Happy birthday to the revolutionary Eugene V. Debs! In 1920, he won nearly a million votes from a prison cell while campaigning for President. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough.

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Today is the anniversary of when the Chicago PD massacred a gathering of unarmed, striking workers and then collaborated with Paramount News to suppress video footage of the attack. Do you know the story of the Memorial Day Massacre?

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Angelo Herndon was a black communist labor leader convicted of insurrection after attempting to organize black and white workers in Atlanta, Georgia. He addressed the court on this day in 1933, stating You cannot kill the working class.

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John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave, But his soul goes marching on! Happy birthday to radical abolitionist John Brown.

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On this day in 1919, a general strike involving ~100,000 workers in Seattle began. Workers, vilified as Bolsheviki, set up an alternative government that distributed 30,000 meals daily and a police force that did not carry weapons.

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On this day in 1899, 1,000 striking miners seized a train in Burke, Idaho, drove it to the Bunker Hill Mine in Wardner, destroyed the mine with dynamite, and burned down both the company office and the home of the mine manager.

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Happy birthday to anti-colonial revolutionary Frantz Fanon, author of The Wretched of the Earth. In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.

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Happy birthday to the legendary socialist labor organizer Big Bill Haywood! The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!

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On this day in 1967, 30 armed Black Panthers entered the California State Capitol building while openly carrying firearms in protest of the Mulford Act, legislation designed to end Panther patrols of Oakland neighborhoods.

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Angelo Herndon was a black communist labor leader convicted of insurrection after attempting to organize black and white workers in Atlanta, Georgia. He addressed the court on this day in 1933, stating You cannot kill the working class.

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On this day in 1967, Che Guevara was executed by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces (details in comments). We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

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This week is ten years since Occupy Wall Street began in Zuccotti Park. What have we learned since then?

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Today is the anniversary of when Chicago police massacred a gathering of unarmed, striking workers and then, with the help of Paramount News, suppressed video footage of the attack. Do you know the story of the Memorial Day Massacre?

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We only know about COINTELPRO because a group of citizens broke into an FBI field office on this day in 1971, stealing self-incriminating documents that exposed FBI surveillance. The burglars all got away with it, only telling their story 40 years later.

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On this day in 1941, hundreds of thousands of workers in Amsterdam initiated a general strike after an anti-Semitic pogrom, one of the only mass acts of solidarity with Jewish people under Nazi rule.

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Italian fascism never died: On this day in 2001, on false pretenses, police raided a school occupied by anti-globalization protesters, beating and torturing hundreds, making prisoners sing songs that praised Mussolini and Pinochet. No cops went to jail.

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“To achieve a society that exhibits liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy, the object to change first and foremost is production.” Happy 79th birthday to Richard Wolff!

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On this day in 1944, the Gestapo publicly hanged 13 members of the anti-fascist Ehrenfeld Group without trial near Cologne, Germany. Several of the executed were teenagers who had engaged in direct action against the Third Reich.

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When fascist Augusto Pinochet took control of Chile in 1973, he began a campaign of assassinations against anti-fascists. On this day in '76, Orlando Letelier, a socialist Chilean economist and politician, was assassinated by car bomb in Washington D.C. Details in the comments.

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Mark Ashton, born on this day in 1960, was a British communist, gay rights activist, and co-founder of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) group. He passed away from an AIDS-related illness at the age of 26.

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Happy 101st birthday to Faye Schulman, Jewish partisan and photographer who took up arms against the Nazis who were responsible for killing her family. I want people to know that there was resistance. Jews did not go like sheep to the slaughter. I was a photographer. I have pictures. I have proof.

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Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hayes Pond, when armed members of the Lumbee tribe ambushed and broke up a KKK rally near Maxton, North Carolina in 1958. Details in the comments.

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On this day in 1937, Chicago police attacked a Memorial Day gathering of unarmed, striking steelworkers and their families, killing ten in the Memorial Day Massacre. Chicago PD banned local screening of video footage of the massacre.

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Never forget the MOVE Bombing: On this day in 1985, the Philadelphia PD bombed a home occupied by the black anarcho-primitivist group MOVE and let the subsequent fire burn out of control, killing 11 people, including 5 children, and destroying 65 homes. No criminal charges.

