Still working to recover. Please don't edit quite yet.
March 8
March 8' is the 8th day in March. It is an International Women's Day.
Events[edit]
1481 — William Caxton completes the translation of "The Mirror of the World" from French into English. Source=Robert Braunwart
1711 — In this edition of "The Spectator," Joseph Addison writes, "To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny." Source=Robert Braunwart
1782 — United States of America: Glikhikan, a Delaware warrior, murdered & scalped by "white savages" under Col. D. Williamson.
1856 — United States of America: Battle of Connell's Prairie, the last major Indian battle in Puget Sound (Washington). Source=Robert Braunwart
1859 — Kenneth Grahame (1859—1932) lives. English bank official, writer, author of the Wind in the Willows & ardent eulogiser of picnics. Also published essays, stories & collections of sketches. [1]
1862 — United States of America: Captain Nathaniel Gordon becomes the last pirate to be hung in America.
1872 — United States of America: "NY Times" calls baseball players "worthless, dissipated gladiators; not much above the professional pugilist in morality & respectability." Source=Robert Braunwart
1874 — Russia: Peter Kropotkin is arrested this month (I donʼt have exact date -- ed.). The police eventually bribed some workers to testify against Peter &, based on this, he was moved to the infamous Peter and Paul Fortress in April.
1885 — Argentina: Juan de Dios Filiberto born (1885—1964), in Buenos Aires, in the barrio of La Boca, a known haven for prostitutes and anarchists…
1887 — France: Marie-Adele Anciaux lives (1887—1983).
1890 — American journalist, novelist, & biographer Gene Fowler lives, Denver, Colorado: "Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead."
1891 — United States of America: Crackpot spiritualist fraud Margaret Fox dies, Brooklyn, New York.
1895 — Colombia: US marines begin fighting in Boca del Toro, (-Mar. 9). To "protect" US interests. Source=Robert Braunwart [2]
1898 — Richard Straussʼs tone poem for orchestra "Don Quixote" premiers, Koln. [3] Source=Robert Braunwart
1899 — Eric Linklater (1899—1974) lives. Scottish poet, novelist & historical writer, who began as a poet but gained world fame with the humor novels Juan in America & Juan in China. [4]
1899 — Seguendo a ruota le altre potenze europee (Russia, Inghilterra, Francia, Germania) che avevano occupato delle basi in Cina, il governo italiano invia un ultimatum all'impero cinese che aveva opposto un rifiuto alla richiesta italiana di occupare la baia di San Mun (Cina). L'ultimatum viene ritirato precipitosamente tre giorni dopo quando l'Inghilterra fa cadere il suo appoggio. L'arroganza statale si coniuga con un ridicolo abissale. [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1904 — France: Clément Fournier lives (1904—1969). Militant anarchiste & pacifiste. [5]
1905 — Spain: Dolores Prat Coll lives (1905—2001). Militant anarchist-trade unionist of the CNT from the age of 15, she appears in Lisa Bergerʼs film "Chemin de Liberté" (Way of Freedom; 1997) & is the subject of Dolores: Une Vie Pour La liberté (A Life for Freedom; 2002) by Progreso Marin, her son.
1906 — Philippines: US occupation troops massacre an "unruly" band of hill Moros, mowing the stubborn tribespeople down with a combination of artillery fire & infantry assaults.
1906 — Manifest Destiny is uppermost in American & corporate policy, with the attendent attitudes towards colonization & subjugation of any non-whites (savages & thus defined, ala Ayn Rand, as without rights) in those areas the US conquers in the name of freedom, democracy & civilization.
1908 — United States of America: Thousands of workers in the NY needle trades (primarily women) demonstrate & begin a strike for higher wages, shorter workday & an end to child labor. Becomes the basis for International Women's Day.
