I have nothing to repent, only that the attempt failed...If I had ten heads I would offer them with joy & lay them on the block for the good cause.

Germany: August Reinsdorf is executed by decapitation, Berlin.

Anarchist & close friend of Johann Most, he was implicated in attentats on Beloved & Respected Comrade Kaiser Wilhelm & his merry band of Princes. Sentenced to death December 22, 1884, by the imperial court of Leipzig, with the anarchists Küchler & Rupsch (true authors of the failed attack) he courageously asserts his anarchism.

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives//////schaak/chapter4b.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Reinsdorf
http://encyclopedie-de.snyke.com/articles/august_reinsdorf.html

1886 -- US: Seattle mob rounds up Chinese residents Over 400 ethnic Chinese are driven from their homes in Seattle, Washington Territory. A federal state of emergency is declared February 9 & Federal troops are called in to restore order.

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=2745



1899 -- France: Louis Louvet lives, Paris (d.1971). Anarcho-syndicalist, member of the Syndicat des Correcteurs d'imprimerie since 1937.

Louvet was involved in the production of many anarchist publications. Free thought, anticlericalism & neomalthusianism were seminal to his activities.

[Details / context]

1904 -- US: Entire business section of Baltimore destroyed by the worst conflagration to strike an American city since the "Chicago Fire" of 1871. 2,600 buildings consumed by the flames, losses estimated at $125 million.


1913 -- US: A county sheriff & his deputies, as well as a mine operator & guards on the "Bull Moose Special" (an armored train fitted with machine guns ostensibly for defending against striking miners), attack the miners' tent colony at Holly Grove in West Virginia. Mother Jones, also involved in the Paint & Cabin Creek strikes during these upheavals, was soon arrested & sent to prison for 20 years.
[Details / context] & further [Details & sources]


1917 -- US: Labor's Tom Mooney convicted & sentenced to hang on May 17. Emma Goldman intensifies organizing efforts to prevent his execution.



1919 -- Italy: La delegazione italiana alla conferenza per la pace presenta un memoriale rivendicando l'annessione della città di Fiume (annessione che non era contemplata nemeno dagli accordi di Londra del 1915). Così, pur di fronte al mutato clima politico e culturale in favore della autodeterminazione dei popoli (principi Wilson) il governo italiano si intestardisce in una politica di rivendicazioni territoriali di tipo coloniale.
[Source: Crimini e Misfatti]


1922 -- US: Samuel Fielden, American militant anarchist & propagandist & one of the few Haymarket Martyers not executed, dies.

Fielden's crime was to be stepping downfrom the speaker's platofrm when a bomb went off, wounding him. His death sentence commuted to life by Illinois Governor Richard James Oglesby, he was pardoned & released in 1893 by Governor John Peter Altgeld ("The Friend of Mad Dogs" as the famed "liberal" illustrator Thomas Nast characterized him).

http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/history/haymarket.html
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haymarket/haymarketcartoons.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Fielden
http://www.ephemanar.net/fevrier07.html#fielden

1923 -- China: Strike of Peking-Hankow railroad workers & shooting of strikers by soldiers.
[Source: K.S. Karol]


1928 -- Canada: In her final appearance in Toronto, Emma Goldman lectures on two books by Judge Ben Lindsey, The Revolt of Youth & Companionate Marriage.



1939 -- England: Emma Goldman's letter protesting Zenzl Mühsam's second disappearance in the Soviet Union appears in the Manchester Guardian.



1943 -- Michael P. Lerner, socialist writer, activist, professor (indicted as a member of the 'Seattle 7' in the 1970s), lives.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=2131


1944 -- Witi Ihimaera, Maori author, lives, Gisborne, New Zealand. Writing reflects the clash between Maori & Pakeha (white, European-derived) values.



1952 -- Malaysia: British High Commissioner arrives to make things better. Suprisingly, an 'emergency' situation worsens.

'Emergency' is a euphemism for a war started in 1948 between the British colonial power & Malaysian communists. The 'Emergency' lasts until 1960.

http://www.iisg.nl/today/en/07-02.php

1958 -- France: André Prévotel dies. One of the defendants, with his wife Andrée Prevotel, in the scandolous "Sterilizers of Bordeaux" trial.



