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.
October
1st October
A tribute to activist and Green heroine, Petra Kelly, will appear here shortly.
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2nd October 1947 the Death of P.D. Ouspensky
Today we pay our respects to the Russian philosopher, teacher and esotericist, P.D. Ouspensky, who died sixty-five years ago on this day. Indisputably brilliant in his own right, Ouspensky is nevertheless best remembered because of another man’s brilliance. For despite … Continue reading
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2nd October 1958 the Death of Marie Stopes
“I have some things to say about sex, which, so far as I am aware, have not yet been said … things which seem to me to be of profound importance to men and women who hope to make their … Continue reading
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3rd October 1873 the Death of Kintpuash
Today we remember the Native American chief of the Modoc tribe, Kintpuash – known by his foes as “Captain Jack” – hanged by the United States army one hundred and thirty-nine years ago today in retribution for killing an American … Continue reading
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4th October 1798 the Publication of Lyrical Ballads
Two hundred and thirteen years ago today, the English Romantic era was launched with the publication of Lyrical Ballads – the seminal collection of poems, mainly by William Wordsworth but with four (key) contributions from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In Wordsworth’s … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 1 Comment
5th October 1789 the Women’s March on Versailles
Two hundred and twenty-three years ago today, an angry mob of 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 the … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines, Revolution 14 Comments
6th October
I’ve abandoned the entry I’d planned for today because, in context with the others, it wasn’t sufficiently revolutionary. So, until tomorrow, here’s something to think about: “If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you analyze the … Continue reading
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7th October 1955 Ginsberg’s First Reading of “Howl”
Fifty-seven years ago today, a behemoth of incomparable significance occurred that would restore poetry to its rightful cultural position, crystallise the voice of a discontented generation and launch a revolutionary literary movement that set the bar for the explosive 1960s … Continue reading
Posted in World Events 10 Comments
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
9th October 1967 The Martyrdom of Che Guevara
Forty-five 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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10th October 1837 the Death of Charles Fourier
Today we pay tribute to Charles Fourier – the French utopian socialist, radical philosopher and eccentric visionary – who died one hundred and seventy-five years ago. One of the earliest feminists, and a male at that, Fourier originated the word féminisme … Continue reading
11th October 1649 the Sack of Wexford
Today we pay tribute to the 1,500 Irish civilians murdered by rampaging English Parliamentarian forces, during Oliver Cromwell’s controversial siege of the Irish port of Wexford, on this day 353 years ago. Many drowned whilst attempting to escape across the … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities 2 Comments
12th October 1492 Christopher Columbus “Discovers America”
At 2am on October 12th 1492, a sailor aboard the Pinta by the name of Rodrigo de Triana shouted, “Tierra! Tierra!” For his sighting of land, he should have received a yearly pension for the rest of his life. … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities 8 Comments
13th October 1909 the Execution of Francisco Ferrer
The execution of Catalan anarchist and educator Francisco Ferrer, 103 years ago today, was not punishment for the crime of which he had been accused. That the charges against him were fabricated is not in any doubt. Rather, his execution … Continue reading
Posted in Anarchists, Heroes 2 Comments
14th October 1066 The Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest
The British Isles has a long history of invaders: Angles, Danes, Saxons, Vikings. But on 28th September 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, landed at Pevensey in Sussex, an invasion force on this scale had not occurred since the Romans … Continue reading
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15th October 1966 the Founding of the Black Panther Party
Forty-six 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
Posted in Revolution 4 Comments
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 fifty-three … Continue reading
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16th October 1902 the Revolutionary Suicide of Ida Craddock
A tribute to Ida Craddock – mystic visionary, secular free-thinker and sex-education revolutionary – will appear here shortly.
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17th October 1961 The ’61 Paris Pogrom
On the 17th of October 1961, just seventeen years after he had expelled nearly 1,600 French Jews to concentration camps to the East, the former Nazi collaborator, Maurice Papon – obscenely and most bizarrely placed as Prefect of the Paris … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities 1 Comment
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
Posted in Revolution 2 Comments
19th October 1943 the Death of Camille Claudel
Today we pay tribute to the brilliant Camille Claudel – widely considered to be the most gifted female sculptor the world has ever known. Her extraordinary achievements have nevertheless been eclipsed by her notorious relationship with Auguste Rodin. While her … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines 8 Comments
20th October 1926 the Death of Eugene V. Debs
Today we pay tribute to Eugene Victor Debs – the most prominent proponent of socialism ever to emerge from the United States. A candidate for president five times under the banner of the Socialist Party of America, under Debs’s leadership socialism … Continue reading
Posted in Heroes 3 Comments
21st October 1966 The Aberfan Disaster
Forty-five years ago today, 116 children from the South Wales village of Aberfan were suffocated in their classrooms, buried alive – just yards from their parents’ homes – by a forty-feet-high avalanche of liquefied coal waste that swept down the … Continue reading
Posted in Atrocities 1 Comment
22nd October 1899 Sigmund Freud publishes “The Interpretation of Dreams”
Today we’re stepping back 113 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 struggled … Continue reading
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22nd October 1941 The Execution of Guy Môquet
It happened in a quarry behind a prison camp on the outskirts of Châteaubriand. In three groups of nine, twenty-seven men were lined up. Behind them a pit to fall into. Before them a row of German guns. It was … Continue reading
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23rd October 1956 the Hungarian Revolution
Today marks the 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 delivered … Continue reading
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23rd October 2006 The Death of Dr Jane Elizabeth Hodgson
There are many reasons why a pregnancy may be unwanted. A woman may have no access to contraception or already have too many mouths to feed. It may endanger her health, even her life. She may have been raped. The … Continue reading
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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
25th October 1917 the Bolshevik “October Revolution”
Today we consider the anniversary of Phase Two of the 1917 Russian Revolution, just eight months after Tsar Nicholas II’s regime was deposed and replaced by a Provisional Government. But the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in their so-called October … Continue reading
Posted in Revolution 6 Comments
26th October 1902 the Death of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Today we pay tribute to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, fearless pioneer of the American women’s rights movement and the first American feminist to synthesise the arguments for women’s equality in employment, income, property, custody and divorce. As the organiser of the … Continue reading
Posted in Heroines 4 Comments
27th October 1944 Tito’s Partisans Liberate Serbia
Sixty-eight years ago today the Nazi occupation of Serbia ended. And although fighting would continue for several weeks as the retreating axis forces were driven from Croatia and Slovenia, it was on October 27th 1944 that Germany’s “Army Section Serbia” … Continue reading
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28th October 1959 the Death of Camilo Cienfuegos
Today we pay tribute to Camilo Cienfuegos – one of the most important revolutionaries in Fidel Castro’s 26th July Movement, whose popularity amongst Cubans rivalled even that of his close friend and comrade, Che Guevara – tragically killed at … Continue reading
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29th October 1949 the Death of George Gurdjieff
Today we commemorate the death of the prophet and gnostic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, who died sixty-three years ago in Neuilly, near Paris, surrounded by a large group of sobbing followers. Somewhat like William Blake’s notion of having been a ‘sent … 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-four 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
Posted in Heroes, Revolution 5 Comments
31st October 1961 Stalin’s Corpse Demoted
Fifty-one years ago today, the Soviet Union’s policy of de-Stalinisation reached its peak when the tyrant’s body was removed from Lenin’s tomb in Red Square and reburied about 300 feet from that mausoleum, among minor leaders of the Revolution. A … Continue reading
Posted in Curiosities, Tyrants 3 Comments