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.
July
1st July 1876 the Death of Mikhail Bakunin
Today we contemplate the extraordinary life and legacy of Mikhail Bakunin, the revolutionary colossus and leading spirit of 19th-century anarchism who – one hundred and thirty-six years ago today – died in poverty and defeat at the age of sixty-two. Out-manoeuvred and … Continue reading
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2nd July 1940 the Sinking of the Arandora Star
Today marks the anniversary of the sinking of the Arandora Star – the killing of hundreds of people due to the British government’s callous disregard of their welfare simply because of their nationality. It also demonstrated the common humanity and … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, World Events 10 Comments
3rd July 1971 the Death of Jim Morrison
Today we honour that great poet and masterful singer, Jim Morrison, whose life was taken from him forty-one years ago today as he lay sleeping in his bath. He packed the life of an adventurous seventy-year-old into his twenty-seven short … Continue reading
4th July 1980 the Death of Gregory Bateson
There is no shortage of events to remember on July 4th. So I’m extremely pleased that On This Deity finds room today to celebrate the life and commemorate the death of Gregory Bateson. The first time I encountered Gregory Bateson’s … Continue reading
Posted in Heroes 6 Comments
5th July 1833 the Death of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
Look at the camera and say ‘cheese’ and ‘thank you’ to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who died on this day in 1833, for it was Niépce who changed the way we view the world. Born in France 1765 into a middle-class family Niépce … Continue reading
6th July 1934 the Death of Nestor Makhno
Today we recall the Ukrainian revolutionary leader, Nestor Makhno, who died seventy-seven years ago on this day in poverty, illness and oblivion. Fellow exiles who’d watched Makhno drink and cough himself to death in the slums of Paris could scarcely … Continue reading
Posted in Anarchists, Heroes 1 Comment
7th July 2006 the Death of Syd Barrett
Today we pay tribute to the legendary Syd Barrett, erstwhile leader of the Pink Floyd and Psychedelic Frontiersman # 1, who quit this planet six years ago after decades of reclusive living and battles with mental illness.
Posted in Heroes 16 Comments
8th July 1822 the Death of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Today we lament the tragically early death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned when his schooner sank in a sudden violent storm in the Gulf of Spezia. He was twenty-nine years old. Ten days later, his body washed ashore and, in … Continue reading
Posted in Heroes 5 Comments
9th July 1977 the Death of Alice Paul
At the onset of the second decade of the twentieth century, the American women’s suffrage movement was floundering. Despite non-stop crusading since 1848 and the monumental efforts of pioneers such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by 1910 … Continue reading
10th July 1985 the Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
On July 10th 1985, French intelligence agents acting under direct orders of President François Miterrand bombed the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour to prevent its protest voyage to the nuclear testing site of Moruroa in French Polynesia. The French … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, World Events 1 Comment
11th July 1954 “In God We Trust”
On 11th July 1954, the U.S. Congress enacted Public Law 84-140, which decreed that “In God We Trust” would henceforth appear on all American currency. This pious new motto was a direct violation of the First Amendment. The separation of … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 5 Comments
11th July 1960 Harper Lee Publishes To Kill A Mockingbird
“…Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked … Continue reading
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12th July 1936 the Murder of Jose Castillo
At 9.30pm on 12th July 1936, José Castillo – a Spanish lieutenant in the governing Republic’s special police Guardia de Asalto and a high-profile anti-fascist – left his house in Madrid to walk to work. When he reached the corner, a … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 1 Comment
13th July 1954 the Death of Frida Kahlo
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” …and Frida’s reality was a lifetime of extreme physical pain and tortuous suffering, punctuated with a tempestuous emotional turbulence. Artist Frida Kahlo … 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
Posted in Revolution, World Events 2 Comments
15th July 1907 the Martyrdom of Qiu Jin
Today we pay tribute to the extraordinary Chinese poetess, radical women’s rights leader and revolutionary, Qiu Jin – executed one hundred and eight years ago on this day at the age of 31. At the turn of the twentieth century, while Qiu’s … Continue reading
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16th July 1945 the Manhattan Project
At half past five on the morning of July 16th 1945, The Gadget exploded and the whole world shook. Three square miles of desert sand was melted into glass. A mushroom cloud rose almost 8 miles into the sky and … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, World Events 3 Comments
17th July 1946 the Execution of Draza Mihailovic
Today, we make brief note of the execution sixty-six years ago of the notorious Serbian Chetnik leader – General Dragoljub ‘Draža’ Mihailović – for war crimes and collaboration with the Nazis and Italians during the Second World War. Rejected at the end … Continue reading
Posted in Curiosities 2 Comments
18th July 1988 the Death of Nico
“I’m flying to Ibiza. It’s my favourite place, and I think I’ll die there.” And twenty-four years ago today, Nico fulfilled her own prophecy after a fatal bicycle fall on the Spanish island she loved so much. She was 49. … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines 2 Comments
19th July 1850 the Death of Margaret Fuller
One hundred and sixty-one years ago today, pioneering feminist, Transcendentalist leader, freethinker and intellectual giant Margaret Fuller drowned tragically when an Italian cargo ship carrying her and her family struck a sandbar just fifty yards off the coast of New … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines 2 Comments
20th July 1923 the Murder of Pancho Villa
Today we make note of the splendidly awful murder of that outrageous Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa eighty-eight years ago, whose bulging-eyed corpse – exploded by nine fatal bullets – was left upside down hanging out of his trashed Dodge automobile, … Continue reading
Posted in Curiosities 4 Comments
21st July 1969 “One Giant Leap For Mankind”
Forty-three years ago today – and just sixty-seven years after the very first piloted aircraft flight – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to walk on the moon. Or so it is claimed.
Posted in World Events 14 Comments
22nd July 2005 the Murder of Jean Charles de Menezes
Today we remember one of the great miscarriages of British justice of the present time, in which the British police – indeed the Metropolitan police, those paragons of English authority whose collective beats are more international and mutli-cultural than probably … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, World Events 3 Comments
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
24th July
Nought to write about on this day. I’ll leave you instead with something to ponder from proto-feminist and beloved ancestor, John Stuart Mill: “In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized 1 Comment
25th July 2001 the Death of Phoolan Devi
She was born a low-caste “untouchable”. By the time she was twenty, she’d been raped so many times she’d lost count. But she would rise from abuse, poverty and degradation to avenge her honour and become a champion of women’s … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines 8 Comments
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 serve as the namesake and inspiration … Continue reading
Posted in Revolution 4 Comments
27th July 1945 Labour’s Landslide Victory
Today in 1945 the British people awoke to the headlines that they had a socialist government. When parliament later reconvened, the newly elected Labour MPs stood to sing the ‘Red Flag’. To generations of us who have since come to … Continue reading
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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
29th July 1890 the Suicide of Vincent van Gogh
On 27 July 1890, Vincent van Gogh, an unkempt, unknown 37-year-old Dutchman, walked out of his lodgings in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, where he had been living and working since May. That day instead of his … Continue reading
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30th July 2006 the Death of Murray Bookchin
Today we pay tribute to one of the great revolutionary thinkers of the twentieth century – social critic, anarchist, utopian and eco-pioneer, Murray Bookchin – who died six years ago aged 85. For twenty-five years, he was the most prominent American proponent … Continue reading
Posted in Anarchists, Heroes 2 Comments
31st July
Nought to report on this day. Instead, here’s something for you to chew on: “Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized 3 Comments