1959 -- New Orleans blues & R&B guitarist/singer Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones, 33, dies of pneumonia in New York City. His wildly electrified guitar style influences Jimi Hendrix among others.
http://thebluehighway.com/tbh.html



1959 -- US: Cessna lands in Las Vegas after 65 days without landing (refuels in air).
’Scope’



1962 -- Vietnam: First US Army support companies arrive in Saigon.



1964 -- US: Cassius Clay becomes a Black Muslim.

"I don't put that much value on no heavyweight crown. Time was when I did, but that was before I found the religious convictions that I have. I could give up fighting & never look back."

Source: ’Scope’

1965 -- Vietnam: US Air force begins systematic saturation bombing & strafing of North Vietnam — as opposed to their special "festive" bombing & strafing — coinciding with Kosygin’s visit to Hanoi.
[Source: K.S. Karol]




1965 --

Danish... During this month, Im Namen des Volkes (In the Name of the People), tract by J.V. Martin on the trial of the SI (Situationistisk Internationale, Northern Region Publications). The Danish court later decides to drop all charges. Danish translations of 'Response to a questionnaire...' (as 'Realizing philosophy, realizing art') & Theses on the Paris Commune appear in the left socialist journal Aspekt. This journal also publishes the very comics that led to the Moral Rearmement affair. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/chronology.html | [Situationist Resources]

1968 -- After American & South Vietnamese air & artillery strikes level the city of Bentre, South Vietnam (pop. 50,000), a US Army major explains that

"it became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

http://www.namebase.org/nerve.html

1968 -- France: An anti-Vietnam committee organizes a counter-demonstration against supporters of US Vietnam policy, resulting in violent exchanges with the police. A pro-North Vietnam demonstration takes place on 13. February.
[Sources]


1970 -- US: In the first major action by the Los Angeles Gay Liberation Front, more than 100 activists descend on Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood. For 30 years the bar has posted a sign, "Faggots — Stay Out."

Management refused to remove the sign & even posted six additional warnings in the past few weeks. Tonight the gay contingent picket & leaflet, but the signs remain. In a few nights, when a gay group spreads out through the bar & restaurant, owner Irving Held calls the sheriff's office repeatedly. When the deputies arrive, they take Held into the kitchen for a conference. After about an hour, employees take down the signs & give them to the demonstrators.

1971 -- Switzerland: What's the Hurry?! Women get the vote. World's obviously going to hell.

1974 -- Grenada: A General Strike forces England to recognize its independence. The peace & democracy-loving US Marine & Army corps won't invade to Save American Tourism (SAT) & overthrow the legitimate Grenada government until October 25, 1983, when it launches Operation Urgent Fury.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/829758/posts
http://www.psywarrior.com/GrenadaHerb.html

1976 -- US: FCC raids & shuts down pirate radios. Rupert? Ted?
Source: ’Scope’


1980 -- Pink Floyd begins one of the more unusual coast-to-coast tours in rock history, playing the first of only 14 shows in Los Angeles. The only other city they played was New York. The stage, to promote the band's latest album "The Wall," features a 120 by 60 foot wall made of Styrofoam blocks, which gradually envelops the group as the show goes on.


1982 -- Guatemala: Founding of the National Patriotic United Front.
Source: ’Robert Braunwart’


1984 -- David (born without an immunity system), at age 12, touches his mom for first time.
Source: ’Scope’


1986 -- Haiti: After huge popular protests, Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Playboy dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier (President-for-Life) flees the country, ending 35 years of this U.S.-sponsored terrorist dictatorship. He was whisked to France on a US jet. Americans can be proud of the democratic values the government has upheld in Haiti; for a small sampling:

[Details / context]

1990 -- US: In raids begun a few days ago, the Secret Service busts three more computer hackers.


1991 -- Haiti: Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes first freely elected president.


1993 -- Croatia: Women's tribunal against rape in war, Zagreb.


3000 --

"There is a crack in everything.
It's how the light gets in."

— Leonard Cohen

4000 --