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July 21
July 21 is the 21st day in July.
Events
810 — Writer Al-Bukhari lives.
1306 — Philip "The Fair's" secret commission results in the arrest — and confiscation of all the goods and money — of every Jew in France.
1542 — Inquisition established in Rome.
1571 — Inquisition created for the Portuguese navy.
1664 — English diplomat / poet, Matthew Prior, lives, Wimborne, Dorset.
1796 — Robert Burns, 37, dies, in Dumfries.
1832 — United States of America: Fleeing Black Hawk (Sauk/Fox tribes) overtaken by General J.D. Henry; 68 Indians killed.
1864 — United States of America: "New Orleans Tribune," black-run daily newspaper, begins publication.
1873 — United States of America: Worldʼs first train robbery, by Jesse James.
1877 — United States of America: 30,000 Chicago workers rally on Market Street, by Madison. Speaking to the crowd, Albert Parsons advocates use of the ballot to obtain "state control of the means of production," and urges workers to join the workingmenʼs party. Later armed men came to Parsons' place of work (a socialist newspaper), claiming Mayor Heath wished to see him. Reaching city hall, the future anarchist was taken to a room filled with officers, where Police Chief Hickey waited for him. "He wanted to know who I was, where born, raised, if married and a family, etc. I quietly answered his questions. He then lectured me on the great trouble I had brought upon the city of Chicago…." This was in July, during a massive railroad strike, sometimes called the Great Upheaval. [1] [2]
1878 — United States of America: Publication of "Eight Hours," the most popular labor song until "Solidarity Forever" is later published by the Industrial Workers of the World. In the 1870s, a labor newspaper, the Labor Standard in Patterson N.J., you might say, initiated the 8-hour day and published the eight-hour day song which had these lines: [3] [4] [5] [6]
1880 — United States of America: Compressed air explosion, killing 20 workers on Hudson River tunnel, New York City.
1885 — Author Frances Parkinson Keyes lives.
1887 — United States of America: 20 striking railroad workers killed by state troopers in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
1887 — Poland: A small booklet entitled The First Book appears in Warsaw (Varsovie) (or on the 26th?), signed by a certain "Doktoro Esperanto," pseudonym of the linguist Dr. Louis-Lazare Zamenhof (1859 — 1917). The 40 pages present a program for an international auxiliary language which spreads around the world under the name Esperanto. This neutral and easily learned idiom (at least for Westerners), is designed to facilitate comprehension and communication between peoples. Among its early enthusiasts were many anarchists, seeing here not only a means of countering warmongering nationalisms, but also a way to diffuse the libertarian ideal beyond the official statist borders. "and as you can imagine, Esperanto, without any difficulty, has also crossed the seas. Travel to America, Africa or Oceania and you will find Esperantists everywhere who will be able to understand you when you speak the language. Esperanto is the surest and the speediest vehicle of civilization." — Jules Verne, Voyage of Discovery [7] [8]
1887 — France: Rain of Ants in Nancy.
1893 — Author Hans Fallada lives, Greifswald. After causing the death of his friend in a duel, the youthful Fallada was forced to quit school. Worked as a clerk, auctioneer and potato farmer. An alcoholic. Other writers who gained fame in Germany in the 1920s and 30s: Bertolt Brecht, Erich Kästner, Joachim Ringelnatz, Carl Zuckmayer, Alfred Döblin, Ernst Glaeser, Hermann Kesten, Erich Maria Remarque, Leonhard Frank, Arnold Zweig, Ernst Wiechert.
1899 — Modernist and experimental poet Hart Crane lives, Garrettsville, Ohio. Wrote The Bridge; White Buildings.
1899 — Macho-man Ernest Hemingway lives, Oak Park, Illinois. American novelist, short-story writer and essayist, whose deceptively simple prose style has influenced wide range of writers. Awarded 1954 Nobel Prize. Associated in the 1920s with such writers as Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the 30s he reported on the Spanish Revolution and during World War II the allied campaigns in Europe. Later lived in Cuba, fishing until the revolution, when he moved to the US. Hemingwayʼs obsession with war, big-game hunting, and bullfighting is seen in his masterworks. Other writers in the Spanish Revolution: Federico GarcÃa Lorca, George Orwell, André Malraux, Langston Hughes, William Herrick. [9]
1900 — Italy: Umberto con un seguito modesto raggiunge la residenza estiva di Monza. Da anni usa trascorrere l'estate nella cittadina lombarda, al margine della ridente Brianza, dove gli è facile incontrare l'amante, Eugenia Attendolo Bolognini Litta Visconti Arese. Umberto può uscire discretamente da una porticina del parco, contrassegnata da due fanali e raggiungere la casa della donna. Dopo la morte, Vittorio farà murare la piccola porta per cancellare ogni traccia di quel passaggio. [10]
1903 — Yrjö Jylhä lives (1903 — 1956). Finnish poet / translator. [11]
1907 — Author A.D. Hope lives.
