to acts of violence: “I have seen capital come, like a vampire, to suck the last drop of blood of the unfortunate pariahs. Then I came back to France where it was reserved for me to see my family suffer atrociously. This was the last drop in the cup of my sorrow. Tired of leading this life of suffering and cowardice I carried this bomb to those who are primarily responsible for social miseryâ€. [5]
1893 — Italy: Moti di rivolta in Sicilia contro le tasse comunali, il dazio di consumo, che porta al rincaro delle farine. La brutale repressione delle stato provoca circa un centinaio di morti e decine di feriti. [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1896 — France: First performance (dress rehearsal) of Ubu Roi, subversive play by Alfred Jarry. Sets off a riot. [6]
1898 — Emmett Kelly, circus clown (Weary Willie) lives. Daily Bleed Saint 1997; 2006 March 28
1899 — England: “Grand Meeting and Concert for the Benefit of the Agitation in Favour of the Political Victims in Italy†staged in London. Among a cast of international anarchist speakers are Emma Goldman, Louise Michel, and Peter Kropotkin .
1902 — Actress Margaret Hamilton lives, Cleveland, Ohio.
1905 — Dalton Trumbo, writer (Johnny Got His Gun), film director, one of the blacklisted “Hollywood Ten,†lives. Johnny Got His Gun published two days after the beginning of WWII. Won an American Booksellers Award for 1939. The most talented member of the Hollywood Ten, one of a group who refused to testify before the 1947 US House Committee on Unâ€American Activities (HUAC) about alleged communist involvement. He was blacklisted and in 1950 spent 11 months in prison. After his blacklisting, he wrote 30 scripts under pseudonyms. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
1905 — Russia: The Moscow Soviet of workers revolts (-December 19) (OS). [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1909 — United States of America: Great Sioux leader Red Cloud dies, Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Daily Bleed Saint 2003-4 Great Native American leader, Sioux warrior.
1913 — France: “Mona Lisa,†stolen from the Louvre Museum in 1911, recovered.
1915 — George Bernard Shaw play “Major Barbara†makes its US premiere, NY. [Source: Robert Braunwart] [14]
1919 — Roy DeCarava, photographer, lives, From Harlem to San Juan in Black and White, as it were. Four Harlem images were included in Steichenʼs immensely popular 1955 Family of Man exhibition and book, and 140 accompany a text by Langston Hughes in the classic Sweet Flypaper of Life. His images have immortalized such jazz greats as Billie Holliday and John Coltrane. [15] [16] [17]
1922 — Redd Foxx, actor and comedian, lives.
1926 — Benny Goodmanʼs first recording session. Plays clarinet with the Ben Pollack Orchestra on a tune titled, “Downtown Shuffle†on Victor Records. Goodman, incidentally, was all of 17 years old.
1939 — United States of America: During this month Beatster Jack Kerouac loses his virginity with a Manhattan prostitute… [Exact date not given -- ed.] This year he has graduated from high school, smoked marijuana for the first time, is exposed to and influenced by jazz he hears at Harlem clubs, and paid money to lose his virginity. [18]
1949 — United States of America: J. Parnell Thomas, former chairman of the House Unâ€American Activities Committee (HUAC), sentenced to 6 to 18 months in federal prison. This great patriot “padded†his Congressional payrolls and pocketed the money himself, showing the world the true face of “Americanismâ€. [19] [20] [21] [22]
1952 — South Africa: Four white resisters arrested for using “nonâ€European†booths in post office, Cape Town. [23]
1953 — United States of America: General Electric announces all Communist employees will be fired. “Originally DuPont, and throughout most of my childhood General Electric, was the government town. If you had Westinghouse appliances or something like that in your household you were almost a traitor. I guess the bad word for that time in the fifties was a “communist.†You know, you had to have General Electric this and General Electric that. So I was more associated with General Electric than I was with the Atomic Energy Commission.†Rep. John Rankin of Mississippi used his seat on the House Unâ€American Activities Committee to argue that blacks had been happy with segregation until stirred up by “communist agitators.†General Electric president Charles Wilson said: “The problems of the US can be summed up in two words: Russia abroad, labor at home.†Accordingly, Congress passed the Taftâ€Hartley Act of 1947, which denied unions the right to organize unless their leaders took an oath swearing they werenʼt communists.
