#OnThisDay in 1989, the People's Liberation Army violently cracked down on a student protest calling for freedom of speech, less censorship, and an end to government corruption in what is known as the #TiananmenSquare massacre. Although the exact death toll is unknown, estimates range from several hundred to 10,000, with many more wounded.
Stateside, Chinese students protested and called for an extension of their student visas.
#OnThisDay, 4 Jun 1972, civil rights activist Angela Davis is acquitted in a trial over her alleged involvement in the 1970 Marin County Civic Centre attack.
Davis had been prosecuted for three capital felonies, including conspiracy to murder, after guns she owned were used in the attack. The all-white jury cleared her of all charges.
Reinhard #Heydrich, one of the architects of the #holocaust, died #OnThisDay in 1942, from wounds inflicted by Czech SOE agents during an ambush some days earlier.
"I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad."
Happy birthday to antifascist bisexual icon, entertainer, and truth teller, Josephine Baker, born June 3, 1906.
Greetings from Charmylos…I've sent you 5,000 nuts. Please order someone to receive them from our agent. Thanks. #OTD#OnThisDay June 3rd, 257 BCE #5000nuts
100 years ago #OnThisDay, 3 Jun 1924, Alfonsina Strada crosses the finish line of the Giro d'Italia. She remains the only woman to have officially ridden in a Grand Tour.
At one point she had been disqualified on time grounds but was allowed to continue without the option of prizes. She finished ahead of the lantern rouge (the last cyclist to finish).
#OnThisDay, May 31, 1921, the Greenwood district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as “Black Wall Street”, was attacked by a white mob that burned the neighborhood, killing between 100 and 300 black people and injuring hundreds more (depicted in Watchmen, 2019)
#OnThisDay, May 29, 1953, mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest (depicted in Hillary, "Everest" s01e03, 2018)
#OnThisDay, May 28, 1863, the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment left Boston with fanfare to fight in the U.S. Civil War (depicted in Glory, 1989)
#OnThisDay, 28 May 1944, Sonia Butt parachutes into occupied France as an explosives expert for the British Special Operations Executive. She had turned 20 two weeks earlier.
She trained the maquis and coordinated sabotage operations. She was never captured.
#OnThisDay in 1942, Warrant Officers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš ambushed
Reinhard #Heydrich and attempted to assassinate him. He was wounded and would later die in hospital.
The reprisals were brutal and swift, and eventually led to the complete destruction of the villages of #Lidice and #Ležáky. #LestWeForget
The Evening Post, 27 May 1924:
WOMEN IN PRINT.
…
Patriotic New Zealanders occasionally are shocked by the ignorance of those with whom they come in contact abroad of the whereabouts of the best little country in the world. The training of business men does not always include geography, says the Otago “Daily Times,” but a university should not fall into the crude error revealed in an envelope received in Dunedin. A member of the Otago University staff has been in communication with the University of Geneva, and was pained to receive from that distinguished seat of learning the other day a letter addressed: “University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, U.S.A.” https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19240527.2.116
See also Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_of_New_Zealand_from_maps #OnThisDay#OTD#PapersPast#NewZealand#Geography#WhereIsNewZealand
#OnThisDay, 26 May 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the first woman to be sworn in as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. She is currently the leader of the opposition.
In 2010 she also became the first woman to chair the Commonwealth of Nations.