1911 — First International Women's Day is celebrated, in Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany & the United States of America. Source=Robert Braunwart
1913 — Mexico: La Casa del Obrero Mundial relocates, to Calle de Estanco de Hombres número 44. [Source: Casa Obrero Mundial] [6]
1917 — Russia: February Revolution begins. Women workers in Petrograd begin an economic & political strike, providing the spark.
1917 — Cuba: US invades Cuba for the fourth time, during an insurrection (-Feb. 1922). Source=Robert Braunwart
1920 — United States of America: Roberto Elia and Andrea Salsedo, anarchists who worked for the "Cronaca Sovversiva," are kidnapped (or on February 25th?) by the Department of Justice without a warrant or being arrested. They are secretly confined & beaten in Department Justice (sic) offices in an effort to get them to inform on their fellow anarchists. Andrea Salsedo was suicided May 3rd, defenestrated from the 14th floor of the "Department of Justice" where he was being questioned.
1920 — Russia: After attending a conference of Moscow anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are granted a meeting today with Vladimir Lenin. Emma & Alex express their concern about the suppression of dissent & the lack of press freedom & propose the establishment of a Russian society for American freedom independent of the Third International. Protests of the arrest, & Trotskyʼs threatened execution of anarchist V. M. Eikhenbaum (Voline), lead to his transfer to Butyrki prison in Moscow & later his release. Emma & Alex then travel to Dmitrov to meet with Peter Kropotkin. Source: Emma Goldman Papers
1920 — Erik Satieʼs "Musique d'ameublement" premiers, Paris. Source=Robert Braunwart
1920 — Italy: In Sienne, fascists & the police attack the union offices. The union offices are defended by a hundred anarchist & socialist militants. Many workers are wounded in the confrontation, & the anarchist Regoli Giuseppe succumbs to his wounds. A General Strike in protest follows. [7]
1921 — Russia: Grigori Petrovitch Maximov, a Russian anarcho-syndicalist militant, is imprisoned, along with other members of the Nabat Federation. He is not released until autumn, following a hunger strike, when he is expelled from Russia with Voline.
1921 — Russia: The Bolsheviks, consolidating their party power over the workers & peasants, begin an air raid on the peaceful population of Kronstadt. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt appeals by radiotelegram to workers around the world to publicize their plight. Kronstadt Poster "The present upheaval at last gives the toilers the opportunity to have their freely elected soviets, operating without the slightest force of party pressure, & to remake the bureaucratized trade unions into free associations of workers, peasants & the laboring intelligentsia. At last the policemanʼs club of the Communist autocracy has been broken." — March 8, 1921, "Izvestia Vremennogo Revoliutsionnogo Komiteta" (cited, in full, in Paul Avrichʼs The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution) [8]
1921 — Spain: President Eduardo Dato assassinated in Madrid by Luis Nicolau, Pedro Mateu, & Ramon Castenellas, metallurgists of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. [9] [10] [11]
1931 — Author John McPhee is born in, Princeton, New Jersey.
1935 — Thomas Wolfeʼs second novel, Of Time and the River, is published to great acclaim.
1935 — Charles Laughton movie "Ruggles of Red Gap" is released. Source=Robert Braunwart
1936 — England: Emma Goldman lectures again to the Leicester Secular Society.
1936 — France: Jules Alexandre Sadier (b.1862) dies. Franco-Argentine anarchist militant & propagandist, antimilitarist. (pseudonym Alexandre Falconnet.) Alexandre Sadier "Nous ne faisons pas de programme, l'heure de discuter est passée…(…) Notre ordre du jour est simple : Prolétaires du monde entier, quelle que soit la langue que nous parlions, quelle que soit notre race et couleur, marchons à la conquête du bien-être pour tous! Plus d'oppresseurs ni d'opprimés!… Plus de travailleurs mourant de travail et de faim, et d'oisifs crevant de paresse et d'indigestion! En avant! Sonnons la charge pour la liberté!" Extrait du premier numéro de "La Liberté," Buenos Aires, du 23 janvier 1893. [12]
1937 — Spain: March 8-18: Battle of Guadalajara; Italian troops defeated by Republican army with substantial International Brigade support. March-May: Americans form two new battalions — the George Washington Battalion & the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion (consisting mostly of Canadians) See Cary Nelson & Jefferson Hendricks, eds. Madrid 1937: Letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the Spanish Civil War, (Routledge, 1996). [ Resources & sources on the Spanish Revolution of 1936 ]
1937 — Atomic detritus artist Tony Price lives, Brooklyn, NY.