1911 — Canadian media theorist Marshall Mcluhan lives, (1911 — 1980). [12]
1916 — Haiti: US Marines land.
1917 — Italy: Suicide of Francesco Pezzi, in Florence. Member of the First International and anarchist militant in Bologna. [13]
1919 — United States of America: 158-foot dirigible crashes through the glass skylight of a Chicago bank, killing 13 people, injuring many others. [14]
1920 — Mohammed Dib lives.
1920 — Italy: In Turin, Guglielmo Musso is killed by his own bomb during a solidarity strike following yesterdayʼs fascist attack on Spartaco Stagnetti (the trade union secretary in Rome). The young anarchist Musso, about to toss a bomb at a group of police officers, apparently chose to hang onto the bomb at the last moment to avoid killing innocent bystanders.
1921 — Italy: 500 fascists arrive at the railway station in Sarzana to exact revenge for previous humiliations. The town is expecting their attack. Twenty of the thugs are killed and others sent packing to the countryside an effort to escape, only to be hounded by the peasants.
1923 — United States of America: Prince Caetani delivers a speech bitterly denouncing the opponents of Fascismo among the American Italians, and argued "a certain Italian paper in New York ought to be suppressed." The assembled apostles of Human Liberty knew that he meant Il Martello, and applauded him heartily. That there was no law in the US forbidding a newspaper to criticize a foreign government did not trouble them; they had been through the late war, and knew what could be done. So did the Department of Justice, then still in command of the eminent Daugherty, and the Postoffice Department. Word was conveyed to Washington, and then back to NY. [Today] the whole issue of Il Martello was held up in the mails. The anarchist Carlo Tresca demanded to know why. The Postoffice gave him no answer. He kept on denouncing the Fascisti. — H. L. Mencken [15]
1923 — Italy: La Camera approva la legge elettorale Acerbo (dal nome del sottosegretario alla Presidenza del Consiglio Giacomo Acerbo) che adotta il sistema maggioritario, ripristina il collegio uninominale.e introduce il premio di maggioranza assegnando i due terzi dei seggi alla lista che ottiene il maggior numero di voti. Servirà al partito fascista per monopolizzare il potere giocando sulla paura dell'instabilitá. [Source: Crimini e Misfatti]
1926 — United States of America: WCFL, the Voice of Labor premiers, featuring two hours of music. [16]
1927 — France: Francisco Ascaso, Buenaventura Durruti, and Gregorio Jover meet for a banquet in a Parisian restaurant to celebrate their recent release from a French prison — the result of an intense campaign by the "Comité International de Défense Anarchiste" to get them freed. The three had been jailed for a plot to kill the Spanish King Alphonse XIII. In addition to their families, anarchistes criminels horribles are joined by some 30 other militants, including Sebastien Faure, Nestor Makhno and Louis Lecoin (true architect of their release).
1931 — France: Emile Pouget (1860 — 1931) dies. Anarchist militant and propagandist. Founded "Le Père Peinard." Author and signatory to the "Charte d’Amiens" (Charter of Amiens; 1906), adopted by the CGT. Pouget wrote numerous books and pamphlets, including Direct Action (1910), and Sabotage. "Since the day a man had the criminal ability to profit by another manʼs labor, since that very same day the exploited toiler has instinctively tried to give to his master less than was demanded from him. In this wise the worker was unconsciously doing SABOTAGE, demonstrating in an indirect way the irrepressible antagonism that arrays Capital and Labor one against the other." — Sabotage [17] [18]
1933 — Novelist John Gardner (The Sunlight Dialogues) lives, Batavia, New York.
1935 — End of the War of the Chaco, between Bolivia and Paraguay. [19]
1936 — Spain: Establishment in Catalonia of the Central Anti-Fascist Militias Committee (CAMC). No workers' organization takes power. The C.N.T., unfortunately, leaves the door cracked open for the 'pajaros carpinteros'.
1936 — Orson Welles opens his federal production of Shakespeareʼs MacBeth, in which he used a racially integrated cast and moved the playʼs setting from Scotland to the Caribbean.