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Happy birthday to James Connolly, the Irish socialist revolutionary and founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) who helped lead the Easter Rising, for which he was executed by the British government. Details in comments.

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Happy birthday to the great Eugene V. Debs, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and 5 time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America! Details in comments.

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Angelo Herndon was a communist labor leader convicted of insurrection after attempting to organize black and white workers in Atlanta, Georgia. He addressed the court on this day in 1933, stating You cannot kill the working class.

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Angelo Sbardellotto was an Italian anarchist executed by the state on this day in 1932 for plotting to assassinate Benito Mussolini. He refused to ask for clemency, instead telling the court he regretted not being able to kill Il Duce.

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On this day in 1891, the Coal Creek War began when miners at the Tennessee Coal Mining Company (TCMC) went on strike. After TCMC tried to use strikebreaking convict labor, workers razed their stockades and freed hundreds of prisoners.

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Happy birthday to Giacomo Matteotti, the socialist politician assassinated for speaking out against Italian fascists. After his last speech, Matteotti turned to his friend and said Now start composing your oration for my funeral. He was assassinated 11 days later.

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Chelsea Manning, born on this day in 1987, is a U.S. whistleblower convicted of violating the Espionage Act after disclosing ~750,000 govt. documents to WikiLeaks, including a video where U.S. troops fired on journalists and children.

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On this day in 1859, the U.S. government executed John Brown for his failed raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. For attempting to liberate enslaved people, Brown became the first American to be executed for treason.

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On the same calendar day Thomas Sankara was assassinated, the Black Panther Party was founded. As Sankara himself said, you can kill the revolutionary as an individual, but you cannot kill an idea.

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Mark Ashton was a British communist, gay rights activist, and co-founder of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) group. He passed away from an AIDS-related illness on this day in 1987, at the age of 26.

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On this day in 1921, the Tulsa Race Massacre began when mobs of white people attacked residents and businesses of the Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, killing hundreds and rendering 10,000 black families homeless.

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On this day in 1941, a spontaneous, anti-Nazi general strike broke out in Norway, initially from shipyard workers in protest of milk rationing. Involving ~30,000 workers, Nazis declared martial law, executing and arresting its leaders.

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Happy 80th birthday to the American Marxist Richard Wolff! If you lived with a roommate as unstable as this economic system, you would've moved out or demanded that your roommate get professional help.

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Anna Campbell, also known as Helin Qerecox, was a British feminist, anarchist, and prison abolitionist who died on this day in 2018, fighting with the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) of Rojava during the Syrian civil war.

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On this day in 1985, the Philadelphia police department bombed a home occupied by the black anarcho-primitivist group MOVE and let the subsequent fire burn out of control, killing 11 people and destroying 65 homes. No charges were filed.

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On this day in 2020, a Minneapolis cop murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. Floyd's death became the catalyst for protests around the world; by July, more than 14,000 were arrested in the U.S. alone.

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On this day in 1971, the Attica Prison Uprising began. Thousands of prisoners seized Attica State prison for four days, taking hostages and issuing a manifesto that condemned the prison system and demanding human rights.

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On this day in 1988, members of Food Not Bombs (including one of the founders, Keith McHenry, shown), were arrested for the first time in San Francisco, California, for handing out free food and literature in Golden Gate Park.

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On this day in 1859, the U.S. government executed John Brown for his failed raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. For attempting to liberate enslaved people, Brown became the first American to be executed for treason.

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Noam Chomsky, born on this day in 1928, is an American linguist and political thinker, notable for his critiques of American imperialism and capitalist media. Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

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Marie Equi, born on this day in 1872, was a radical medical doctor, gay rights advocate, Wobbly, and anarchist convicted of sedition for speaking out against American involvement in World War I. More about her life in the comments.

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On this day in 1998, more than 500,000 Danish workers, one fifth of the entire workforce, walked off the job in a general strike, demanding a 35-hour work-week, an extra week of paid holiday, and a 6% wage increase.

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On this day in 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was gunned down by white supremacists for his efforts in fighting racism in Mississippi. He said You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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On this day in 1967, communist revolutionary Che Guevara was executed by CIA-assisted forces in Bolivia, where he had been attempting to foment revolution. His last words were Shoot, you are only going to kill a man.

