Working Class History
Working Class History#OtD 12 Aug 1889 agitation, which later caused the London Great Dock Strike, began as a response to appalling working conditions for casual workers. The strike ended in a massive victory for workers https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8369/great-dock-strike
Working Class History#OtD 12 Aug 2017 32-year-old anti-racist Heather Heyer was killed and 19 injured in a neo-Nazi terror attack in Charlottesville, VA. Heather was one of many protesting a white supremacist rally when a Nazi drove his car deliberately into the crowd https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8376/heather-heyer-murdered
Working Class History#OtD 11 Aug 1964 18-year-old Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie was arrested in Madrid, Spain with explosives to assassinate dictator Franco. He was wearing a kilt, which confused the Argentinian press, who described him as "a Scottish transvestite" https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8273/stuart-christie-arrested
Working Class History#OtD 11 Aug 1958 young African Americans in Wichita, Kansas won a key early sit-in protest against segregated lunch counters at Dockums Drug Store. They confronted bosses, police and racists for 23 days until they won. More info in this short history: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8272/dockum's-drug-store-sit-in-wins
Working Class History#OtD 11 Aug 1979 2000 riot police attacked 187 women workers in Seoul, South Korea, who had been occupying the HQ of the New Democratic Party in protest at closure of the factory they worked at. One woman was killed and union leaders were arrested https://workingclasshistory.com/2021/03/24/e51-jeon-tae-il-and-lee-so-sun/
Working Class History#OtD 10 Aug 1889 Polish WWII resistance activist Zofia Kossak-Szczucka was born. During Nazi occupation she founded a group to help save Jewish people. She was sent to Auschwitz but got out, joined the Warsaw uprising and survived the war https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8173/zofia-kossak-szczucka-born
Working Class History#OtD 9 Aug 1956 20,000 women in Pretoria, South Africa, marched against pass laws: apartheid laws curtailing freedom of movement for Black and Indian people. A wave of civil disobedience followed. The day is commemorated in South Africa as Women's Day https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10880/south-africa-women's-day
Working Class History#OtD 7 Aug 1963 Ramon Vila Capdevila, aka 'Burntface', was killed by Guardia Civil (police) in Manresa, Spain. A @Cntsindicato@mastodon.social union militant, he fought in the Spanish Civil War, French resistance and the postwar anti-Franco underground https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10689/ramon-vila-capdevila-killed
Working Class History#OtD 7 Aug 1842 a mass meeting of 18,000 workers took place in the UK, organised by the Chartist movement. They decided to call a general strike beginning the following day, demanding universal male suffrage https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10685/chartist-mass-meeting
Working Class History#OtD 6 Aug 1945 the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians, despite believing that Japan was about to surrender, which was noted by multiple US officials https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10593/u.s.-drops-atomic-bomb-on-hiroshima