1955 — Marianne Moore, hired by the Ford to name the car eventually called “Edselâ€, suggests Utopian Turtletop. Ford sends her a dozen roses. [24]
1957 — Czechoslovakia: The International Puppeteers Union (formed 1929) is reorganized, Prague. Now politicians can get union benefits too! [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1958 — United States of America: Robert H. Welsh and 11 other men meet in Indianapolis to form rightwing John Birch Society.
1959 — Vita Sackvilleâ€West writes her husband Harold Nicolson: “It always makes me cross when Max [Beerbohm] is called ʼthe Incomparable Max.’ He is not incomparable at all.†1961 — England: Committee of 100, including Bertrand Russell, hold demonstrations at various U.S. air and nuclear bases. [25] [26]
1962 — ‘Honouring the dead, the convicted, and the dead still to be killed’ was the theme of the first real happening in Amsterdam. The title ‘Open the grave’ was a reaction to the death of the Dutch queenâ€mother and a large fund-raising campaign for handicapped persons called ‘Open the village’. The happening was a more or less improvised art project including a ʼshrine for Marilyn Monroe’, a ‘Danse Macabre’ and a ‘Kiss of Death’. A number of collaborators took part in the Provo movement and [27]
1966 — United States of America: 700 Tuskegee (Alabama) Institute students riot after acquittal of a white for killing a black student.
1967 — Jim Morrison arrested onstage in New Haven, Connecticut. Backstage before the gig, Morrison mouthed off to a policeman, who responded by macing him. Later, during the concert while singing “Back Door Man,†Morrison delivered a tirade about the incident, which prompted police to turn on the house lights, pull Morrison offstage and charge him with breach of peace and resisting arrest.
1968 — United States of America: Clouds of radioactive steam from a Nevada nuclear test breaks through the ground, releasing fallout, violating the limited nuclear test ban treaty signed five years ago. This has happened before, in 1961. [28] [29] [30]
1968 — Actress Tallulah Bankhead dies at 66.
1983 — United States of America: and Wellâ€Fed Attorney General Edwin Meese says people go to soup kitchens “…because the food is free and thatʼs easier than paying for it… I think that they have money.â€
1985 — United States of America: 248 US soldiers and eight crew members die in Arrow Air charter crash.
1987 — Palestine: Start of Intifada for Palestinian Independence.
1989 — Yevgeny Pasternak accepts the Nobel medal his father was forced by the Russian government to refuse. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1991 — After a long legal battle, Bob Marleyʼs $11.5 million estate is awarded to his wife Rita and her children. Ziggy Marleyʼs daughter is born on this day and he names her Justice in honor of the verdict.
1991 — France: Maurice Joyeux, an outstanding French proponent of anarchism, dies. Following WWII helped in rebuilding the Fédération Anarchiste and publishing “Libertaireâ€. In 1981, he is the first guest of Radio Libertaire (radio libre de la FA, à Paris). He leaves, in addition to various theoretical works, two books of memoirs, Sous les plis du drapeau noir, and Souvenirs dʼun anarchisteâ€.
1992 — Somalia: US Marines wade ashore in Somalia at 2 A.M. (on live evening network television in the US) in “Operation Restore Hope.†American forces retreat in disarray and disgrace within the year.
1994 — United States of America: Wee Willy Clinton fires Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after her masturbation comments are criticized by a bunch of jerkâ€offs. May is “National Masturbation Month,†and May 7 is “National Masturbation Day.†Some pundits suggest we all form a circle and celebrate this seminal event. [31]
1994 — France: Greenpeace members are arrested at a French nuclear reprocessing plant. [Source: Robert Braunwart]
1995 — United States of America: Four activists are arrested for leafleting, holding a banner and “ruining peoplesʼ day†at the public commissioning ceremony for a new aircraft carrier. Norfolk Naval Base, Virginia.
2001 — Beginning date of the movie “2010†[Source: Robert Braunwart]
2002 — Stan Rice dies of cancer, age 60. Poet, painter and husband of novelist Anne Rice.
