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 New Year’s Day in 1804, Haiti proclaimed its independence: After ten years of struggle, an army of former slaves led by their charismatic leader Toussaint L’Ouverture had fought the French and British to a standstill. After the British colonies … 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
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
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 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
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 must celebrate John Aubrey’s dramatic rediscovery of Avebury – the world’s largest prehistoric stone circle – whilst out hunting with fellow royalists during the English Civil War, exactly 373 years ago. For Aubrey’s heroic retrieval of this vast … 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
On 9th January 1996 the bulldozers and chainsaws moved in to clear the route of the Newbury bypass. This nine-mile stretch of Berkshire countryside had been under threat since a public inquiry in 1988 approved the building of a four-lane … Continue reading
Born on this day in 1830, at the dawn of an extraordinary revolutionary age, Louise Michel was the Transcendent Revolutionary – an extraordinary French woman whose ideals and displays of generosity to the Parisian poor existed at such a hands-on … Continue reading
At the beginning of 1776 the American Revolution was well underway and growing in intensity with each passing week. The Battle of Bunker Hill in June ’75 had shaken the British army so badly they’d been on the back … 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
Every age has its prophets – those Visionaries and Revolutionaries whose ideas and actions inform us of where we are and anticipate where we’re heading. Aaron Swartz was a prophet of the Information Age. As a child prodigy technological genius … 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 2006, 69-year-old Joan Root lay alone bleeding to death from gunshot wounds at her home on the shores of Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Whodunnit? Who cut down this Kenyan-born English rose? And why? As a young … 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
The murder of revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on 15th January 1919 at the hands of the proto-Nazi Freikorps marked the end of the Spartacist Week – the failed workers’ uprising in Berlin. Incredibly their murder was ordered … Continue reading
Let us today pay tribute to Blue Cheer’s astounding debut LP VINCEBUS ERUPTUM, their teenage master class in colossally loud avant-garde guitar dynamics released exactly 50 years ago and arguably the first rock album genuinely deserving of the description ‘Heavy … 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 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
Let us cast our mind back to this day in 1865 to remember the death (at the age of 56) and celebrate the life of the world’s first anarchist. Actually, it’s probably stretching things a little to describe Pierre-Joseph Proudhon … 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 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
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 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
Today we are duty bound to remember that dreadful old scoundrel, Winston Churchill, who died on this day in 1965. Racist, royalist, aristocrat, misogynist, opposer of women’s rights, deployer of army weapons against striking miners even; who knows the scores of … Continue reading
It was on this day 1971 that Charles Manson and three of his female accomplices were finally convicted of those horrendously violent murders which have come to many to represent the symbolic termination of the Sixties. Undoubtedly, the grotesque and … 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 tribute to the three American astronauts of Apollo 1, who died on this day in 1967 when their command module cabin caught fire during a pre-launch test at Cape Kennedy. The flight had already caused controversy when, … Continue reading
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the death and celebrate the life of William Butler Yeats. Poet and politician, mystic and modernist, revolutionary and traditionalist, WB Yeats lived a life filled with glorious contradiction. A man of … Continue reading
On this day in 1912, a 34-year-old female immigrant mill-worker was shot and killed by Massachusetts police whilst peacefully picketing in the Lawrence Textile Strike. Her name was Anna LoPizzo, and she was in no way remarkable. In life, she … Continue reading
Today we commemorate the execution of King Charles I of England, executed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell after a trial by the Rump Parliament found the king guilty of being ‘a tyrant, traitor and murderer.’ It is not the place … 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
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.
