26-year-old Black paramedic #BreonnaTaylor was killed by #police who broke into her home #ThisDayInHistory in 2020. They blind-fired 20 times, hit her with five, offered no aid as she bled out, then filed a fake report listing no injuries. It can't be reformed; #AbolishThePolice.

British-German astronomer #WilliamHerschel discovered the seventh planet, #Uranus, on #ThisDayInHistory in 1781. A unique world that spins on its side with a 98-degree axial tilt, its pale cyan colour comes from a frigid atmosphere made up mainly of hydrogen, helium, & methane.

The #CiampateDelDiavolo in #Campania, Italy, were positively identified on #ThisDayInHistory in 2003, in the science journal #Nature, as 350,000-year-old #hominid footprints. They were likely left behind in the #PyroclasticFlow by a group of #HomoHeidelbergensis children.

During the #Holocaust, #Nazis revived the mediaeval practice of ghettos & made them much more inhumane. The #KrakówGhetto had 15,000 crammed into a space where 3,000 had lived. #ThisDayInHistory in 1943 they began a two-day liquidation, with most going to the #Bełżec #DeathCamp.

The #KappPutsch began on #ThisDayInHistory in 1920. For five days the new #WeimarRepublic, founded after the #GermanRevolution, was chased from Berlin. But the gov's call to #GeneralStrike & refusal of bureaucrats to back the coup doomed it. Amnesty for putschists was a mistake.

The #1848Revolutions that occurred in 50 countries or territories reached the German-speaking world on #ThisDayInHistory in 1848 with the #MarchRevolution. These movements showed a common distaste for monarchy & conservatism, but their liberal & leftwing elements could not unite.

The #MahdistUprising in #Sudan that began in 1881 had its greatest success with the ten-month #SiegeOfKhartoum, which began #ThisDayInHistory in 1884. #MuhammadAhmad, called #TheMahdi, led an anti-colonial nationalist movement against Egypt, which had controlled Sudan since 1820.

The #BattleOfBadr, on #ThisDayInHistory in 624, was the first major fight between #Muhammad's new Muslim community of #Medina and the #Quraysh forces of #Makkah/#Mecca. Badly outnumbered, the #Quran attributes Muslim success to a thousand angels, there to boost Muslim confidence.

The #BattleOfĐiệnBiênPhủ began #ThisDayInHistory in 1954. The #FrenchUnion dug into a fortified position to break #ViệtMinh supply lines but the #Vietnamese surrounded them with artillery concealed in tunnels. After a two-month siege, the French empire was broken in Indochina.

Here is #Ethiopia's #YaredNegu. youtu.be/q2lQI8n1Vcw youtu.be/VxtAy6-hSIc youtu.be/YybkSxcgvIQ youtu.be/VP6jWNv411Q#Ethiopia#YaredNegu#LunchtimeListens #WorldMusic

The #BreadAndRosesStrike ended successfully on #ThisDayInHistory in 1912. #IWW led 20,000 garment workers, mostly women and girls, in the #Lawrence, MA, action, holding out against savage #police violence, to secure a 15% raise, amnesty for strikers, and double-pay for #overtime.

The #FirstNations people of #BritishColumbia suffered a horrific #smallpox epidemic beginning in 1862 on #ThisDayInHistory when the 1851-built US #PaddleSteamer #BrotherJonathan arrived in Victoria from San Francisco. An estimated 2/3 of the Indigenous population was wiped out.

Perfect editorial neutrality is not only impossible, it can be immoral, especially when faced with things like #Nazism. On #ThisDayInHistory in 1935 the editor of #ManchesterGuardian reprimanded a senior journalist for his criticism of #Nazi lawlessness in pursuing rearmament.

#AlaGertner was born on #ThisDayInHistory in 1912. While enslaved at a #Nazi munitions factory she stole gunpowder to smuggle into #Auschwitz's #DeathCamp. It was used to blow up #Crematorium IV in the 7 October #Sonderkommando revolt in 1944. Gertner was tortured and executed.

The ease with which the #TrumanDoctrine/#containment was shoved down our throats is sad, given how easily critiqued it was when announced, on #ThisDayInHistory in 1947. Calling the #SovietUnion a global threat was laughable; they were made into an enemy because the US needed one.

The #WinterWar, i.e., the #Soviet invasion of #Finland, ended on #ThisDayInHistory in 1940 with the signing of the #MoscowPeaceTreaty. This cost Finland half of #WestKarelia (#EastKarelia was already in Russia). It was in #Karelia that most folk tales in the #Kalevala were found.

#Anschluss refers to the annexation of #Austria by #NaziGermany on #ThisDayInHistory in 1938. Absorbing #Hitler's home country placed most speakers of the varied #GermanLanguages into the same country, and it was explicitly forbidden by the terms of the 1919 #VersaillesTreaty.