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On this day in 1958, an ad-hoc community militia led by Baker Baron, a British-Jamaican veteran, drove off a lynch mob with guns, molotov cocktails, and homemade weapons during the Notting Hill Race Riots. First-hand account in comments.

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On this day in 1921, the Tulsa Race Massacre began when mobs of white people attacked residents and businesses of the Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, killing hundreds and rendering 10,000 black families homeless.

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Chelsea Manning, born on this day in 1987, is a U.S. whistleblower convicted of violating the Espionage Act after disclosing ~750,000 govt. documents to WikiLeaks, including a video where U.S. troops fired on journalists and children.

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On this day in 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz fatally shot President McKinley in Buffalo, New York, leading to a nationwide crackdown on left-wing movements, including the arrest of Emma Goldman.

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On this day in 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) declared war on the Mexican Government, demanding work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and peace.

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On this day in 1927, Italian immigrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by the U.S. government after they were dubiously convicted of murder, leading to international episodes of protest and violence.

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On this day in 1917, capitalists and police in Bisbee, AZ collaborated to deputize an anti-strike posse, kidnap and deport 1,300 striking miners more than 200 miles out of state, and keep the incident out of the press. No one was ever convicted.

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It's Bhagat Singh's birthday today. He was an Indian socialist revolutionary who was executed at 23 years old by the state for his violent actions against British colonizers. Behind every non-violent revolutionary like Mahatma Gandhi, there is a Bhagat Singh. Details in the comments.

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John Brown, born on this day in 1800, was a militant abolitionist who advocated for armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the U.S. He became the first American executed for treason after raiding Harpers Ferry.

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On this day in 1966, undercover L.A. cops raided the Black Cat Tavern when celebrating queer patrons kissed each other at midnight. 2 of the arrested were forced to register as sex offenders; SCOTUS declined to hear their case on appeal.

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Negro Matapacos (Black Cop-Killer) was a famous stray dog from the streets of Santiago, Chile, known for attending various student protests across the city and fighting with police. He died from old age on this day in 2017.

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Today is the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, in which 146 NYC garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, were killed because factory owners kept the exits locked to prevent theft and unauthorized breaks. From insurance payments, owners made $325 per victim.

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Thomas Sankara was a Burkinabe revolutionary who expanded social welfare and nationalized natural resources in Burkina Faso. On this day in 1987, Sankara was assassinated in a coup led by Blaise Compaore, who succeeded Sankara in power.

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On this day in 2014, Eric Garner was murdered by the NYPD, choked to death after police suspected him of selling loose cigarettes. Garner said I can't breathe 11 times before dying. The man who filmed his death was poisoned in prison.

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John Brown, born on this day in 1800, was a militant abolitionist who advocated for and practiced armed insurrection to overthrow the system of slavery in the U.S. He became the first American executed for treason after raiding Harpers Ferry.

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On this day in 2003, Iraq was invaded by the U.S. and a coalition of the willing, including the U.K., Australia, and others. The invasion and subsequent military occupation killed more than one million people and displaced 9.2 million Iraqis.

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Fred Hampton, born on this day in 1948, was a revolutionary socialist and chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. He formed a class-based alliance known as the Rainbow Coalition before being assassinated by the Chicago PD.

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The Ecole Polytechnique Massacre was an anti-feminist mass shooting that killed 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique engineering school in Montreal on this day in 1989.

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On this day in 1918, American socialist Eugene V. Debs gave an iconic speech (text in comments) while being sentenced to prison, convicted of violating the Espionage Act. He later ran for president from his prison cell, winning nearly one million votes.

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Mariya Kislyak was a Soviet partisan and leader of a Kharkov underground Komsomol cell, where she seduced and killed Nazi officers, actions for which she was executed by the Gestapo on this day in 1943 at the age of seventeen.

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On this day in 1967, the Mulford Act became law in California with bipartisan support, banning the public carrying of firearms after the Black Panthers began conducting armed patrols of Oakland communities to defend them from police.

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On this day in 1969, the Chicago Police Department assassinated revolutionary socialist and Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark. You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution. - FH

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Michael Parenti (1933 - ): Michael John Parenti, born on this day in 1933, is a Marxist American political scientist and cultural critic.

