peace history november

November

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November 1, 1929

Australia abolished peace-time compulsory military training.

November 1, 1954

The north African nation of Algeria began a war of independence against French colonial rule.

French troops clash with Algerian civilians

November 1, 1961

50,000 women joined protests against the resumption of atmospheric nuclear tests.

The demonstrations, in at least 60 U.S. cities, led to founding of Women Strike for Peace.

“Women's Strike for Peace" storming the Pentagon in a 1967 protest against the war in Vietnam.

November 1, 1970

The Detroit City Council voted for immediate withdrawal of U.S. armed forces

from Vietnam.

November 1, 1990

As part of the adoption of the International Law of the Sea, forty-three nations agreed to ban dumping industrial wastes at sea by 1995. Neither the U.S. or Canada (along with Albania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan and San Marino) have ever ratified the treaty which thus lacks the force of federal law.

November 1, 2003

A Tel Aviv memorial for Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, slain eight years previously, was transformed into a peace rally with over 100,000 protesting the military policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

November 2, 1972

Five hundred protesters from the "Trail of Broken Treaties," a Native American march, occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices (part of the Department of Interior) in Washington, D.C., for six days. Their goal was to gain support from the general public for a policy of self-determination for American Indians.

November 2, 1983

A bill designating a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (to be observed on the third Monday of January) is signed by President Ronald Reagan. King was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 King organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience of the laws that enforced racial segregation.

MLK Day by Coretta Scott King

the history of Martin Luther King Day

(pdf)

November 3, 1883

The U.S. Supreme Court in its decision Ex Parte Crow Dog, declared Native Americans were subject to U.S. law, “not in the sense of citizens, but … as wards subject to a guardian … as a dependent community who were in a state of pupilage.”

read more about Govan Mbeki

November 6, 1913

Mohandas K. Gandhi led 2,500 Indian miners, women and others from South Africa’s Natal province across the border with Transvaal in the Great March.

This was a violation of the pass laws restricting the movement of all non-whites in the country. Originally granted the rights of British subjects, Indians’ rights were steadily eroded beginning in the 1890s with the denial of the right to own property. Shortly before the March, a court in Capetown invalidated all Muslim and Hindu marriages.
Gandhi and many others were arrested and jailed when he refused to pay a fine.

Mohandas Gandhi, 1915

read about the early resistance in South Africa

The Great March to Transvaal

November 6, 1962

The 17th session of the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 1761 condemning apartheid in South Africa and called on all member states to terminate diplomatic, economic and military relations with the country.

The racial policies of the country were declared a threat to international peace and security.
Apartheid was the racially separatist regime under which black, and so-called colored South Africans to a somewhat lesser extent, were without political, civil or economic rights. All political power and wealth were held by the white population, approximately 15% of the country. "Apartheid" is the Afrikaans word for "apartness." (Afrikaans is the language of the Boers, or [white] Afrikaners.)

The day-to-day reality of apartheid:

a chonology of the U.N. and apartheid

November 6, 1986

Although an American plane with supplies for the Nicaraguan Contra insurgents had been shot down the previous month, and a Lebanese newspaper reported that the U.S. government had arranged for the sale of weapons to Iran, President Ronald Ronald Reagan denied involvement (“... a story that came out of the Middle East, and that to us has no foundation....”) in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra scandal.

November 7, 1837

Abolitionist and editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, 34, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, as he defended his printing press.

Elijah P. Lovejoy

He had lost three other presses to mob attacks, but refused to surrender this one, which had been contributed by the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. For this he was shot five times in the fatal attack. Lovejoy had moved 20 miles to Alton from St. Louis where, after denouncing the lynching and burning of a black man, a mob tore down his office.

Warehouse with Lovejoy's press set ablaze by mob

"We must stand by the Constitution and laws, or all is gone."

Elijah Lovejoy, The Observer

November 7, 1916

Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Missoula, Montana, became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. American women nationwide would not be able even to vote for another four years.

November 8, 1892

Thirty thousand black and white workers factory and dock staged a general strike in New Orleans, demanding union recognition, closed shops (where all co-workers join the union), and hour and wage gains. They were joined by non-industrial laborers, such as musicians, clothing workers, clerks, utility workers, streetcar drivers, and printers.

