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.
November
1st November 1872 Susan B. Anthony Registers to Vote
Today we recall an extraordinary episode in the long struggle for women’s suffrage in America, when Susan B. Anthony – one of the movement’s leading lights – launched a bid for the right to vote so clever and audacious it … Continue reading
2nd November 1917 Balfour Lights the Fuse
Ninety-four years ago today, Lord Balfour – British foreign secretary and former prime minister – lit the fuse of an almighty powder keg when he wrote to the financier Lord Rothschild, Britain’s most influential Jew: “His Majesty’s Government views with … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 1 Comment
3rd November 1793 the Death of Olympe de Gouges
Today we pay tribute to Olympe de Gouges – the extraordinary French writer and reformer, whose trailblazing convictions led her to the scaffold two hundred and eighteen years ago on this day where she was executed by guillotine at the height … Continue reading
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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
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4th November 1994 the Death of Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith
Today we pay homage to Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, rhythm guitarist and songwriter with the revolutionary ‘60s Detroit band MC5: a Visionary Motherfucker who died of ill health at the age of just forty-five. More tragically, Sonic’s MC5 career (and role … 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
Posted in Revolution 1 Comment
6th November 1990 the Women “Drivers” of Saudi Arabia
Twenty-one years ago today, forty-seven 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
7th November 1913 the Death of Alfred Russel Wallace
How and why do species change? Why do some occur in some places, but not in others? Why do they die out? These big questions didn’t scare intrepid British explorer, biologist and geographer Alfred Russel Wallace, who died ninety-seven years … Continue reading
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8th November 1923 Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch
Eighty-eight years ago today, Adolf Hitler – a full decade before actually seizing power – led his young Munich-based Nazi Party in an audacious yet disastrous attempt to force armed revolution upon chaotic post-WW1 Germany, when 600 Nazi stormtroopers gate-crashed … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, World Events 1 Comment
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
Posted in Revolution, World Events 5 Comments
10th November 1891 the Death of Arthur Rimbaud
Today we recall the nineteenth-century visionary outsider poet, Arthur Rimbaud – whose brilliant but slender volume of work produced in a mere handful of years is often overshadowed by his magnificently adventurous and lawless life. The legend of Rimbaud centres … Continue reading
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11th November 1918 Armistice Day
Ninety-three years ago today, the signing of the Armistice in a railway carriage in France’s Compiegne Forest, by the Allied Commander-in-Chief Marshall Foch and Germany’s representative Matthias Erzberger, signaled the end of World War One and the complete defeat of … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 5 Comments
12th November 1989 the Death of La Pasionaria
Today we recall the “Spanish Joan of Arc”, Dolores Ibárruri – better known the world over by her revolutionary name, La Pasionaria (the Passion Flower) – who died twenty-two years ago at the age of 93. Dolores Ibárruri achieved meteoric … Continue reading
13th November 1949 The Birth of the AK-47
Sixty-four years ago today, Mikhail Kalashnikov completed his development of the AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle – an invention so reliable, so easy and inexpensive to manufacture and so serviceable that the way was opened up for post-war freedom fighters finally … Continue reading
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14th November 1817 the Death of Policarpa Salavarrieta
The history of nineteenth-century female revolutionaries unsurprisingly mirrors women’s subjugated status of that century… if their stories are not consigned to mere footnotes or entirely suppressed, they are usually documented as embarrassing radical lunatics – the glory of the heroic freedom … Continue reading
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15th November 1998 the Death of Stokely Carmichael
Today we honour the civil rights leader, revolutionary and firebrand, Stokely Carmichael, who died from cancer thirteen years ago on this day at the age of 57. Carmichael was catapulted to worldwide fame overnight in June 1966 when, at a … 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
Posted in Revolution, World Events 5 Comments
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
Posted in Anarchists, Heroes, Revolution 1 Comment
18th November 1978 the Jonestown Massacre
Today we lament the tragic “revolutionary suicides” in Jonestown, Guyana of over 900 brainwashed victims of the Reverend Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple. Originally based in San Francisco, the enigmatic, almost rock star-like Jones had for decades held his dysfunctional congregation … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities 1 Comment
19th November 1915 the Death of Joe Hill
Today we pay tribute to the legendary labour organiser, protest songwriter and folk hero, Joe Hill, executed ninety-six years ago in Utah following a notorious and highly controversial murder trial. A prominent and much-loved member of radical trade unionists the … Continue reading
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20th November 1936 the Death of Buenaventura Durruti
Today we remember the inspirational life of the anarchist military leader, Buenaventura Durruti, who died 75 years ago in a mysterious and hotly disputed shooting accident. For although his death occurred a mere four months into the Spanish Civil War, … Continue reading
Posted in Anarchists, Heroes 2 Comments
21st November 1927 the First Columbine Massacre
Seventy-two years before the infamous 1999 Columbine Massacre – in which two teenage students shot and killed 13 people at their high school – there was another massacre to bear the same name that has all but disappeared into the … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities 1 Comment
22nd November 1990 Thatcher Resigns
Twenty-one years ago today, Margaret Thatcher ran crying from 10 Downing Street to a waiting car, having just announced her resignation as Prime Minister of Britain after being forced out of the leadership of the Conservative Party by her own … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 13 Comments
23rd November 1936 Robert Johnson Lays It Down
Seventy-five years ago today, the legendary bluesman, Robert Johnson, made his recording debut in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas – one of only two recording sessions he would make in his short life, but whose … Continue reading
Posted in Heroes, World Events 1 Comment
24th November 1859 Charles Darwin Publishes ‘On The Origin Of Species’
Today we’re looking back 152 years to November 24th 1859 and the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Although few of you reading this will be unaware of the significance of this remarkable book, it is worth … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 1 Comment
25th November
As there is no event to recognise today, I’ll take the opportunity to urge all parents with teenage children to direct them to – or, at least, share with them the concepts of – Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, in … Continue reading
Posted in Dissent 2 Comments
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
Posted in Revolution, World Events 2 Comments
27th November 1868 the Death of Black Kettle
Today we lament the death of Black Kettle, chief of the Southern Cheyenne, killed 143 years ago when Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led the 7th Cavalry in a surprise dawn attack against the sleeping Cheyenne camp – massacring over … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities, Heroes 5 Comments
28th November 2001 The Collapse of Enron
The collapse of US energy and trading conglomerate, Enron, played out over several months in 2001 but we choose to note its passing today. For it was on November 28th, 2001 that the scale of the deceit and fraud perpetrated … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 1 Comment
29th November 1968 John & Yoko Release “Two Virgins”
Today we commemorate the anniversary of the UK release of Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins – the first artistic collaboration between John and Yoko – for whom, as the Romeo and Juliet of their time, no surnames are required. Eighteen … Continue reading
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30th November 1718 the Death of Charles XII of Sweden
We today commemorate – with wonder, awe and several mega-caveats – the brief bizarre life and equally bizarre death, of Sweden’s controversial King Charles XII, who met death exactly 299 years ago, during his second invasion of Norway. That Charles’ skull … Continue reading
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30th November 1994 The Revolutionary Suicide of Guy Debord
On the evening of November 30th 1994, in the remote French village of Champot, revolutionary and avant-gardist Guy Debord enacted his final spectacle of deconstruction when he shot himself through the heart. He was 62. For the prime mover of … Continue reading
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