Miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado begin a five-month strike today in 1894. In response to the falling price of silver, management increased the workday to 10 hours without raising wages. In other words, austerity. The mine owners eventually put together a private army … that’s when the national guard stepped in…
The British Invasion officially begins as John, Paul, George and Ringo arrive in New York for their first ever trip to America today in 1964. It’s hard to underestimate how culturally influential these four guys would be for the next three years…
Speaking of England, today in 1907, the Mud March: “Over 3,000 women trudged through the cold and the rutty streets of London from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall to advocate for women’s suffrage.”
Happy birthday Charles Dickens, born today in 1812 … His beat was class politics, and Hard Times is said to be a “prebuttal of a novel published almost exactly a century later, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.”
Frederick Douglass was born today in 1817. He escaped slavery and eventually became a newspaper publisher. His speeches and writings changed the way America thought of black people.
Mel Brooks takes on racism in a very different style as Blazing Saddles hits the theaters today in 1974.
The Bishop of the Slums, Dom Hélder Câmara, was born today in 1909 “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”