November 8, 1933

President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration, designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.

November 9, 1935

United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis and other other labor leaders formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). They had split with the existing labor union umbrella organization, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) which was not interested in organizing unskilled workers, such as those in the steel and auto industries.

John L. Lewis

November 9-10, 1938

Nazis looted and burned synagogues and Jewish-owned stores and homes, and beat and murdered Jewish men, women, and children across Germany and Austria. Known as Kristallnacht, it was a night of organized violence against Jews marking the beginning of the Holocaust with the killing of 91 and the deportation of 30,000 to concentration camps. The German word translates to "the Night of Broken Glass," so called because of the vast number of broken windows in Jewish shops. 5 million marks worth ($1,250,000).

November 9, 1969

Seventy-eight Indians from 20 tribes seized Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, offering to buy the island from the federal government for $24 worth of beads (the alleged price paid to the Canarsee Delaware Indians for Manhattan Island (it was actually 60 Dutch guilders)). They were reclaiming it as Indian land and demanding fairness and respect for Indian peoples. The occupation lasted for more than a year. "We hold The Rock," said Richard Oakes, a Mohawk from New York.

a new entrance to Alcatraz Photo/Michelle Vignes

Indian people and their supporters wait for the ferry. Photo/Ilka Hartmann

LaNada Boyer (formerly Means) inside one of the Alcatraz guard barracks where occupiers lived from 1969-71. Much of the graffiti from 30 years ago remains throughout the island today. Photo by Linda Sue Scott.

November 9, 1984

U.S. peace activists sailed a shrimp boat into the Port of Corinto to confront U.S. warships threatening Nicaragua. The U.S. had mined the harbor in violation of international law, and had invaded Nicaragua through this port in 1896 and 1910.

November 9, 1989

For the first time since World War II free travel between East and West Germany was allowed. The Berlin Wall, built to stop the exodus from the Communist-controlled East in 1961, opened in response to nonviolent action.

November 9, 2002

Florence, Italy 11.9.02

Somewhere between 450,000 and a million European peacefully protested the threatened U.S. invasion of Iraq in Florence, Italy.

Many joined those attending the first European Social Forum on globalization.

Anti-globalization activists look at a US flag, whose stars have been replaced with logos of multinational companies, displayed at the entrance of the old Leopolda Station in Florence, Italy.

November 10, 1924

Society for Human Rights, the first gay rights organization in the U.S., was founded in Chicago by Henry Gerber, an immigrant inspired by Germany’s Scientific Humanitarian Committee, formed to oppose the oppression of men and women considered "sexual intermediates."

Henry Gerber-one of the founders.

November 11, 1942

Congress approved lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to 37 within a year after declaring war on Japan, Germany and Italy. In September 1940, Congress, by wide margins in both houses, had passed the Burke-Wadsworth Act, the first peacetime draft imposed in the history of the United States.

read about the good war and those who refused to fight it

November 11, 1972

The U.S. Army turned over its massive military base at Long Binh to the South Vietnamese army, symbolizing the end of direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. The last American forces did not leave until 1974.

U.S. military leaving the Long Binh base

November 11, 1989

250,000 marched for the right to reproductive choice, including abortion, in Washington, D.C.

National Abortion Rights Action League Pro-Choice Ameica

November 12, 1969

Seymour Hersh, an independent investigative journalist, in a cable filed through Dispatch News Service and picked up by more than 30 newspapers, revealed the extent of the U.S. Army's charges against 1st Lt. William L. Calley at My Lai, a Vietnamese village.

My Lai

Hersh wrote: "The Army says he [Calley] deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians during a search-and-destroy mission in March 1968, in a Viet Cong stronghold known as 'Pinkville.'"
The same Seymour Hersh first wrote about abuses of Iraqis held in Abu Ghraib prison by Americans in 2004.

Seymour Hersh has been instrumental in exposing abuses and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

read an interview

Seymour Hersh

November 12, 1982

The Polish Government freed the leader of the outlawed Solidarity union movement, Lech Walesa, after 11 months of internment. His release came only two days after riot police used tear gas, water cannon and phosphorous rockets to disperse big pro-Solidarity demonstrations in Warsaw and other cities.