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On this day in 1971, a group of activists known as the Citizens' Commission broke into an FBI field office and stole over 1,000 classified documents, exposing COINTELPRO, a widespread surveillance operation of left-wing activists.

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On this day in 1985, the Philadelphia police department bombed a home occupied by the black anarcho-primitivist group MOVE and let the subsequent fire burn out of control, killing 10 people and destroying 65 homes.

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On this day in 2017, the deadliest UK residential fire since WWII began in Grenfell Tower, West London. 72 people, including children as young as six months old, were killed. As of 2022, no one has been charged for the residents' deaths.

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Happy de facto birthday to Mother Jones, the Irish-American socialist and radical labor organizer, complimented by a West Virginian district attorney as the most dangerous woman in America. On her behavior, she stated I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser.

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On this day in 1945, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini was summarily executed, likely by communist partisan Walter Audisio, and then his corpse was hung upside down in the Piazzale Loreto, where it was beaten and shot by angry crowds.

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On this day in 1985, Philadelphia police bombed a home occupied by the black liberation group MOVE and let the fire burn out of control - let the fire burn - killing five children and six adults, and destroying 65 homes. No charges were filed.

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On this day in 1994, Tyke, an abused circus elephant, killed her trainer and escaped into the streets of Honolulu, Hawaii. She died after being shot 86-87 times by police and subsequently became an international symbol for animal rights.

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Happy birthday to Dr. Robert Hayling, an American freedom fighter who was a staunch advocate of armed self-defense in the black community. I and the others have armed. We will shoot first and answer questions later. We are not going to die like Medgar Evers. Details in the comments.

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Anna Campbell, also known as Helin Qerecox, was a British feminist, anarchist, and prison abolitionist who died on this day in 2018, fighting with the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) of Rojava during the Syrian civil war.

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On this day in 2019, anarchist anti-fascist Willem van Spronsen was shot dead by police after firebombing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) compound in Tacoma, Washington.

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David Graeber, born on this day in this 1961, was an American anthropologist, anarchist activist and author known for his books Debt: The First 5000 Years, The Utopia of Rules, and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.

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On this day in 1945, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini was summarily executed, likely by communist partisan Walter Audisio, and then his corpse was hung upside down in the Piazzale Loreto, where it was beaten and shot by angry crowds.

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Pyotr Kropotkin, born on this day in 1842, was a Russian scientist, historian, and anarchist theorist, known for his writings on mutual aid and advocacy of anarcho-communism. It is only those who do nothing who make no mistake.

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Lucy Parsons was an American labor organizer and anarcho-communist who died on this day in 1942, notable for co-founding the IWW and being described by the Chicago Police Department as more dangerous than a thousand rioters.

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On this day in 1899, 1,000 striking miners seized a train in Burke, Idaho, drove it to the Bunker Hill Mine in Wardner, destroyed the mine with dynamite, and burned down both the company office and the home of the mine manager.

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Norman Finkelstein, born on this day in 1953, is a political scientist, activist, and author whose works include The Rise and Fall of Palestine (1996). Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University after a public feud with Alan Dershowitz.

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On this day in 1905, Idaho Govenor Frank Steunenberg, who had arrested striking workers and detained them without trial, was assassinated by a bomb on his office door. Three labor leaders were charged, but all were acquitted.

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Dr. Joycelyn Elders, born on this day in 1933, is an American pediatrician who became the first black Surgeon General of the U.S. in 1993. She was fired by President Clinton after advocating for sex positive education.

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William Sid Hatfield, born on this day in 1891, was a police chief of Matewan, West Virginia who helped organizing miners resist the union-busting Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. For this, Hatfield was assassinated in 1921.

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William Sid Hatfield was a police chief of Matewan, West Virginia who was supportive of coal miners' attempts to unionize, for which he was assassinated on this day in 1921 by anti-labor Baldwin-Felts agents.

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On this day in 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, the largest such complex during the Holocaust. In 2005, the United Nations named today as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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Fumiko Kaneko, born on this day in 1903, was a Japanese anarchist, nihilist, and opponent to Japanese imperialism in Korea. She authored The Prison Memoirs Of A Japanese Woman while jailed for treason.

