In that grim 100-year period between the end of the American Civil War and the onset of the Civil Rights movement, the only thing more challenging than being an African American was the double whammy of being both black and … Continue reading
Today we celebrate the extraordinary life of an extraordinary woman – orator, writer, agitator, firebrand and revolutionary anarchist – Emma Goldman. Known as “Red Emma,” “the mother of anarchy in America” and “the most dangerous woman in the world,” she … Continue reading
No other city is more synonymous with revolution than Paris. Its citizens turned the world upside down in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871. And on this day in May 1968, one million Parisians once again took to the streets in … Continue reading
On 11th May 1846, the 11th president of the United States, James Polk, asked Congress to recognise the existence of a war with Mexico triggered by America’s annexation of Texas. Two days later, war was officially declared and thus … Continue reading
On this day in 1857 in Meerut, India, three infantry regiments of Indian Sepoys turned their guns on their commanding British officers. Shouting ‘Maro phirangi ko’ (death to foreigners), they killed any European in sight, burnt the officers’ quarters, freed … Continue reading
“How can stupidity invade intelligence?” asked Ulrike Meinhof of post-war West Germany’s increasingly capitalistic policies of betrayal. Since her death in 1976 on this day at the age of forty-one, we’ve been asking that very question of her own dilemmatic … Continue reading
On this day in 1763, one of the most significant Indian rebellions in the history of Colonial America began when a confederacy of tribes under the leadership of Chief Pontiac attacked British forces at Fort Detroit. Pontiac’s war would rage … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to author, naturalist, abolitionist, poet, prophet and unrepentant individual – Henry David Thoreau. When he died on this day in 1862 from tuberculosis aged 44, this giant in the American pantheon was still virtually unknown. Indeed, … Continue reading
Early in the morning of 5th May 2011, the last living soldier and genuine veteran of World War One quit this planet at the inspiring age of 110. Claude Stanley Choules signed up to the Royal Navy in 1915 when … Continue reading
Today we recall the Haymarket Affair – the most sensational American labour incident of the 19th century, whose legacy even today continues to surreptitiously reverberate. What began as a nationwide movement for the 8-hour work day on 1st May ignited just a few … Continue reading
Today we are remembering one of the great lost thinkers of the twentieth century – Gustav Landauer – German Jewish anarchist, philosopher and “prophet of community” who, on this day in 1919, was brutally murdered by counter-revolutionary soldiers who overthrew the … Continue reading
Today, May Day, marks the international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the labour movement. Except in the United States. Yet it is from the New World itself that May Day received its inspiration. On 1st May 1886, … Continue reading
He’s been called the “prophet of his generation,” “America’s Plato,” “the Sage of Concord” and “the single most influential figure in American literary history.” Today we celebrate a true colossus – Ralph Waldo Emerson – who died on this day in … Continue reading
At twenty minutes past midnight on 25th April 1974, Lisbon night owls heard the unthinkable coming through their radios. “Grândola, Vila Morena” – a folk anthem well-known to young people and intellectuals, with lyrics extolling the virtues of brotherhood and … Continue reading
It was the spring of 1968, the “year that rocked the world”. In America, the anti-Vietnam movement was intensifying, stirred by the Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre. The women’s rights movement was mobilising. And Black Power and the Black … Continue reading
On this day in 1792, Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier – better known as Tiradentes – was hanged in Rio de Janeiro, his body then chopped into pieces, which were displayed along the road between Rio and Vila Rica. His head … Continue reading
Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. And that astonishing figure only accounts for those that were recorded. Behind every one of those 4,743 extrajudicial “mob rules” executions, there lies a tragedy – but today we … Continue reading
Yes, he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know” – flamboyant, dynamic and notorious for his scandalous love affairs and aristocratic excesses. A proto-rock star, he was the most famous literary figure of his day – capturing the imagination of Europe … Continue reading
On this day in 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and declared revolutionary Year Zero. After five years of bloody civil war, the conquering Communist guerrillas were welcomed as heroes by a relieved population desperate for … Continue reading