Lech Walesa

November 13, 1933

The first recorded "sit-down" strike in the U.S. was staged by workers at the Hormel Packing Company in Austin, Minnesota. The tactic worked: Hormel agreed to submit wage demands to binding arbitration.

The success of this strike reinvigorated the labor movement, which had been in decline through the 1920s.

Hormel strikers

November 13, 1956

U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation unconstitutional in public transportation. The case, Browder v. Gayle, was brought by several women, including Aurelia Browder, who had refused to surrender their bus seats to whites (months before Rosa Parks had done so).

Aurelia Browder

The four plaintiffs had been arrested for violating Alabama law which required segregation on public buses. They challenged the law and the Court agreed, finding the law under which they were arrested violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A roadside monument was dedicated in 2004 to the four plantiffs in the Browder v. Gayle case.

November 13, 1960

Over 1000 Quakers surrounded the Pentagon for a silent vigil to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the first Quaker Peace Testimony issued to King Charles II in 1660.

From the 1660 Peace Testimony: "We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world...."

November 13, 1974

Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist(Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers' Union) at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium fuels production plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, was killed in a one-car crash.

more on the School of the Americas

November 17, 1973

	President Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors meeting at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, that "people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."
	read more

November 17, 1989

Riot police in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, arrested hundreds of people taking part in a protest march. More than 15,000 people, mostly students, took part in the demonstration demanding democratic rights, the biggest show of public dissent for two decades.[see Nov.18, 1989 below]

Prague, November 1989

November 18, 1910

Hundreds of suffragists marched on the House of Commons in London, with reinforcements arriving to replace the "fallen" and arrested. Protesting government inaction on the Conciliation Bill, which would have enfranchised about a million women, they are brutally forced back by Bobbies, leading to a public outcry.

November 18, 1964

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover characterized Martin Luther King, Jr., as "the most notorious liar in the country." King replied that Hoover "has apparently faltered under the awesome burden, complexities, and responsibilities of his office."

November 18, 1989

More than 50,000 people took to the streets of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, demanding political reform. In the biggest demonstration in the country's post-war history, protesters held up banners and chanted:

"We want democracy now."

November 18, 1993

South Africa's ruling National Party and leaders of 20 other parties representing blacks and whites approved a new national constitution that provided fundamental rights to blacks and other non-whites, ending the apartheid system.

South Africa held its first democratic multi-racial election on April 26, 1994.

From the preamble: “WHEREAS there is a need to create a new order in which all South Africans will be entitled to a common South African citizenship in a sovereign and democratic constitutional state in which there is equality between men and women and people of all races so that all citizens shall be able to enjoy and exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms....”

South African citizens in line to vote.

November 19, 1969

In an effort to undercut growing opposition to the Vietnam War, Congress passed random selection of draftees through a lottery based on one’s birthday, and permitted first calling of 19-year-olds and those with expired college deferments.

November 19, 1977

In an unprecedented move for an Arab leader, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat traveled to Jerusalem to seek a permanent peace settlement with Egypt's neighbor, Israel, after decades of conflict. This action was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and especially among Muslim fundamentalists.

Sadat on November 9:
“Israel would be astonished when they hear me say this. But I say it. I am ready to go even to their home ... to the Knesset and discuss peace with them if need be.”
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on November 11:
“Let us say to one another, and let it be a silent oath by the peoples of Egypt and Israel: no more wars, no more bloodshed and no more threats.”
Together in Jerusalem:
Sadat: “I wish to tell you today and I proclaim to the whole world: We accept to live with you in a lasting and just peace.”
Begin: “Everything must be negotiated and can be negotiated.
We Jews appreciate courage, and we will know how to appreciate our visitor's courage.”

Sadat’s speech to the Israeli Knesset (parliament):

November 20, 1816

The term "scab" was first used in print by the Albany (N.Y.) Typographical Society.

What is a Scab?

read The Scab by Jack London

November 20, 1945

The International War Crimes Tribunal began in Nuremberg, Germany, and continued until October 1, 1946, establishing that military and political subordinates are responsible for their own actions even if ordered by their superiors.

Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis were on trial for atrocities committed during World War II, ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. The Nuremberg Trials were conducted by judges from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain.

The Nuremberg defendants

November 20, 1959

The United Nations proclaimed "The Declaration of the Rights of the Child," because “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”

Read the text of the Declaration:

November 20, 1987

SANE (The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) and FREEZE (the campaign to freeze all testing of nuclear weapons) merged at their first combined convention in Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the largest U.S. peace organization.

November 21, 1945

200,000 members of the United Auto Workers went on strike against General Motors, the first major strike following World War II.

The UAW’s demand for a 30% wage increase was based on the increase in the cost of living during the war (28% according to the Department of Labor), the wartime freeze on wages, and the cut in the average workweek with the disappearance of overtime pay in manufacturing.

But the UAW also considered profits and prices a subject for negotiation, a position rejected by GM. The union did not merely say that labor was entitled to enough wages to live on. It also said that labor was entitled to share in the wealth produced by industry.

“... Unless we get a more realistic distribution of America’s wealth, we won’t get enough to keep this machine going.”

–Walter Reuther, UAW President

November 21, 1973

President Richard Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 1/2-minute gap in one of the subpoenaed White House tape recordings of Watergate conversations made by President Richard Nixon in the days after the Watergate break-in.

The erasure was blamed on an accident by Nixon's private secretary Rose Mary Woods, but scientific analysis determined the erasures to be deliberate. White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig later attributed the gap to "sinister forces."

Rose Mary Woods, demonstrating how she might

have created theWatergate tape gap

November 21, 1975

The Church Committee, led by Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) issued a report charging U.S. government officials were behind assassination plots against two foreign leaders – Fidel Castro (Cuba) and Patrice Lumumba (Congo), and were heavily involved in at least three other plots: Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), (Vietnam), Rene Schneider (Chile).

Senator Frank Church, left, chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee,

displays a poison dart gun as co-chairman Senator John Tower (R-TX) watches.

The committee, a precursor to the Senate Intelligence Committee, was established to look into misuse of and abuse by intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI, some of which had been revealed by the Watergate investigations.

Fidel Castro / Patrice Lumumba / Rafael Trujillo / Ngo Dinh Diem / Rene Schneider

November 21, 1981

More than 350,000 demonstrated in Amsterdam against U.S. nuclear-armed cruise missiles on European soil.

November 21, 1985

A full-scale summit conference, the first of five between the Pres. Ronald Reagan of the U.S. and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union concluded in optimism over beginning a more productive and cooperative relationship between the two countries, each of which had thousands of nuclear warheads targeted at the other. The U.S. had proposed building a space-based anti-ballistic missile system, commonly known as “Star Wars,” which the Soviets strongly opposed as an escalation of the nuclear arms race.
In an unofficial meeting the previous evening, President Reagan had noted that he and Gorbachev were meeting for the first time at this level. They had little practice, since they had never done it before. Nevertheless, having read the history of previous summit meetings, he had concluded that those earlier leaders had not accomplished very much. Therefore, he suggested that he and Gorbachev say, "To hell with the past, we'll do it our way and get something done.” Gorbachev concurred.

November 21, 1986

National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, began shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of illegal activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran in an attempt to free hostages, and the diversion of the proceeds to an insurgent Nicaraguan group known as the contras.

Fawn Hall

Oliver North

November 21, 1995

China officially charged well-known human rights activist and political dissident Wei Jingsheng with trying to “overthrow the government.” Wei had not been seen for a year and a half after disappearing into police custody after meeting with a U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs.

"If the people allow the power holders, in the peoples' name, to violate and ignore the rights of some of the people then, at the same time, they are giving the power holders the power to violate the rights of all the people.”
“Most people wait until others are standing to make their move, very few are willing to stand up first or to stand alone. That's why my friends call me a fool! But I don't have any regrets." – Wei Jingsheng

Wei Jingsheng

He had been imprisoned previously for his involvement with the Democracy Wall movement, including years in solitary confinement. He had also spoken out on behalf of the Tibetans.