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On this day in 2009, a group of Chinese steel workers at Tonghua Iron and Steel Group rioted and beat their general manager to death after being informed that 25,000 workers would lose their jobs in a private takeover of the company.

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On this day in 1899, 1,000 striking miners seized a train in Burke, Idaho, drove it to the Bunker Hill Mine in Wardner, destroyed the mine with dynamite, and burned down both the company office and the home of the mine manager.

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On this date in 1944, the Gestapo publicly hanged 13 members of the anti-fascist Ehrenfeld Group without trial near Cologne, Germany. Several of the members were teenagers who had engaged in direct against the Third Reich.

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On this day in 2011, a massive picket line of some 700 longshoremen and their supporters blocked a grain train from entering EGT's (a large shipping conglomerate) terminal to oppose the company's union-busting efforts.

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Faye Schulman, born on this day in 1919, was a Jewish partisan who took up arms against the Nazis responsible for killing her family. I want people to know that there was resistance. Jews did not go like sheep to the slaughter.

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On this day in 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) declared a strike, seeking better working conditions, better pay, and less hours, resulting in their mass firing and union decertification.

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On this day in 2003, twenty-seven Israeli pilots refused to fly assassination missions, referring to them in an open letter as illegal and immoral.

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Ralph Nader, born on this day in 1934, is a U.S. attorney and activist whose causes include consumer protection and environmentalism. I once said to my father, 'Dad we need a third political party.' He said to me, 'I'll settle for a second.'

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Helen Keller, born on this day in 1880, was an American socialist author and disability rights advocate who became the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. Keller was subject to FBI surveillance for most of her life.

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On this day in 1909, President Taft sent U.S. warships to oust democratically elected Nicaraguan President Jose Santos Zelaya, the first time the U.S. had explicitly overthrown a foreign leader, according to historian Stephen Kinzer.

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On this day in 1941, workers in Amsterdam, organized by the Communist Party, launched a general strike against the persecution of the Jews by occupying Nazi forces, in one of the only major acts of solidarity with the Jews during WW2.

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Toussaint Louverture, born on this day in 1743, was a general and leader of the Haitian Revolution. This gun is liberty; hold for certain that the day when you no more have it, you will be returned to slavery.

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Joe Hill (1879 - 1915) was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who was executed by the state on this day in 1915.

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On this day in 1905, Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, who had arrested striking workers and detained them without trial, was assassinated by a bomb outside his home. Three labor leaders were charged, but all were acquitted.

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On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d'etat against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran's British-owned oil fields.

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Sammy Younge Jr., born on this day in 1944, was an activist who was shot dead after he attempted to use a whites only restroom in Tuskegee, Alabama. Younge was one of the first black college students killed in the civil rights movement.

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Nadezhda Krupskaya, born on this day in 1869, was a Bolshevik revolutionary, feminist, and librarian who helped develop the Soviet educational system. In 1926, she authored a memoir of her life and the life of her husband, Vladimir Lenin.

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Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were prominent German communists who were assassinated on this day in 1919 by the German Freikorps, a group of government-sponsored paramilitary forces, after the Spartacist Uprising.

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Cornel West, born on this day in 1953, is a philosopher, socialist activist, educator, and public intellectual whose works include Race Matters and The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto, co-authored with Tavis Smiley.

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On this day in 1967, the Israeli Army occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, claiming emergency powers with a military decree that greatly restricts the rights of the occupied. The ongoing occupation is the longest in the modern era.

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Happy new year! On this day in 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) declared war on the Mexican Government, demanding work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and peace, seizing towns in Chiapas and destroying land records.

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On this day in 1969, the Stonewall Uprising began when NYC Police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. The crowd fought with cops as they arrested homosexuals and drag queens, trapping them inside and lighting the Inn on fire.

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W.E.B. Du Bois, born on this day in 1868, was a seminal American intellectual and socialist civil rights activist who co-founded both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP, also authoring texts such as Black Reconstruction in America.

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Big Bill Haywood, born on this day in 1869, was a founding member of the IWW. The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!

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Oscar Romero was a left-wing activist assassinated by right-wing goons on this day in 1980. A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin...​what of gospel is that? - Oscar Romero

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On this day in 1966, undercover L.A. cops raided the Black Cat Tavern when celebrating queer patrons kissed each other at midnight. 2 of the arrested were forced to register as sex offenders; SCOTUS declined to hear their case on appeal.