No great action has thus far occurred on this day that warrants an On This Deity entry. Instead, here’s something from Noam Chomsky to think about: “Personally I’m in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions in the society … Continue reading
Seven score and twelve years ago today at 7.22am, Abraham Lincoln died – nine hours after an assassin’s bullet entered the back of his head. This self-educated, rough-hewn lawyer from Illinois with virtually no administrative or military experience had for … Continue reading
Today we commemorate one of the twentieth century’s greatest revolutionary heroines – the mother of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson. Passionate naturalist, brilliant biologist, fearless crusader and gifted writer, this outwardly demure and unassuming woman took on the federal government, … Continue reading
On March 13th 1873, a brutal massacre occurred in Colfax, Louisiana that remains shockingly little-known considering the magnitude of the violence – it is one of the largest incidents of race-related mass murder in America’s non-combatant history – and the … Continue reading
Today we commemorate everyone’s favourite Groucho Marxist – the radical activist, Abbie Hoffman. Co-founder of the Yippies and author of Steal This Book and Revolution for the Hell of It, Hoffman was one of the most colourful and iconic figures … Continue reading
On 11th April 1979, Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda after his attempt to annex part of Tanzania backfired. Following a counterattack by the Tanzania People’s Defence Force, the former stooge of Imperial Britain who, in 1971 had … Continue reading
On this day in 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to the Union’s Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. In the parlour of the home of Wilmer and Virginia McLean in the town of Appomattox … Continue reading
On 6th April 1994, the plane carrying Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down by surface-to-air missiles as it approached Kigali Airport. All on board were killed. The responsibility for the downing of the plane remains a mystery, but the … Continue reading
Today we commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. – the inspirational leader, moral arbiter and emblematic martyr of the U.S. civil rights movement. A prophet who led America out of its Jim Crow darkness, for thirteen turbulent years, this devout Baptist preacher harnessed … Continue reading
On this day in 2000 the world lost a great champion of freedom, creativity, and our inalienable right to increase both of these by partaking of nature’s rich pharmacy. Terence McKenna was a thinker, explorer, writer and raconteur obsessed with … Continue reading
On this day in 1917, the first woman elected to any national legislature in a Western democracy took her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. And Sisters, our first-ever political representative didn’t let us down. Three full years before … Continue reading
On this day in 1939, Generalissimo Francisco Franco broadcast his final radio communiqué of the Spanish Civil War: “Today, after having disarmed and captured the Red Army, the Nationalist troops have secured their final military objective. The war is ended. … Continue reading
Nothing revolutionary to report today. So I thought I’d sling this through your window… “In all times and in all places, whatever may be the name that the government takes, whatever has been its origin, or its organization, its essential … Continue reading
In the middle of the 19th century, the barely-united states of America was in grave trouble. Stymied by its inability to reconcile a mandate for economic growth that depended largely on that “peculiar institution” of slavery, the so-called “Land of … Continue reading
We in the West tend to recall only the great Mahatma Gandhi when we think of India’s long and gruelling fight for freedom from the British Raj. But today we pay tribute to another extraordinary Indian Independence revolutionary – Bhagat … Continue reading
Today we commemorate the anniversary of the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly – one of the few works of fiction that can lay genuine claim to changing history. A literary incendiary, Beecher … Continue reading
Today marks the anniversary of the formation of the Paris Commune – the first successful seizure of power by the working class. Facing Prussian invasion forces on one side and French troops mobilised against its own citizens on the other, … Continue reading
On March 16th 1968, the American combat soldiers of Charlie Company, First Battalion, 20th Infantry Division swept into the South Vietnamese village of My Lai and massacred 504 unarmed, unresisting women, children and elderly men. Babies were shot at point-blank … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to a woman whose very name is synonymous with women’s suffrage – the legendary Susan B. Anthony. Although there are several other luminaries whose pioneering efforts heralded that extraordinary first wave of female emancipation, it is Susan … Continue reading