1941 — After ingesting a toothpick along with an hors d'oeuvre at a cocktail party, author Sherwood Anderson, 64, dies in Colon, Panama, of the complications of peritonitis. [13]
1944 — Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpinar dies in Istanbul. Author of some 50 novels, about 70 short stories, a few unsuccessful plays, & translations of French novels, he was influenced by Alfred de Musset & Guy de Maupassant.
1944 — Germany: 600 US bombers raid Berlin in World War II. Source=Robert Braunwart
1945 — International Women's Day is first fully celebrated [see 1911]. The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right. [14] Source=Robert Braunwart
1951 — The Honeymoon Killers die in electric chair.
1955 — World Peace Council launches drive to ban all nuclear weapons.
1959 — In Portland, Oregon, Mel Lyman notes: I sit here looking at the kids playing outside & I want to join them… — Diary of a Young artist [15]
1959 — Groucho, Chico & Harpo Marx make their final joint TV appearance. Source=Robert Braunwart
1962 — Germany: Zenzl Mühsam dies, in East Berlin. Militant anarchist, companion of Erich Mühsam, wound up in Stalinʼs Gulag. Further details / context, click here[Details / context]
1964 — United States of America: Malcolm X announces split with Nation of Islam. When you go to a church & you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy & a program thatʼs designed to bring black people together & elevate black people, join that church! If you see where the NAACP is preaching & practicing that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization — civic, religious, fraternal, political or otherwise — thatʼs based on lifting … the black man up & making him master of his own community. — Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Detroit I had blind faith in him. My faith in Elijah Muhammad was more blind & more uncompromising than any faith that any man has ever had for another man. & so I didnʼt try & see him as he actually was. — Malcolm X, Audubon Speech, 15 Feb. 1965 [16]
1964 — United States of America: First invasion of Alcatraz, by Dakota Sioux who claim the island under the 1868 Sioux Treaty to remind Amerika of more than 600 treaties which have been broken. They offer the government $6.54 for the land, based on the 49 cents per acre which was being currently proposed to be given as compensation for tribal lands stolen from Californian Amerindians. Source: 'Calendar Riots'
1965 — Vietnam: March 8-9, 1965 The first American combat troops arrive in Vietnam. [17]
1967 — Russia: Military puts its Far East army on alert after Ussuri River clash with China.
1968 — Bill Graham, owner of the Fillmore, San Franciscoʼs legendary rock ballroom, opens Fillmore East in New York City. Opening bill features Albert King, Tim Buckley & Big Brother & the Holding Company.
1968 — Meanwhile, back in the Frisco Bay area, Cream, James Cotton Blues Band, Jeremy Satyrs, & Blood Sweat & Tears at the Fillmore Auditorium. Over to the Avalon Ballroom is Love, Congress of Wonders, & Sons of Champlin. Source: [Frisco History Archive]
1970 — United States of America: Ft. Lawton police & Native American & other demonstrators clash. About 70 Native American activists briefly occupy Fort Lawton, in the first invasion of the disused military base, as the federal government negotiates with the city of Seattle over how to use the surplus military land. 13 arrested. The third attempt results in a three month occupation & the eventual handover of some of land for the permanent establishment of the Daybreak Star Cultural Center.
1971 — Silent film comedian Harold Lloyd dies.