TRIGGER WARNING: At Yusufiyah village near Mahmudiyah during the #IraqWar on #ThisDayInHistory in 2006, four US troops committed a horrific #WarCrime, raping a 14-year-old girl and killing her family. The soldiers bragged about it but initially the Army blamed Sunni insurgents.

During the #Nakba/#1948War, #Zionist special forces unit #Palmach twice attacked the #Palestinian village #alHusayniyya, the first on #ThisDayInHistory in 1948. An Iraqi volunteer unit helped to defend the village but 15 Palestinians were killed in fighting throughout the night.

Former independence leader & first president of #Indonesia #Sukarno was removed from power on #ThisDayInHistory in 1967. He was replaced by #Suharto, an #anticommunist tyrant aligned with the US, whose #democide/#genocide of #leftists and ethnic Chinese claimed 1-3 million lives.

Here is #ThePsychedelicFurs of #England (#UnitedKingdom). youtu.be/LGD9i718kBU youtu.be/T87u5yuUVi8 youtu.be/4G_CAYf-itw youtu.be/RXfXTB7UcuU youtu.be/RuWmsg-ihLg#ThePsychedelicFurs#England#UnitedKingdom#NewWaveWednesday #LunchtimeListens

#ReverendJamesReeb — a #UnitarianUniversalist minister & social worker — travelled to Alabama after the #BloodySunday events at #EdmundPettusBridge to help. He and two other clergy were attacked and beaten by racists on 9 March 1965; Reeb died two days later on #ThisDayInHistory.

The Constitution of the #ConfederateStatesOfAmerica (#CSA) was adopted on #ThisDayInHistory in 1861, and enshrined #WhiteSupremacy in #Confederate law: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

#MikhailGorbachev — the last #Soviet leader and the only one born in the #USSR — was elected to the General Secretary position on #ThisDayInHistory in 1985. His slow move towards #SocialDemocracy, and reform projects #glasnost & #perestroika, accidentally undermined the state.

The #MadridTrainBombings, the most lethal non-state #terrorist attack in #Spain's history, struck rush-hour commuter trains on #ThisDayInHistory in 2004, killing 193 & injuring ~2500. The attack was a response by #Islamists to Spain's participation in the 2003 invasion of #Iraq.

The #CoastalRoadMassacre, the bloodiest #terrorist attack in Israel before 2023, was on #ThisDayInHistory in 1978, where 37 were killed and 70+ wounded in a bus hijacking. Planned by Khalil al-Wazir, a cofounder of #Fatah, it was timed to affect the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations.

The #2011ItamarAttack was on #ThisDayInHistory in 2011, when a #WestBank #settler family connected to violent #ReligiousZionist lobby #GushEmunim were killed by two young #Palestinian men. The parents and three of their children were stabbed to death, with an infant decapitated.

The #KandaharMassacre, aka #PanjwaiMassacre, is a US #WarCrime committed on #ThisDayInHistory in 2012 by Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. He claimed not to know why he murdered 17 #Afghan civilians, nine of them children and 11 from the same family. He is serving life in prison.

The #FukushimaNuclearAccident began on #ThisDayInHistory in 2011 after the most powerful #earthquake recorded in #Japan caused a #tsunami that badly damaged the nuclear power station, impairing the ability to cool reactors after shutdown, compromising containment. (#東日本大震災)

To-day we have #EliAlmic of #Uruguay. youtu.be/ctoWlJzmBB0 youtu.be/ZAKVa1Igrcs youtu.be/udQCCkt8fFw youtu.be/tDomCS9Tu04#EliAlmic#Uruguay#LunchtimeListens #WorldMusic

Here's a bit of hometown history: In 1933 on #ThisDayInHistory the #LongBeachEarthquake struck, killing perhaps 120. From its offshore epicentre the #earthquake caused about a billion in damage (in 2025 dollars). Most fatalities were people who ran outside and were hit by debris.

#KingLouisXIV chose not to appoint a new first minister when, on #ThisDayInHistory in 1661, #CardinalMazarin died. The steady accretion of power since #LouisXIII & #CardinalRichelieu made the "Sun King" an #absolutist ruler, but his government was still much weaker than is ours.

#KingCharlesI dissolved parliament in 1629 on #ThisDayInHistory, beginning an 11-year period of English #Absolutism called the Personal Rule. When he needed more tax revenue & called a new parliament in 1640, it resulted in the #EnglishCivilWar. France should have paid attention.