Today is the date attributed to the death of Anne Frank. But the exact date is of course unknown, for the 15-year-old Jewish diarist was just one of some 18,000 to die from the typhus epidemic that spread like wildfire … Continue reading
“Excepting John Brown – of sacred memory – I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people,” wrote Frederick Douglass of the abolitionist and freedom fighter, Harriet Tubman – who we honour … Continue reading
When Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first drafted the 19th Amendment in 1878, never could they have imagined it would be another forty-two gruelling years before American women would win the right to vote. Why, even black men … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to one of the great figures in the battle for working class rights – a woman whose impact was so powerful that the Chicago Police Department branded her “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” As a … Continue reading
On this day in 1857, African-Americans were delivered a conclusive and seemingly fatal blow to their prospects for freedom. It was official. The United States Supreme Court – the highest bastion of law and morality – ruled that ‘Negroes’ were not … Continue reading
When a man is one hundred years ahead of his time, only the esteemed company that he keeps give his general contemporaries any inkling that his curious methods and zany lifestyle might be anything more than a splendid eccentricity. Throughout … Continue reading
On this day, the UK Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 ended in defeat for Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers when miners reluctantly and bitterly voted to return to work. The strike, lasting just two days short of a … Continue reading
On this day 1969, in his hometown of Miami, Florida, controversial Doors singer Jim Morrison finally abandoned all notions of changing society through his role as a pop singer and entertainer. Instead, profoundly inspired by three successive viewings of the … Continue reading
In 1904, 26-year-old socialist Upton Sinclair was a struggling and impoverished New Jersey writer when he was commissioned by the editor of The Appeal to Reason – America’s most widely circulated socialist-populist newspaper – to write a fictionalised series on … Continue reading
On this day in 1956, before a closed session at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev delivered his sensational speech, On the Personality Cult and its Consequences – or the “Secret Speech” as … Continue reading
Today we reflect on the brief but luminous life of John Keats – struck down by tuberculosis on this day in 1821 at the age of 25. Little known and lowly regarded in his lifetime, the dying poet – resigned … Continue reading
Seventy-six years ago today, three German students were executed by guillotine in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison for their crimes of high treason against Hitler’s Third Reich. Just four days earlier, 24-year-old Hans Scholl and his 21-year-old sister Sophie were arrested after … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to a true colossus – the abolitionist, writer, orator and America’s first black leader of national stature, the inimitable Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, separated in infancy from his mother and shunted from one pitiless Maryland … Continue reading
On this day in 1942, in response to the Imperial Japanese Army’s attack on Pearl Harbor two months earlier, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which cleared the way for some 120,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated … Continue reading
On this day in 1943, the first indications that all was not tickety-boo with Hitler’s Holocaust came to light when Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast to a large but carefully selected audience calling … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the man known as the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. Vicente Guerrero was one of the leading revolutionary generals in Mexico’s 11-year war of independence and, as the republic’s second president, abolished slavery … Continue reading
Today we celebrate the anniversary of a momentous gathering of sixty intellectuals: reformers and socialists, blacks and whites, and all dedicated to securing the civil and political rights of African Americans as guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Specifically, … Continue reading
Today we dance in celebration on this anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa in 1990. Incarcerated for almost three decades, subjected to inhuman conditions breaking rocks in a lime quarry, restricted to two visitors per year, … Continue reading
On this day back in 1855, the Woman’s Hospital in New York City was founded. This was the first hospital in the world to be established for conditions specific to women, and from this beginning the study and discovery of … Continue reading
No event has as yet occurred on this day that warrants an On This Deity entry. Budding politicos and future revolutionaries please therefore take note of 9th February for all potential world-changing international incidents. And don’t forget to do your … Continue reading
