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.
Revolution
1st January 1804 The Black Jacobins and the Haitian Revolution
On New Year’s Day in 1804, Haiti proclaimed its independence: After ten years of struggle, an army of former slaves led by their charismatic leader Toussaint L’Ouverture had fought the French and British to a standstill. After the British colonies … Continue reading
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26th July 1953 the Birth of the 26th of July Movement
Today we recall the most revered date in Cuba’s history. For it was on this day, 26th July 1953, that Fidel Castro led the failed attack against the corrupt Fulgencio Batista dictatorship that would ultimately give its name and serve … Continue reading
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14th July 1789 the Storming of the Bastille
Today we celebrate, though not without a small note of reservation, the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on this day in 1789. Commemorated with a public holiday in France, Bastille Day has come to mark the beginning of The … Continue reading
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27th June 1905 the Founding of the Industrial Workers of the World
It is late June 2011 as I write this. The news media – on the rare occasions it’s not discussing the sex lives of professional sportsmen – offers us a running commentary on an Arab Spring, now turned summer. We’re … Continue reading
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16th June 1836 the Class War Begins
One hundred and seventy-five years ago today, a group of working-class radicals founded an organisation that would turn the world upside down. The London Working Men’s Association would be responsible for the key radical demands that were incorporated into the … Continue reading
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15th June 1962 the Port Huron Statement
Forty-nine years ago today, a small group of American students authored a mission statement that would serve as the defining document of the revolutionary 1960s. We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed in universities, … Continue reading
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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
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10th June 1988 the Singing Revolution
Twenty-three years ago 10th June 1988, a crowd of 15,000 Estonians gathered at the traditional Old Town Festival spontaneously began singing their unofficial national anthem. A song which, under the Soviet yoke, they were forbidden to sing. The crowd then … Continue reading
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7th June 1893 Gandhi’s First Act of Civil Disobedience
One hundred and eighteen 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
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28th May 1871 Defeat of the Paris Commune
Today we lament the unfathomably brutal suppression of the first proletarian revolution in history, the Paris Commune. Just three months earlier, on 18th March 1871, the workers of Paris rose up, seized power from the new provisional French government, … Continue reading
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24th May 1856 the Commencement of John Brown’s Holy War
One hundred and fifty-five years ago in Kansas, on the night of 24th May 1856, a gang of seven abolitionists paid an unexpected visit to the home of militant pro-slavery advocate James Doyle. Doyle and two of his sons were … Continue reading
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13th May 1968 Paris Revolts
No other city is more synonymous with revolution than Paris. It had turned the world upside down in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871. And forty-three years ago today on 13th May 1968, its citizens – one million of them – … Continue reading
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10th May 1857 the Great Indian Rebellion
One hundred and fifty-four 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
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9th May 1976 the Revolutionary Suicide of Ulrike Meinhof
“How can stupidity invade intelligence?” asked Ulrike Meinhof of post-war West Germany’s fascistic, imperialistic and increasingly capitalistic policies of betrayal. Since her death thirty-five years ago on this day at the age of forty-one, we’ve been asking that very … Continue reading
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3rd May 1849 the May Uprising in Dresden
One hundred and sixty-two years ago today, the May Uprising in Dresden began – the final insurrection in a revolutionary wave that had been sweeping across nearly all of Europe in the wake of and inspired by the French Revolution … Continue reading
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29th April 1916 the Easter Rising
On the 29th April 1916 poet, teacher and revolutionary, Pádraig Pearse, issued the following statement from a beseiged building on Dublin’s Moore Street, In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the … Continue reading
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25th April 1974 the Carnation Revolution
At twenty minutes past midnight on 25th April 1974, Lisbon night owls heard the unthinkable coming through their radios. “Sines, Vila Morena” was a well-known anthem to young people and intellectuals, but with lyrics extolling the virtues of brotherhood and … Continue reading
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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
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12th April 1989 the Revolutionary Suicide of Abbie Hoffman
Today we commemorate everyone’s favourite Groucho Marxist – the radical activist, Abbie Hoffman. Co-founder of the Yippies and author of Steal This Book and Revolution for the Hell of It, Hoffman was one of the most colourful and iconic figures … Continue reading
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7th April 1969 “The Birth of the Internet”
Today we wish a very happy 42nd birthday to the internet. In truth, pinning down an exact date for the birth of the internet isn’t really possible, but Wired magazine suggests today’s as good a day as any to celebrate; … Continue reading
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31st March 1970 The Yodo-Go Hijack
Forty-one years ago today occurred the all-time single-most revolutionary political act in rock’n’roll, when Moriaki Wakabayashi – bass player of Tokyo’s notorious underground legends Les Rallizes Denudés – accompanied several other members of the Japanese Red Army Faction in the armed hijack … Continue reading
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18th March 1871 the Paris Commune Begins
Today marks the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune – the first successful seizure of power by the working class. Facing Prussian invasion forces on one side and French troops mobilised not against the invaders but themselves on the … Continue reading
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8th March International Women’s Day
“Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development, and peace.” – UN Secretary General Kofi Annan” Continue reading
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27th February 1917 Czar Nicholas II Abdicates
On this day in 1917 Czar Nicholas II abdicated – marking the end of a thousand years of Romanov rule and the beginning of a chain of events that would change the course of world history. Russia had witnessed previous … Continue reading
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30th January 1649 the Execution of Charles I
