About This Blog
An alternative "On This Day", On This Deity aims to bring light to and celebrate Culture Heroes, Outsider Icons, Beloved Immortals and Revolutionary Events in history.
Dissent
17th December 2010 The Self-Immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi
What a magic carpet ride it’s been in recent years for our brothers and sisters in North Africa and the Middle East. Egypt’s Mubarak-led police state deposed, Libya’s mad dog Gaddafi fittingly gunned down in a sewer. And the struggle … Continue reading
3rd November 1918 The Kiel Mutiny
Following the stalemate that resulted from the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the German surface fleet was trapped in its home bases whilst only the U-boats continued a losing battle against allied shipping. By the autumn of 1918 the Imperial German … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events Leave a comment
28th July 1968 the Founding of the American Indian Movement
From the first contact with their invaders, American Indians have striven to be treated with the respect deserving of an indigenous, sovereign and culturally distinct nation. In turn, they’ve faced overt attempts by their conquerors at removal, forced assimilation and … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events 1 Comment
23 July 1967 the Detroit Riot
Forty-five years ago today, the Detroit police raided an after-hours bar in the city’s poor black ghetto where 80 people were celebrating the return of two African American soldiers from the Vietnam War. Typically in such raids, the cops would … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Dissent 2 Comments
21st June 1877 the Molly Maguires’ Day of the Rope
On 21st June 1877, in the anthracite-mining county of Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, ten Irish immigrant men alleged to have been members of an oath-bound secret sect of vigilantes called the Molly Maguires were hanged in what came to be known as … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Dissent 5 Comments
13th June 1381 the Peasants’ Revolt
On this day in 1381, 20,000 peasants and townsmen from Kent and Essex stormed into London, led by John Ball an itinerant priest and Wat Tyler a craftsman. They had come to present the young King Richard II with a … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Heroes, Revolution 1 Comment
7th June 1893 Gandhi’s First Act of Civil Disobedience
One hundred and nineteen years ago today, the twentieth century’s most famous non-violent revolutionary, Mohandas Gandhi, committed his first act of civil disobedience when the then 24-year-old Indian lawyer was forcibly ejected from a train at South Africa’s Pietermaritzburg Railway … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 3 Comments
4th June 1989 the Tiananmen Square Massacre
In the early hours of the morning on June 4th 1989, the Chinese military began a brutal crackdown of the protest movement that had seen up to 100,000 people camped out in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for more than a month. … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Dissent 2 Comments
2nd June 1780 the Gordon Riots
On this day in 1780, London was rocked by the biggest and most dramatic riots in British history. There was more damage to property than Paris suffered during the French Revolution, leaving hundreds dead, hundreds more wounded, and dozens of … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 3 Comments
27th May 1980 the Kwangju Massacre
Today we lament the brutal suppression of the Kwangju Democratisation Movement. Ten days earlier, the citizens of the liberal South Korean city of Kwangju joined a student-led uprising in opposition to the illegitimate authoritarian rule of General Chun Doo-hwan. In response, … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Dissent, World Events 6 Comments
10th May 1857 the Great Indian Rebellion
One hundred and fifty-six years ago today in Meerut, three infantry regiments of Indian Sepoys turned their guns on their commanding British officers. Shouting ‘Maro phirangi ko’ (death to foreigners), they killed any European in sight, burnt the officers’ quarters, … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Revolution Leave a comment
7th May 1763 Pontiac’s Rebellion
Two hundred and fifty years ago today, one of the most significant Indian rebellions in the history of Colonial America began when a confederacy of tribes under the leadership of Chief Pontiac attacked British forces at Fort Detroit. Pontiac’s war … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Heroes, World Events 1 Comment
23rd April 1968 the Columbia University Student Protest
It was the spring of 1968, the “year that rocked the world”. In America, the anti-Vietnam movement was intensifying, stirred by the Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre. The women’s rights movement was mobilising. And Black Power and the Black … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Revolution, World Events 2 Comments
25th March 1969 John & Yoko’s Bed-In for Peace
On 25th March 1969 Yoko Ono and John Lennon staged their first ‘bed-in’ for peace. Married five days earlier in Gibraltar, the Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton – inviting the world’s press to come and interview them about … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Heroes, Heroines, World Events Leave a comment
22nd February 1943 Beheading of the White Rose
Seventy years ago today, three German students were executed by guillotine in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison for their crimes of high treason against Hitler’s Third Reich. Just four days earlier, 24-year-old Hans Scholl and his 21-year-old sister Sophie were arrested after … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Heroes, Heroines 6 Comments
3rd February 1787 Shays’ Rebellion
Today we consider Shays’ Rebellion – otherwise known as “the American Revolution’s Final Battle” – which very nearly led to America’s first civil war. This major grassroots uprising raged for six months and shared much in common with the ideologies that … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 2 Comments
9th January 1996 The Third Battle of Newbury
On 9th January 1996 the bulldozers and chainsaws moved in to clear the route of the Newbury bypass. This nine-mile stretch of Berkshire countryside had been under threat since a public inquiry in 1988 approved the building of a four-lane … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events 2 Comments