1940 — Spain: César Terron Abad (1915 — 1940) dies, à Villar de Otero (province of Léon).
1942 — United States of America: Eight die as coal waste heap slides in river valley near Oakwood, Virginia.
1943 — "Stormy Weather" premieres in New York City with Lena Horne, Bill "Bo Jangles" Robinson, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, the Nicholas Brothers, and Katherine Dunham. A week before the premiere, Horne said of African American actors, "All we ask is that the Negro be portrayed as a normal person. A worker in a union meeting, a voter in the polls…or an elected official. Perhaps I'm being naive. Perhaps these things will never be straightened out on the screen itself, but will have to wait until… [they're] solved in real life." [20]
1943 — Tess Gallagher, lives, Port Angeles, Washington. American poet known for her introspective verses about self-discovery, womanhood, and family life. Close companion of Raymond Carver — both of whom were frequent customers of Left Bank Books in Seattle when BleedMeister worked there. [21] [22]
1944 — Buchi Emecheta lives, Lagos, Nigeria. Sociologist, poet, playwright, essayist, and childrenʼs author. Married at age 16, she moves to London with her husband in 1962, where she begins to publish.
1944 — United States of America: Seven members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee are arrested, along with journalist James Omura. Their trial for "unlawful conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet violators of the draft" begins on October 23. All but Omura are eventually found guilty.
1954 — Geneva Accords signed, freeing Vietnam ("French Indochina") from French colonial rule. Enter the US in all itʼs arrogance.
1956 — Billboard calls Elvis Presley "the most controversial entertainer since Liberace." Also notes Ed Sullivan, who said Presley would never appear on his show, just signed him for three appearances.
1959 — D.H. Lawrenceʼs Lady Chatterley's Lover finally ruled not obscene and legal for publication in U.S. after U.S. Postmaster General Literary Critic (deconstructed the text and discovered it was "Pornographic, smutty, obscene, and filthy.") tries to ban it from the mails on June 11.
1964 — United States of America: Industrial Workers of the World blueberry pickers' strike begins near Grand Junction, Michigan.
1967 — Death of Albert Luthuli, nonviolent freedom campaigner, South Africa.
1967 — The Youngbloods and Wildflower perform at San Franciscoʼs California Hall.
1967 — François Mayoux dies. French pacifist, antimilitarist, anarchist. Son of Jehan Mayhoux, companion of Marie Mayoux. [23]
1971 — United States of America: International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT), facing a major antitrust action as the result of its takeover of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, allegedly pledged $400,000 to defray costs of the 1972 Republican Convention. [24]
1972 — United States of America: Language Arts Teacher George Carlin charged with disorderly conduct and profanity after performing his famous "7 Words" routine at Summerfest in Milwaukee. [25]
1974 — Mexico: Aurelio Fernández Sánchez (1897 — 1974), dies, Pueblo.
1976 — United States of America: First outbreak of "Legionnaire's Disease" kills 29 in Philadelphia.
1980 — Keith Godchaux is injured in a car accident. He dies two days later.
1981 — United States of America: Creationism law requiring equal teaching with evolution passed, Louisiana.
1983 — Mexico: Largest clash of demonstrators and police in 10 years in Mexico City.
1983 — Poland: Martial law lifted after 19 months. (or the 23rd?) [26]
1987 — United States of America: Steven Schwartz goes on trial to assert his right to announce, via anti-graffiti, that he is not "the philosophical whore of North Beach", in Frisco, California. One-time Trotskyite, IWW member, self-described internationally recognized surrealist poet, band manager for The Dils, author of the song "Class War" for The Dils, writer for "Search and Destroy" (as Nico Ordway), official historian for the Sailors Union of the Pacific.
1990 — England: BBCʼs Radio One apologizes to listeners after Madonna repeatedly cursed during a live concert broadcast.
1992 — Italy: 15,000 hold a memorial vigil in Milan after the murder of an anti-Mafia leader.
2000 — Author Marc Reisner dies, age 51. Wrote Cadillac Desert. [27] [28]
2004 — United States of America: Palestinian freedom fighter Farouk Abdel-Muhti (1947 — 2004), dies, of an apparent heart attack. Vicvtim of the United States of Americaʼs Patriot Act. Abdel-Muhti was 56 years old. His health had not recovered from his past two years in detention without charges in the US (including eight months in solitary confinement; DOA: Habeus corpus, like the rest of the Bill of Rights), no one suspected his life was at risk. [29]