Human rights in China

November 22, 1909

In New York City, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union went on strike against sweatshop conditions in what became known as the "Uprising of the 20,000" and the "Girl's Revolt." The strikers won the support of other workers and the women's suffrage movement for their persistence and unity in the face of police brutality and biased courts. A judge told arrested pickets: "You are on strike against God." This was the first mass strike by women in the U.S.

November 22, 1968

What is believed to be the first interracial kiss on broadcast television occurred in an episode of Star Trek between William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols.

November 22, 1998

7,000 marched on the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, outside Columbus, Georgia. They were protesting the school’s training of Latin American soldiers and other security personnel who return to their countries and are involved in violence and oppression of their populations.

2,319 people were arrested for trespassing.

Protests at the School of the Americas, organized by SOA Watch, occur every November.

Visit School of the Americas watch.

2002 protest at SOA

November 23, 1170 BCE

The first recorded strike took place in Egypt when necropolis workers who had not been paid for their work in more than two months sat down and refused to work until they were paid and able to eat.

November 23, 1981

President Ronald Reagan signed off on a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gave the Central Intelligence Agency a budget of $19 million to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan insurgents to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista elected government. This marked the beginning of official U.S. support for the so-called contras in their war against the Sandinistas.

November 24, 1859

British naturalist Charles Darwin published ''On the Origin of Species,'' which explained his theory of evolution.

Behind the Controversy: How Evolution Works

Charles Darwin

November 24, 1869

Women and men from 21 states met in Cleveland to organize the American Women Suffrage Association led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Julia Ward Howe. The group’s approach to enfranchisement was through acquiring the right to vote state-by-state.

November 24, 1947

The Hollywood 10

A group of writers, producers and directors that became known as the "Hollywood 10" were cited for contempt of Congress when they refused to cooperate at hearings about alleged Communist influence in the movie industry. Following their appearance in front of House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) under Rep. John Parnell Thomas (R-NJ), the House of Representatives voted 346-17 for the citations. All were convicted and sentenced to 6-12 months in prison. The charges were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Invoking their 5th Amendment right not to be witnesses against themselves and their 1st Amendment right to freely associate with whom they choose, the Hollywood 10 refused to tell the committee whether they were or had been Communists.
Others cooperated: the mother of actor and dancer Ginger Rogers testified her daughter had been asked to say in a film, "Share and share alike, that's democracy," a line from a script written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. Rogers said this was "definitely Communist propaganda.

Free The Hollywood 10 Demo

November 24, 1970

14 American students met with Vietnamese in Hanoi to plan "Peoples' Peace Treaty," a treaty between the people of The United States of America, South Vietnam and North Vietnam which begins: "Be it known that the American people and the Vietnamese people are not enemies." The treaty was later endorsed by millions.

read the treaty

November 24, 1983

On Thanksgiving Day seven Plowshares activists hammered and poured blood on B-52 bombers converted to carry cruise missiles at Griffiss Air Force Base near Syracuse, New York.

their statement

Bloody handprint on missile.

November 24, 1987

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed to scrap short- and medium-range missiles in the first superpower treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons. The Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF treaty), signed by Reagan and Gorbachev, was the first to actually reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by the two sides.

November 24, 1993

Congress voted to formally apologize to Hawaii

for the 1893 overthrow of the government of

Queen Lydia Liliuokalani.

read the apology

and a Hawaiian Declaration of Independence

Queen Lydia Liliuokalani

November 25, 1947

Film industry executives, meeting in New York, announced that the ten directors, producers, and writers who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) would be fired or suspended, and not hired in the future, thus “blacklisted.”

November 25, 1986

The Iran-Contra affair erupted in the U.S. three weeks after a Lebanese magazine reported it when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that profits from secret arms sales to Iran had been diverted to American-supported Nicaraguan contra insurgents in violation of U.S. laws.

What was Iran-Contra?

Who's who in Iran-Contra

November 25, 1988

2,000 marched in New York city to protest the sale of animal fur for clothing.

Over 50 other cities held demonstrations.

November 26, 1968

U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution against capital punishment following an official report which said, “Examination of the number of murders before and after the abolition of the death penalty does not support the theory that capital punishment has a unique deterrent effect.”

November 26, 1970

American Indian Movement (AIM) activists celebrated Thanksgiving by occupying Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.

