Radical Calendar · the history they'd rather you forgot

Uprisings, martyrs, strikes, revolutions. Click any event to find related texts in the library.

January

Jan 1 · 1994 Zapatista uprising begins in Chiapas Jan 1 · 1804 Haiti declares independence — first successful slave revolution Jan 5 · 1919 Spartacist uprising begins in Berlin Jan 11 · 1912 Bread and Roses textile strike begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts Jan 15 · 1919 Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht murdered by Freikorps Jan 21 · 1921 Errico Malatesta arrested in Milan Jan 26 · 1932 Kropotkin memorial demos — last legal anarchist gathering in USSR era ends

February

Feb 1 · 1960 Greensboro sit-ins begin Feb 8 · 1921 Peter Kropotkin dies — his funeral becomes the last anarchist march in Soviet Russia Feb 13 · 1921 Kronstadt sailors begin organizing against Bolshevik repression Feb 21 · 1965 Malcolm X assassinated Feb 22 · 1943 Sophie and Hans Scholl of the White Rose executed for anti-Nazi leaflets Feb 23 · 1981 Attempted fascist coup in Spain fails Feb 27 · 1973 American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee

March

Mar 8 · 1917 International Women's Day strike sparks the February Revolution Mar 8 · 1971 Activists burgle the FBI and expose COINTELPRO Mar 8 · 1917 Women textile workers strike in Petrograd, beginning the Russian Revolution Mar 18 · 1871 Paris Commune declared Mar 18 · 1871 The Paris Commune begins Mar 21 · 1960 Sharpeville massacre — apartheid police kill 69 protesters Mar 25 · 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire kills 146 — locked doors, no unions

April

Apr 4 · 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, supporting striking sanitation workers Apr 7 · 1919 Bavarian Soviet Republic proclaimed Apr 9 · 1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer executed for resisting the Nazis Apr 19 · 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins Apr 25 · 1974 Carnation Revolution topples the Portuguese dictatorship Apr 28 Workers' Memorial Day — mourn the dead, fight for the living

May

May 1 · 1886 Haymarket general strike for the 8-hour day — May Day is born May 3 · 1937 Barcelona May Days — Stalinists attack the anarchist CNT May 4 · 1886 Haymarket affair — anarchists framed and executed May 4 · 1970 Kent State — National Guard kills four anti-war students May 9 · 1936 Anarchist militant Buenaventura Durruti tours Spain organizing May 10 · 1933 Nazi book burnings — 25,000 'un-German' books destroyed May 13 · 1968 May '68 — ten million workers on general strike in France May 13 · 1985 Philadelphia police bomb the MOVE house, killing 11 May 18 · 1980 Gwangju Uprising against the South Korean dictatorship May 25 · 2020 George Floyd murdered by police — global uprising follows

June

Jun 2 · 1967 Benno Ohnesorg shot by police in West Berlin — sparks the German student movement Jun 4 · 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre Jun 11 · 1892 International day of solidarity with long-term anarchist prisoners Jun 16 · 1976 Soweto uprising — students against apartheid Jun 19 · 1865 Juneteenth — enslaved people in Texas learn of emancipation Jun 28 · 1969 Stonewall riots begin Jun 28 · 1936 Alexander Berkman dies in Nice

July

Jul 2 · 1964 Civil Rights Act signed after years of struggle Jul 14 · 1789 Storming of the Bastille Jul 19 · 1936 Spanish Revolution — workers repel the fascist coup Jul 22 · 2011 Utøya — fascist terror kills 77; antifascism is self-defense Jul 23 · 1892 Alexander Berkman attempts to assassinate Frick during the Homestead strike Jul 26 · 1953 Cuban Revolution begins with the Moncada attack Jul 31 · 1932 Altona Bloody Sunday — antifascists battle Nazis in the streets of Hamburg

August

Aug 1 · 1917 IWW organizer Frank Little lynched in Butte, Montana Aug 6 · 1945 Hiroshima — the state's ultimate weapon used on civilians Aug 13 · 1906 Anarchist uprising era in Russia — Black Banner groups active Aug 21 · 1971 George Jackson killed in San Quentin Aug 23 · 1927 Sacco and Vanzetti executed Aug 25 · 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain — 10,000 armed miners vs. coal bosses

September

Sep 1 · 1939 Nazi Germany invades Poland — fascism unleashes world war Sep 9 · 1971 Attica prison uprising Sep 11 · 1973 Pinochet's coup in Chile, backed by the CIA Sep 11 · 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile overthrows Salvador Allende Sep 16 · 1920 Wall Street bombing Sep 29 · 1911 Italy invades Libya — anarchists lead anti-war general strikes

October

Oct 1 · 1949 Makhnovist movement's final remnants dispersed — free soviets crushed Oct 7 · 1944 Sonderkommando revolt at Auschwitz Oct 15 · 1966 Black Panther Party founded in Oakland Oct 16 · 1859 John Brown raids Harpers Ferry Oct 16 · 1968 Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise fists at the Olympics Oct 29 · 1936 'No pasarán' — defense of Madrid against Franco begins

November

Nov 4 · 1936 CNT anarchists enter the Spanish government — the great contradiction Nov 7 · 1917 October Revolution Nov 9 · 1938 Kristallnacht — the pogrom the world watched Nov 9 · 1989 Berlin Wall falls Nov 11 · 1887 Haymarket martyrs hanged — 'the day will come when our silence will be more powerful' Nov 19 · 1915 Joe Hill executed — 'don't mourn, organize!' Nov 23 · 1936 Buenaventura Durruti dies defending Madrid Nov 25 · 1960 Mirabal sisters murdered — origin of the day against gender violence

December

Dec 1 · 1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat Dec 2 · 1980 US-trained forces murder four churchwomen in El Salvador Dec 4 · 1969 Fred Hampton assassinated by Chicago police and the FBI Dec 6 · 2008 Alexis Grigoropoulos killed by police — Greek December uprising Dec 10 · 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted Dec 17 · 2010 Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation sparks the Arab Spring