1971 — United States of America: 1,000 documents are stolen from the FBI office at Media, Pa., & later distributed to newspapers. Members of the "Citizens Committee to Investigate the F.B.I." break into an F.B.I. office in suburban Philadelphia, & later publish files revealing the existence of the F.B.I.ʼs criminal COINTELPRO program, harassing domestic political dissidents.
1971 — Canada: The Union of Nova Scotia Indians, claiming immunity under Canadaʼs Indian Act, announces it will no longer pay provincial taxes on Indian lands.
1971 — Vietnam: Radio Hanoi broadcasts Jimi Hendrixʼs "Star Spangled Banner." (The tape was sent by Abbie Hoffman.) [18]
1973 — Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, charter Grateful Dead member & the first of three Dead keyboardists to come to a premature end, dies of liver disease caused by his heavy drinking, Corte Madera, California.
1973 — Paul McCartney pleads guilty to charges of growing marijuana outside his Scottish countryside farm, & is fined $240. Paul claims Yoko gave him the seeds & he didnʼt know what they would grow. [19] [20]
1976 — France: Robert Touati, a French anarchist active in Centro Iberico around 1974, & Juan Durran Escriban, wanted in Spain for an attack on an armory, are both killed on the grounds of Toulouse University during the night of 8/9 March. Police claim they are members of GARI (Groups of International Revolutionary Action) & responsible for a series of anti-Franco actions in Southern France. [21]
1982 — United States of America: Two high school boys with ambition to be mercenaries, arm themselves & attempt a military "coup d'etat" at their high school.
1982 — South Africa: Cathedral occupied for fast for right to live in "white areas," Cape Town.
1983 — Israel: 40,000 rally against war in Lebanon, organized by Peace Now, in Tel Aviv.
1983 — Italy: La Ragnatela (Spiderʼs Web) Womenʼs Peace Camp created at Comiso, Sicily, the first overseas site for US cruise missiles.
1983 — United States of America: acting President Reagan tells a national convention of evangelicals that the Soviet Union is "the focus of evil in the modern world … an evil empire." Says historian Henry Steele Commager: "It was the worst presidential speech in American history, & I've read them all." Reagan makes his "Evil Empire" speech, in Orlando, Florida, while US employees carry out a policy of murder, rape & torture of Central Americans. [22]
1985 — Women from Eastern & Western Europe invite all citizens to sign petition for denuclearization.
1987 — United States of America: Wampanoag tribe of Gay Head, Mass. gain federal recognition.
1988 — United States of America: Ten arrested in police raid on Union of the Homeless tent city, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
1988 — United States of America: Soap opera scriptwriters' strike. Source: 'Calendar Riots'
1989 — Ecuador: Amazon Pact nations condemn all external interference in rain-forest preservation, Quito. Source=Robert Braunwart
1990 — Paul Quarrington receives Canadaʼs Governor Generalʼs award for his novel Whale Music. Louis Hamelin receives the fiction award for La Rage. Source=Robert Braunwart
1990 — United States of America: Reaganite John Poindexter (National Security adviser) busted in Iran-Contra Conspiracy. [23]
1991 — United States of America: Tony Baruso is convicted of murder in Seattle cannery union slayings. Source=Robert Braunwart
1993 — Germany: Women's Strike Day in cities across the nation protesting anti-abortion court ruling.
1993 — Date at the beginning of Michael Douglas movie "Disclosure." Source=Robert Braunwart
1995 — Mexico: Senate approves the Law for Diologue, Conciliation & Peace in Chiapas. Meanwhile the Mexican government rights commission says police tortured four Zapatistas. [24] Source=Robert Braunwart
1998 — United States of America: Daniel Rudolph, brother of Olympic Games bombing & abortion clinic bombing suspect Erik Rudolph (a fugitive), videotapes himself cutting off his own hand with a power saw to "send a message to the FBI". Source=Robert Braunwart
1999 — Canadian Alice Munro wins the US National Book Award for fiction. Source=Robert Braunwart
2002 — Black Friday; 46 are killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence. Source=Robert Braunwart