Today we commemorate the execution of King Charles I of England, three hundred and sixty-three years ago, executed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell after a trial by the Rump Parliament found the king guilty of being ‘a tyrant, traitor … Continue reading
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22nd January 1905 Bloodsky Sunday
Today is the 107th anniversary of one of the defining events of the 20th Century, for it marks the precise moment when a seismic shift occurred that would end Russia’s seemingly unassailable dynastical certainties – setting the stage for the … Continue reading
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16th January 1968 the Release of Blue Cheer’s VINCEBUS ERUPTUM
Let us today pay tribute to Blue Cheer’s astounding debut LP VINCEBUS ERUPTUM, their teenage master class in colossally loud avant-garde guitar dynamics released exactly forty-three years ago and arguably the first rock album genuinely deserving of the description ‘Heavy … Continue reading
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15th January 1919 the Murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
The murder of revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on 15th January 1919 at the hands of the proto-Nazi Freikorps marked the end of the Spartacist Week – the failed workers’ uprising in Berlin. Incredibly their murder was ordered … Continue reading
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1st January 1994 The Zapatista Uprising
Seventeen years ago today, as Mexico’s ruling class celebrated the New Year and the inauguration of an agreement with the USA that they hoped would propel them into the “First World”, more than 3,000 indigenous Mayan Indian guerrillas came down … Continue reading
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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
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14th December 1825 The Decembrist Revolt
Today marks the anniversary of the Decembrist Rising – a short-lived revolt of officers in the Czarist army in 1825. In many respects doomed to failure, the revolt has a historic significance that outweighs the actual events and marks … Continue reading
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26th November 1976 ‘Anarchy In the UK’ Released
Today we celebrate the release of the Sex Pistols’ debut 7” single ‘Anarchy in the UK’ which caused a public outcry when it first appeared thirty-five years ago, and heralded the entire regeneration of ‘70s rock’n’roll. A riotous wake-up call … Continue reading
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17th November 1947 the Death of Victor Serge
Today in 1947, the life-long revolutionary Victor Serge collapsed and died in Mexico City at the age of 57. His health had broken down after many years spent in prison and imposed exile under regimes of various nationalities and … Continue reading
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16th November 1938 Albert Hofmann Synthesizes LSD
Today is quite an anniversary for psychedelic culture. Exactly two years ago the world lost one of its most remarkable visionary painters, the Peruvian Pablo Amaringo, whose art documented his shamanic ayahuasca visions. Thirty-eight years ago saw the death of … Continue reading
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9th November 1989 the Collapse of the Berlin Wall
Today we remember one of the most momentous world events of the second half of the twentieth century: the collapse of the Berlin Wall – that 90-mile-long boundary between two opposing ideologies that divided a city in half and completely … Continue reading
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5th November 1605 Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
Today we commemorate Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which several important English Catholics – led by Sir Robert Catesby – attempted to assassinate the recently crowned King James I, by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during its … Continue reading
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30th October 1968 Trans-Love Energies’ Zenta New Year
Today we celebrate one of the most incendiary events in rock’n’roll history. Forty-three years ago, within the hallowed walls of Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, the MC5 ignited the Zenta New Year. Cosmically calculated by the Five’s Trans-Love Energies commune to signify … Continue reading
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25th October 1917 the Bolshevik “October Revolution”
Today is the anniversary of Phase Two of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Just eight months earlier, Tsar Nicholas II’s regime had been deposed and replaced by a Provisional Government – but the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in … Continue reading
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23rd October 1956 the Hungarian Revolution
Today marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – the first major anti-Soviet uprising in Eastern Europe and the first armed battle to occur between socialist states. It began spontaneously on the morning of 23rd October when 20,000 students … Continue reading
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22nd October 1899 Sigmund Freud publishes “The Interpretation of Dreams”
Today we’re stepping back 112 years to the Autumn of 1899. To the day when a small academic printing-press in Vienna produced two advance copies of a book that was to herald a cultural revolution. A book that initially … Continue reading
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18th October 1977 the Revolutionary Suicides of Baader and Ensslin
Today we celebrate the twin revolutionary suicides of Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin – co-leaders of Germany’s nihilistic Baader-Meinhof Gang – whose bloody and murderous exploits throughout the 1970s – made as part of Europe and Asia’s larger unhomogenised terrorist … Continue reading
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16th October 1859 John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry in northern Virginia, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, was chosen in 1794 by George Washington to be the site of the United States Federal Armory. And it was here one hundred and … Continue reading
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15th October 1966 the Founding of the Black Panther Party
Forty-five years ago today, in the Anti-Poverty Center in North Oakland, California, two young black American activists composed a “10-Point Program” as a blueprint for their envisaged revolution. Subtitled “What We Want and What We Believe”, this (literal) call-to-arms represented a … Continue reading
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9th October 1967 The Martyrdom of Che Guevara
Forty-four years ago today, the CIA had Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara murdered in the jungles of Bolivia – the heroic exploits of this Latin American Warrior Poet and future World Prophet having, again & again, rendered the US Government’s many undercover … Continue reading
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8th October 1969 the Weathermen’s Days of Rage
Forty-two 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
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5th October 1789 the Women’s March on Versailles
Two hundred and twenty-two years ago today, an angry mob of some 7,000 working women – armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets – marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines, Revolution 7 Comments