200 #slaves in #Tobago rebelled on #ThisDayInHistory in 1774, killing overseers & running. 30 were swiftly captured. Six ringleaders had their right arm severed and were then burnt alive. Overall leader Sampson was placed in a gibbet cage alive and left to die over the next week.

#FulgencioBatista took power in a coup in #Cuba on #ThisDayInHistory in 1952. He suspended a democratic constitution and murdered at least 20,000 Cubans suspected of #socialist activity. His vile #PoliceState was actively supported by the US government and American corporations.

The first 9 (of 13) #RingsOfUranus were definitively found on #ThisDayInHistory in 1977. All the gas giants have them, though #Saturn's were seen much earlier. The first claimed sighting of any at #Uranus was by #WilliamHerschel in 1789, but it is doubted he could have seen them.

#Antifascist, #antiracist, #anarchist — #NancyCunard was the black sheep of the #Cunard shipping dynasty. Born #ThisDayInHistory in 1896, she was disinherited for a relationship with Black jazz pianist Henry Crowder. She published widely on #fascism & worked with #WWII partisans.

The #BBC was not #antifascist. On #ThisDayInHistory in 1938 #JoachimVonRibbentrop was on a visit to Britain to ensure #appeasement continued, when he met with the Beeb's director #JohnReith. Reith, an ardent admirer of #Hitler & #Nazism, offered to fly the #swastika over BBC HQ.

#TheGreatGame was well and truly on from 1839 on #ThisDayInHistory when 10,000 British & Indian troops crossed the #BolanPass into #Afghanistan. The competition between Britain & Russia for control of #CentralAsia led Britain into the #FirstAngloAfghanWar and humiliating defeat.

As a kind of #ThisDayInHistory for most of the month of March 2008 (10th-25th), about 150 separate #nonviolent protests in #Tibet were ruthlessly crushed by #China. Foreign journalists were expelled; then 400 Tibetans were killed, 1300 wounded, & 1000 remain missing. #FreeTibet

#Tibet was conquered by #China in 1950, but initially had much autonomy. On #ThisDayInHistory in 1959, in response to rumours the #DalaiLama would be kidnapped, 30,000 protesters rose up in Lhasa. The rebellion was brutally crushed & the Tibetan government fled to exile in India.

Here is band #БТР / #BTR of #Bulgaria. youtu.be/92pJwKX5iNA youtu.be/WKXntUThG1E youtu.be/Q_HfUJFUcl0 youtu.be/7SMR4Vw5O2I#БТР#BTR#Bulgaria#LunchtimeListens #WorldMusic

The #BattleOfHamptonRoads, aka the #MonitorAndMerrimack battle, was the first engagement between two iron-clad warships, taking place on #ThisDayInHistory in 1862 during the #AmericanCivilWar. Union vessel #USSMonitor and #Confederate vessel #CSSVirginia fought to a stalemate.

#GoodNightAndGoodLuck is another fine movie based on a true story. On #ThisDayInHistory in 1954, the #CBS television show #SeeItNow, hosted by #EdwardRMurrow, presented its special report on #JosephMcCarthy, using the Senator's own words to condemn him as a fraud and a demagogue.

#Amistad is more than a fine #StevenSpielberg movie — it is based on the #SCOTUS ruling from #ThisDayInHistory in 1841. A group of #Mende from #SierraLeone had been taken illegally into #slavery. Their revolt on a Spanish schooner was deemed lawful as their enslavement was not.

The #PeoplesGroceryLynchings were on #ThisDayInHistory in 1892. Three Black men ran a grocery store in #Memphis, TN, angering the former white market monopoly. They defended the shop against an armed attack and for that 75 men in masks took them to a railroad yard to be murdered.

The #BattleOfColumbus, aka the #ColumbusRaid, was a small-scale invasion of the US on #ThisDayInHistory in 1916 by forces of Mexican revolutionary #PanchoVilla. 485 Mexican fighters went in; 67+ were killed before Villa retreated. The US sent 10,000 troops into Mexico after him.

During #EmmelinePankhurst's speaking tour of Scotland she employed a female bodyguard armed with concealed clubs and at least one firearm. The media showed their battle with #police, #ThisDayInHistory in 1914, with cartoons like this one, 'The #Suffragette That Knew Jiu-Jitsu'.

Scottish economist #AdamSmith published one of his key works, short-titled #TheWealthOfNations, on #ThisDayInHistory in 1776. More so-called capitalists should read this text, as they would find Smith & Marx shared much, and #neoliberals would recognize little of their own views.

In the #DemonstrationOf9March1883, #LouiseMichel — #anarchist, #feminist, veteran of #ParisCommune — first raised the black flag as a symbol of #anarchism on #ThisDayInHistory in 1883. Another prominent #socialist & #feminist, #PauleMink, also participated in this Paris protest.