This yearly Thanksgiving Day action has become known as the National Day of Mourning.

Day of Mourning demo in downtown Plymouth

November 27, 1915

The No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) was founded by two English pacifists, Clifford Allen and Fenner Brockway. They opposed the Military Service Act which introduced conscription and mounted a vigorous campaign against the punishment and imprisonment of conscientious objectors.

early Fellowship members

Fellowship members at a recent protest

November 27, 1957

Jawaharlal Nehru, who fought British colonial authority through acts of passive resistance and became India's first Prime Minister, made an impassioned speech appealing to the United States and the USSR to end nuclear tests and begin disarmament, which, he said, would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster."

read his appeal

November 27, 1965

In Washington D.C., 35,000 anti-war protesters circled the White House then marched on to the Washington Monument for a rally. Eight years later, the last U.S. troops left Vietnam.

November 27, 1967

Poor Peoples March, NYC

Martin Luther King, Jr. announced the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Poor People’s Campaign, a movement to broadly address economic inequalities with nonviolent direct action. "It must not be just black people," argued King, "it must be all poor people. We must include American Indians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and even poor whites."

November 27, 1969

100 U.S. Army medics stationed at the 71st Evacuation Hospital at Pleiku, Vietnam, held a Thanksgiving fast to protest the Vietnam War in solidarity with the moratorium movement, the domestic anti-war movement.

November 28, 1891

Early IBEW delegates

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) was founded when 10 men met at Stolley’s Dance Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. Their goal: the joining together of electricians in a common organization to make a better life for all.

The original logo adopted at the First Convention.

November 28, 1905

Arthur Griffith

The political party Sinn Fein (meaning “we ourselves” in Gaelic) was founded in Dublin by Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith. Its objective was to end British rule in Ireland and seek national self-determination as a sovereign state.

read about the origin of Sinn Fein

November 28, 1988

Activists in Woensdrecht, Netherlands, paint anti-military graffiti on war planes due for delivery to Turkey.

November 29, 1864

A U.S. Army cavalry regiment under Col. J. M. Chivington (a Methodist pastor), acting on orders from Colorado's Governor, John Evans, and ignoring a white surrender flag, attacked sleeping Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, killing nearly 500, in what became known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

The Indians had been ordered away from Fort Lyon four days before, with the promise that they would be safe. Virtually all of the victims, mostly women and children, were tortured and scalped; women's genitals were cut out and stuck on poles. Nine of 900 cavalrymen were killed. A local newspaper called this "a brilliant feat of arms," and stated the soldiers had "covered themselves with glory." At first, Chivington was widely praised for his "victory" at the Battle of Sand Creek, and he and his troops were honored with a parade in Denver. However, rumors of drunken soldiers butchering unarmed women and children began to circulate, and Congress ordered a formal investigation of the Sand Creek Massacre. Chivington was eventually threatened with court martial by the U.S. Army, but as he had already left his military post, no criminal charges were ever filed against him.

two different paintings of the Sand Creek Massacre

November 30, 1216

Pope Innocent II

Pope Innocent II, in a papal bull, ordered that Jews, "whether men or women, must in all Christian countries distinguish themselves from the rest of the population in public places by a special kind of clothing." The rule was interpreted as requiring a badge on clothing as determined by each country. In England, for example, the tablets with the 10 commandments were used.

November 30, 1967

Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-Minnesota) announced that he would run on an anti-war platform against President Lyndon Johnson for the nomination

of the Democratic Party.

McCarthy on the campaign trail

November 30, 1993

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act became law. It provided for a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and for the establishment of a national instant criminal background check system to be contacted by firearms dealers before the transfer of any firearm.

The law was named for James Brady, President Reagan’s press secretary, who became a paraplegic due to a wound suffered in the assassination attempt on Reagan, and thereafter was a leading proponent of controlling the proliferation of handguns.

James Brady watches President Clinton sign the bill

November 30, 1999

Tens of thousands of activists, students, union members and environmentalists demonstrating for global justice shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Seattle, Washington.

International media coverage ignored both the blockade and the police riot (and an enormous labor-sponsored rally and march), focusing instead on minor property damage committed by a few dozen self-described anarchists.

photo Elaine Brière

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