Today we salute one of the turn-of-the-century’s great revolutionary heroes, Peter Alexeyevich Kropotkin. Born into extraordinary wealth and nobility – a Russian prince, no less – Kropotkin surrendered his birthright and all that came with it for the life of … Continue reading
On this day in 1976, leading Native American activist Leonard Peltier was illegally arrested in Canada by means of coerced and fraudulent testimony for the murder of two FBI agents. Extradited to the United States, Peltier was tried and convicted … Continue reading
Today we consider Shays’ Rebellion – otherwise known as “the American Revolution’s Final Battle” – which very nearly led to America’s first civil war. This major grassroots uprising raged for six months and shared much in common with the ideologies that … Continue reading
She was born of impeccable parentage – the daughter of two of the 18th century’s most notable and infamous thinkers: pioneering feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft; and radical philosopher and proto-anarchist, William Godwin. She … Continue reading
In the early hours of 31st January 1968, thirteen years into the Vietnam War, 70,000 North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched a wave of simultaneous attacks on more than 100 towns and cities in South Vietnam. This audacious operation took … Continue reading
On this day in 1788, the “First Fleet” of eleven ships arrived at Sydney Cove, Australia. Its passengers were the first white settlers of this remote continent: some 750 convicted petty criminals and 500 marine guards and officers shipped out … Continue reading
Today we pay our respects to the great singer, actor, scholar, All-American athlete and human rights activist, Paul Robeson, who died on this day 1976. In the 1930s and 40s, this son of an escaped slave was the most famous … Continue reading
On this day in 1905, a seismic social shift occurred that would ultimately end Russia’s seemingly unassailable dynastical certainties – setting the stage for the new global force of communism. For nearly four hundred years, a succession of patrilineal descendents … Continue reading
Today marks the anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who, as leader of the Bolshevik Party and architect of the first successful workers’ revolution, unleashed upon the world a new kind of tyranny that substituted dynastical despots for … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to culture hero, writer and visionary thinker, John Ruskin, who died 118 years ago aged 80. The most brilliant and influential art critic of his age, and arguably any other, Ruskin dared to challenge – and successfully … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Pierre-Sylvain Maréchal, the visionary French revolutionary, militant Atheist and proto-anarchist whose iconoclastic and blasphemous new calendar – the “Honest Man’s Almanac” – so outraged pre-Revolutionary France that he was, in 1788, sentenced to jail for … Continue reading
On this day in 1945, Raoul Wallenberg was summoned to Red Army headquarters in Budapest, Hungary. Before setting off, he confided to one of his closest associates: “I do not know whether I am a guest of the Soviets or … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Anaïs Nin – one of the most important writers of the twentieth century – who died on this day in 1977. Brilliant, beautiful, seductive, promiscuous, flamboyant, provocative, fearless, Anaïs was and remains a source of … Continue reading
Nothing as yet occurred on this day that falls within On This Deity’s remit, so – until tomorrow – here are some excerpts from Emma Goldman’s brilliant and inspiring essay, Anarchism: What It Really Stands For. “Anarchism … is the philosophy … Continue reading
On this day in 1943, Carlo Tresca – Italian-American anarchist leader and thorn in the side of just about everyone – was assassinated on the streets of New York City. One of the most colourful figures of the American labour … Continue reading
Henry Miller called him “the living symbol of protest.” In 1957, Kenneth Rexroth wrote that he was the only remaining poetic voice of America’s early twentieth-century revolutionary conscience. Today we are commemorating American poet and novelist, Kenneth Patchen – who … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Comandante Ramona – the diminutive, barely literate peasant-turned-revolutionary leader and heroine – who died on this day 2006 at the age of 47 following a decade-long battle with cancer. A high-ranking officer of Mexico’s Zapatista … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to the Russian philosopher, author and first female psychoanalyst, Lou Andreas-Salomé – whose “importance to the history of the development of women is immeasurable,” according to none other than Anaïs Nin. Indeed, while most turn-of-the-century revolutionary … Continue reading
Due to unforeseen circumstances, today’s guest contributor was unable to deliver their tribute to Albert Camus. This piece will be appear at a later date.