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Mark Twain, born on this day in 1835, was an American author and anti-imperialist. Initially supportive of U.S. imperialism, Twain changed his mind after the Spanish-American War, serving as VP of the American Anti-Imperialist League.

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Richard D. Wolff, born on this day in 1942, is a Marxist economist and author who co-founded Democracy at Work and hosts Economic Update, a weekly series which discusses political and economic issues from a Marxist perspective.

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On this day in 2001, Italian police raided a school occupied by anti-globalization protesters and journalists, beating and torturing hundreds in what Amnesty International called the worst European human rights violation since WWII.

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Thich Quang Đuc was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who, on this day in 1963, burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the West-backed dictatorship of Ngo Đinh Diem.

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On this day in 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. She made more than dozen missions to rescue upwards of seventy enslaved people, including family and friends, using the resistance network known as the Underground Railroad.

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Henry Glover (1974 - 2005) was a resident of Louisiana who was murdered by New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officer David Warren on this day in 2005. Officers attempted to cover up the murder by burning his corpse and car.

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Harvey Bernard Milk, born on this day in 1930, was an American politician and the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, where he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

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On this day in 2012, police shot and killed two workers striking at an Israeli-billionaire owned mine in the Kono District of east Sierra Leone. Miners had walked out against non-payment of bonuses and racist treatment.

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On this day in 1159 BC, the first recorded strike in history began when necropolis workers in Ancient Egypt refused to continue working after going 18 days without pay.

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On this day in 1973, democratically elected Marxist Chilean president Salvador Allende was ousted in a fascist, U.S.-backed coup led by Augusto Pinochet. He died the same day of a gunshot wound to the head, likely by suicide.

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Joe Hill, born on this day in 1879, was a Swedish-American labor organizer, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1915, he was convicted of murder in a controversial trial and executed by the state.

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On this day in 1955, civil rights activist Rosa Parks rejected a bus driver's order to relinquish her seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. Although the NAACP bailed her out of jail, both Parks and her husband lost their jobs.

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Michael Parenti, born on this day in 1933, is a Marxist American political scientist and cultural critic, known for works such as Inventing Reality and Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism.

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The Catonsville Nine were a group of Catholic activists who, on this day in 1968, seized 378 draft files from a local draft board, dumped them in the parking lot, burned them with homemade napalm, and were promptly arrested by police.

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On this day in 1919, the Bogalusa Sawmill Killings took place in Thibodaux, Louisiana, a massacre of black labor organizers and their white allies by the white supremacist paramilitary Self-Preservation and Loyalty League (SPLL).

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Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born on this day in 1918, was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary communist who served as President the African National Congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997 and of South Africa itself from 1994 to 1999.

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On this day in 1924, Bissau-Guinean revolutionary communist and freedom fighter Amilcar Cabral was born. He led the guerilla group PAIGC in fighting against Portuguese colonizers from 1963 until his assassination in 1973.

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Nina Simone, born on this day in 1933, was an American singer, pianist, composer, and civil rights activist, known for songs such as Mississippi Goddam and Four Women. It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girl's talk.

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Mark Ashton, born on this day in 1960, was a British communist, gay rights activist, and co-founder of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) group. He passed away from an AIDS-related illness at the age of 26.

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On this day in 1985, the French government, in an act of state-sponsored terror, bombed the Greenpeace-operated boat Rainbow Warrior, which was en route to protest a nuclear weapons test planned by the French state.

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On this day in 1996, the largest pro-children rally in U.S. history, more than 300k strong, began in D.C., leading to the founding of Stand for Children. SFC would later accept money from American oligarchs and fight teachers' unions.

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James Connolly, born on this day in 1868, was an Irish socialist revolutionary and founder of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), noted for his leadership in the Easter Rising rebellion, for which he was executed by the British government.

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Today is the anniversary of the CIA-led and United Fruit Company-supported coup d'etat in Guatemala, ousting land reformer and democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz, installing anti-communist tyrant Castillo Armas in his place.

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The Paris Commune was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that formed in Paris on this day in 1871, existing for just a few months before being defeated by the French National Army on May 21st that year.

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