20th December 1973 Operation Ogre
Thirty-nine years ago today, Spain moved a significant step closer to liberation from its protracted state of fascistic tyranny when General Francisco Franco’s named political successor – the recently appointed prime minister, Luis Carrero Blanco, otherwise known as “the Ogre” … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events 7 Comments
16th December 1773 The Boston Tea Party
At nine o’clock on the night of 16th December 1773, a group of angry Bostonians – thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians and armed with tomahawks – boarded three British ships anchored at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston harbour. Urged on by thousands … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Revolution 3 Comments
12th December 1982 Greenham Common Peace Women ‘Embrace the Base’
The 12th December 1982 was cold. Not really the kind of day to be hanging about outside unless there is something you really have to do. But there was something that I and thousands of other women really, really … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Heroines 6 Comments
10th December 1907 The Brown Dog Riots
It can be surprising to discover that the largest, most controversial and violent riot in Britain concerning the emotive issue of animal rights occurred not in recent years, but in 1907. And the most vociferous and heated protagonists were not … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 5 Comments
9th December 1987 The First Intifada
Today we mark the beginning of the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987. Various end dates are cited, usually falling between the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Mehola Junction bombing of 1993, but arguably the conditions and enmities created … Continue reading
3rd December 1854 The Eureka Stockade
The history of Australia shares many key similarities with America – colonialisation, multi-cultural settlement and genocidal atrocities meted out on its indigenous peoples. But colonial Australia, unlike America, was not distinguished by legendary rebellions and revolution. In fact, the event we … Continue reading
6th November 1990 the Women “Drivers” of Saudi Arabia
Twenty-two years ago today, 47 women staged a remarkable protest against Saudi Arabia’s unwritten “law of convention” prohibiting women from driving – the only country in the world to violate this basic human right of freedom of movement. In a … Continue reading
24th October 2005 the Death of Rosa Parks
Today we pay tribute to the inspirational Rosa Parks – one of the most prominent African American women in history – who died seven years ago aged 92. Rosa’s extraordinary act of civil disobedience – when, on 1st December 1955, she … Continue reading
8th October 1969 the Weathermen’s Days of Rage
Forty-three years ago today, the Weathermen – the newly-formed militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) – attempted to “Bring the War Home” with a no-holds-barred direct action in Chicago, surreptitiously billed “Days of Rage”. The intent was … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, Revolution 2 Comments
24th September 1969 the Chicago Conspiracy Trial
Forty-three years ago today marked the beginning of the infamous and so-called Chicago Conspiracy Trial – the most highly publicised showcase for the opposing political, cultural and generational ideologies that divided America during its explosive Vietnam years. Accused of conspiring to … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events 3 Comments
16th September 1920 the First Wall Street Bombing
Ninety-two years ago today, a bedraggled horse-drawn wagon made its way along Wall Street in Lower Manhattan – which had recently eclipsed London as the financial centre of the world – and stopped directly in front of its then-most powerful totem, … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events 6 Comments
9th September 1971 the Attica State Prison Riot
Forty-one years ago today, the white authorities of Attica State prison in the so-called liberal state of New York – desperate to restore some semblance of order amongst the concentration camp-like conditions they’d imposed upon their primarily Afro-American inmates – … Continue reading
4th September 1949 the Peekskill Riots
When I was twelve years old, I discovered that my best friend Liz’s grandmother had, throughout her adult life, enjoyed a decades-long love affair with Paul Robeson. Singer, scholar, Hollywood actor, Broadway star, even political activist – Paul Robeson was … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent, World Events Leave a comment
21st August 1831 Nat Turner’s Rebellion
One hundred and eighty-one years ago today, Nat Turner – a slave and lay preacher from Virginia – calmly explained to six of his fellow slaves that the moment had come for him not only to lead his people out … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 3 Comments
17th August 1963 the Execution of Delgado & Granados
Forty-eight years ago today, two young Spanish anarchists were executed by General Franco’s obscene regime for a Passport Office bombing of which they had no knowledge, while the real perpetrators slipped quietly away. Despite the absence of any evidence of … Continue reading
Posted in Anarchists, Dissent 1 Comment
16th August 1819 The Peterloo Massacre
One hundred and ninety-three years ago today, during a pro-democracy rally in Manchester’s St. Peter’s Field, utter bloody carnage fell upon the peaceful protestors when the local yeomanry set about the crowd of 60,000 with sabres drawn, trampling and hacking … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Dissent, World Events 5 Comments
11th August 1958 the Dockum Sit-In
Fifty-four years ago today on 11th August 1958, the owner of Kansas’s state-wide Rexall drugstores walked into Dockum’s, his flagship store in downtown Wichita. Observing a group of young black students sitting peacefully at the lunch counter, after several minutes of … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent Leave a comment
2nd August 1943 The Treblinka Revolt
When people wonder how millions of Holocaust victims went to their deaths without resisting, they display a total ignorance of the impeccable organisation, military might and web of deception behind the Nazi’s Final Solution. While there were multiple ghetto uprisings … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 10 Comments