Today we pay tribute to Elizabeth Peabody – author, publisher and education pioneer – whose progressive and intellectual contributions played a pivotal role in igniting and facilitating the American Transcendentalist movement. Born into a poor but intellectually rich family, Elizabeth was … Continue reading
On this day in 1920, in an attempt to rid America of its “moral perverts”, federal agents under the direction of U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer raided without warrants pool halls, restaurants and private homes in thirty-five American cities. … Continue reading
On the first day of 1994, 3,000 indigenous Mayan Indian guerrillas came down from the mountains of the southern province of Chiapas and declared war against the Mexican government. The insurgents – representing some of the poorest and most exploited … Continue reading
On this day in 1896, José Rizal – the “George Washington of the Philippines” – was executed by the Spanish Army following a false conviction for rebellion, sedition and conspiracy. Rizal had devoted all of his brief adult life to liberating … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to Rainer Maria Rilke, who died of leukaemia on this day in 1926 at the age of fifty-one. In the age of disillusionment, Rilke was a mystic who pondered the Big Questions – life, love, meaning … Continue reading
On this night in 1985, Dian Fossey – legendary zoologist and champion of Africa’s mountain gorillas – was brutally murdered in the bedroom of her isolated cabin, high in Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains. Her lifeless body with its skull split open … Continue reading
Let us on this Christmas Eve make note that tomorrow we once again celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25th, that date stabilised by the early Christian Church in order to benefit from that same day’s previous pagan … Continue reading
Post-Nazism, post-Holocaust, it’s easy to forget that it was not Berlin, but Paris – the cultural capital of Europe – that played shameful host to the first outpouring of modern political anti-Semitism. For it was on this day in 1894 that … Continue reading
On this day 1907 in the city of Iquique, some 3000 striking workers and their families were brutally massacred by the Chilean army on government orders. This state-sanctioned crime was subsequently suppressed for nearly one hundred years; if not for … Continue reading
On this day in 1973, Spain moved a significant step closer to liberation from its protracted state of fascistic tyranny when General Francisco Franco’s named political successor – the recently appointed prime minister, Luis Carrero Blanco, otherwise known as “the … Continue reading
A tribute to Czech revolutionary hero Václav Havel will appear here shortly.
“I swear before you, I swear before the God of my fathers, I swear by my fathers, I swear by my honour, I swear by my country that I will not rest, body or soul, until I have broken the … Continue reading
At nine o’clock on the night of 16th December 1773, a group of angry Bostonians disguised as Mohawk Indians and armed with tomahawks boarded three British ships anchored at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston harbour. Urged on by thousands of cheering … Continue reading
Today we lament the death of Sitting Bull – arguably the most famous-ever Native American – murdered by Indian “police” during a bungled effort to arrest the legendary 59-year-old Sioux chief. Five years earlier, Sitting Bull had received a vision … Continue reading
Today we recall the 1981 El Mozote Massacre – the largest killing of civilians during El Salvador’s brutal twelve-year civil war – in which nearly the entire 800-plus population of the small village of El Mozote and its surrounding hamlets … Continue reading
It can be surprising to discover that the largest, most controversial and violent riot in Britain concerning the emotive issue of animal rights occurred not in recent years, but in 1907. And the most vociferous and heated protagonists were not … Continue reading
On this day in 1989, woman-hater Marc Lépine went on a gendercidal rampage at Montreal’s prestigious École Polytechnique. Armed with a Sturm Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, 25-year-old Lépine – a failed application to the elite engineering school … Continue reading
Today we pay tribute to and recall the shocking circumstances surrounding the murder of Fred Hampton – 21-year-old deputy chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and considered by many to be the most inspiring young African-American leader to emerge in the wake … Continue reading
The history of Australia shares many key similarities with America – colonialisation, multi-cultural settlement and genocidal atrocities meted out on its indigenous peoples. But colonial Australia, unlike America, was not distinguished by legendary rebellions and revolution. In fact, the event we … Continue reading
Today we honour a controversial World Martyr. A man so fervently opposed to racism that he was willing to die for it… but also to kill for it. A white man who killed white men – and sacrificed his own life … Continue reading
Today we recall the bizarre events of forty-two years ago, in which television presenter Bill Grundy – clearly ill-prepared for the motley posse sat before him, and possibly himself quite drunk – half-wittedly and quite inadvertently handed to the already notorious Sex … Continue reading
Today we commemorate the anniversary of the UK release of Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins – the first artistic collaboration between John and Yoko – for whom, as the Romeo and Juliet of their time, no surnames are required. Eighteen … Continue reading
An alternative "On This Day", On This Deity aims to bring light to and celebrate Culture Heroes, Outsider Icons, Beloved Immortals and Revolutionary Events in history.
Disclaimer: These are spirited and informed opinion pieces. Photos have been credited wherever possible, which hasn’t often been the case. Please contact me (via Comments) if you are the photographer of any pictures used by On This Deity and would like your photo to be credited or removed.
