We have nothing that is ours except time, which even those without a roof can enjoy.

— Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo manual y Arte de prudencia

"Vorwaerts Alle! Und mit den Armen und dem Herzen, mit dem Wort und dem Stift, dem Messer und dem Gewehr, der Ironie und dem Fluch, dem Raub, der Vergiftung und dem Brand, machen wir... den Krieg gegen die Gesellschaft!"

— Joseph Dejacque

1854 -- James Bland lives, Flushing, NY. Wrote over 700 songs including "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" & "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny." The latter is selected in 1940 as the state song of Virginia, the state's legislators little knowing the identity & race (African American) of its composer.


1856 -- China: US forces land in Canton to "protect US interests."


1861 -- Punches?: First transcontinental telegraph line in operation.


1866 -- E. Phillips Oppenheim lives, London. In 1886, his first novel, Expiation catches the attention of a wealthy NY businessman who gave him a high-paying job. Frees him to pump out over 150 novels, volumes of short stories, & several plays.
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/rimbaud.htm


1870 -- Ivan Bunin lives. Russian poet, short story writer, novelist, translator, who wrote of peasant life & the decay of the Russian nobility. Nobel Prize for literature in 1933. After the October Revolution of 1917 left Moscow, emigrating to France, where he bitterly denounced the Bolsheviks.

"I have a genuinely savage hatred & genuinely savage contempt for revolutions."

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ibunin.htm

Antoine Cyvoct was wrongly suspected, because of an article published in the Lyon anarchist paper "le droit social." Cyvoct was sentenced to death, despite no proof he was responsible...

[Details / context]

"Reed was tall, forceful, & matter-of-fact, with a cool idealism & a lively intelligence tinged by humour."

— Victor Serge

"If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution."

"Si je ne peux pas danser, je ne veux pas prendre part à votre révolution."

— Emma Goldman

Instead of romanticizing war, he portrayed horrifying conditions with vivid detail & wit. Died in Soviet Russia of typhus in 1920, a victim of the Cold War, an American citizen refused entry into his own country.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/johnreed.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jreed.htm

[Details / context]

The State, then is the most flagrant negation, the most cynical & complete negation of humanity. It rends apart the universal solidarity of all men upon the earth, & it unites some of them only in order to destroy, conquer, & enslave all the rest...

— Mikhail Bakunin, "Federalism, Socialism & Anti-Teologism," 1867

http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/anarchQuotes.htm


1903 -- Louise Michel interrompt son périple; elle est de nouveau malade.

[Source: Michel Chronologie]


1905 -- Chile: Today, during "Semana Roja" (Red Week), a crucial event in early Chilean workers' history, 30,000 people join the uprising in Santiago, inspired by the revolutionary ideas sweeping working class public opinion.

Among them are butchers, shoe makers, tanners, cigar makers, truckmen, tapestry makers, typographers, telegraphers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, bakers & the brave FFCCE workers who blew up the railways.

Despite some 200 victims, the movement continues to grow steadily.

[Details / context]

1905 -- Argentina: Police massacre some 200 demonstrators opposing a tax on cattle, called by the Comité Pro Abolición. Popular outrage sweeps the country & workers call a General Strike. The government declares a "state of siege." Despite heavy military protection of the cowards who hide in the palace, insurreccionadas attempt to take the building.

[Details / context]

1906 -- US: 3,000 blacks demonstrate & riot in Philadelphia to protest a theatrical presentation of Thomas Dixon's "The Clansman."


1907 -- US: New York's Knickerbocker Trust Company fails, touching off a wide sell-off of stocks, initiating the Panic of 1907.

Instrumental in forming the photographer-owned outfit (Magnum) to aid photographers & distribute their work cooperatively without getting ripped-off.

Capa took some of the most famous war photos ever, including anarchists & Republicans during the Spanish Revolution of 1936.

Shortly after taking this photograph [left], Capa, who had taken numerous famous photos of D-Day in World War II, stepped on a land mine & was killed in Vietnam, May 24, 1954.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa

Daily Bleed Saint, 2003-2004
Action photographer, documentarian of the horror of war.

1918 -- US: Flu epidemic strikes one fourth of all Americans, killing half a million.




1919 -- Persia: Doris Lessing, British novelist, poet, communist, lives. Nobel Prize winner for 2007, her concerns include feminism, the battle of the sexes, & the individual search for wholeness. Wrote "The Golden Notebook". Children of Violence, her semi-autobiographical series of novels about Martha Quest — who grows up in southern Africa & settles in England — is her most substantial work.

Torn Notebook Coosje Van Bruggen / Claes Oldenburg, Lincoln, Nebraska

http://lessing.redmood.com/

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lessing.htm


1920 -- "Bleedster Jon L" writes in October 2000:

Today is the birthday of Dr Timothy Leary...how could you miss that one ???

(We were out back doing drugs??? —ed.)

Timothy Leary, (1920-1996) Psychologist, philosopher, explorer, teacher, optimist, author & revolutionary avatar of the mind...
http://www.leary.com/

1921 --

France: Georges Brassens lives (1921-1981), Sète. Anarchist militant, nonconformist poet began writing/singing songs in 1952. Popular, but reclusive as a star. Songs include "La mauvaise réputation," "La non-demande en mariage," "Les copains d'abord."

Je suis anarchiste au point de toujours traverser dans les clous afin de n'avoir pas à discuter avec la maréchaussée.

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/BrassensGeorges.htm

1922 -- Jacques Ibert tone poem "Ballad of Reading Gaol" premiers, Paris.

1928 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Herbie Hoover speaks of an "American system of rugged individualism."

"We in American today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.

The poorhouse is vanishing from among us. We have yet reached the goal, but, given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation."

— Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Herbert Hoover, campaign speech

1931 -- Eddie Lang-Joe Venuti band records "Farewell Blues," NY.


1932 -- First part of A. Merritt novel Burn, Witch Burn is published, in "Argosy."


1934 -- US: Pretty Boy Floyd killed.

A folk hero to the people of Oklahoma who saw him as a "Sagebrush Robin Hood," stealing from rich banks to help the poor eat by buying them groceries & tearing up their mortgages during the robberies.

Written into legend through song, in Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy" Floyd. He was never part of a gang, working with a few trusted accomplices. Boldly entering banks in broad daylight, never wearing a mask. A gentleman even in his crimes, always well groomed, immaculately dressed & courteous to his victims.

Come gather 'round me children, a story I will tell Of Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well Was in the town of Shawnee on a Saturday afternoon His wife beside him in the wagon as into town they rode A deputy sheriff approached them in a manner rather rude Using vulgar words of language & his wife she overheard Well, Pretty Boy grabbed a long chain, & the deputy grabbed a gun & in the fight that followed, he laid that deputy down Then he took to the trees & rivers to lead a life of shame Every crime in Oklahoma was added to his name Yes he took to the trees & timbers on the Canadian river shore & the outlaw found a welcome at many a farmer's door Yes, there's many a starving farmer, the same story told How the outlaw paid their mortgage & saved their little home Others tell about a stranger who came to beg a meal & underneath the napkin left a thousand dollar bill It was in Oklahoma City, it was on a Christmas day Came a whole carload of groceries & a letter that did say Well, you say that I'm an outlaw, & you say that I'm a thief Here's a Christmas dinner for the families on relief Well, as through the world I've rambled, I've seen lots of funny men Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen As through this world you ramble, as through this world you roam You'll never see an outlaw drive a family from it's home — Woody Guthrie

1936 -- US: Chef Bobby Seale lives, Dallas, Texass. Radical political activist & co-founder, with Huey Newton, of the Black Panther Party, whose most famous slogan was "Power to the People." Currently director of R.E.A.C.H.!, an organization that teaches young people how to effectively organize within the community. Wrote Seize the Time & the cookbook, Barbecuing With Bobby.
Bobby Seale's Homepage:
http://www.bobbyseale.com/

Seale was prosecuted in the Chicago 8 Conspiracy Trial (David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, John Froines, Lee Weiner, Bobby Seale).
http://www.orlok.com/tribe/insiders/insider.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Seale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_8

The Black Panthers had over 5,000 members at their peak. Advocated the right to self defense, sought to change institutional racism, discrimination & police brutality. Spouted a lot of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist rhetoric, & confused this, along with militant posturing, with revolution.

1938 -- In a small home laboratory, Chester Carlson & Otto Kornei electrostatically reproduce the legend '10-22-38 ASTORIA' — & photocopying is born. Alrighty! Let's snort toner & toast the boys.
[Source: Calendar Riots]


1941 -- Author Max Apple lives. Apples & Oranges thing...


1943 -- Petered Out?: Daredevil "The Great Peters," whose act consists of jumping off a 75' platform with an elastic rope around his neck, dies during a performance of the Sells-Floto Circus, when the rope breaks.


1951 -- US: Homework Done? 5,000 U.S. soldiers were deliberately exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests in Nevada for study purposes.
http://www.geocities.com/yucca51/atomic-photos.html
http://www.shundahai.org/US_Atmospheric_Nuclear_Tests_Database.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/facility/nts.htm



1956 -- Hungary: Russian troops begin to advance on Budapest; students raise 16 demands. Workers demonstrate solidarity with Polish workers.

See Peter Fryer, The Hungarian Tragedy; Hungary '56 by Andy Anderson; & The Hungarian Workers' Revolution by the Syndicalist Workers' Federation.
http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/history/hungary.html


1962 -- Nelson Mandela's treason trial begins.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

— Nelson Mandela

http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/

1962 -- High Seas: Cuban Missile Crisis: US blockade in response to Soviet missiles in Cuba, from the 22nd through the 28th.

Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Kennedy was intent on proving his anti-communist bonifides. Having been out of the White House two terms, Democrats were intent on proving their gonads bigger & more anti-Red than the right wing Republicans. (See Halberstam, The Fifties.) Only in 1999 is it revealed in 1999 that the US secretly had atomic weapons on the island.

After 10 months of CIA's Operation Mongoose, WORLD COMES CLOSEST EVER TO NUCLEAR WAR. Bob Dylan writes "A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall."

http://www.greathobbies.com/rockets/

1962 -- Vaughn Meader tapes The First Family album.


1962 -- Italy: State police kills the student Giovanni Ardizzone during a demonstration protesting the American naval blockade of Cuba, in Milan.
[Source: Crimini e Misfatti]



1963 -- US: More than 200,000 students boycott schools in Chicago to protest de facto segregation.


1964 -- Nobel Prize for Literature refused by Jean-Paul Sartre, saying "A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution."

There are always alternatives to anything that counts as human action. For Sartre, this is always true, even when we feel that there are no alternatives.

— Sartre for Beginners; Palmer, p. 26

http://members.aol.com/DonJohnR/Philosophy/Sartre.html
http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/dunayevskaya/works/phil-rev/dunayev6.htm
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sartre.htm
http://nobelprize.org/

1966 -- England: KGB spy George Blake escapes from maximum security prison in London. Committee Of 100 activists spring tankie spy & lifer from Wormwood Scrubs, & he is smuggled out of Britain.


1967 -- US: Author / socialist Norman Mailer is arrested at the antiwar march on the Pentagon.


1968 -- Japan: Over 300,000 protesters mark International Antiwar Day.


1968 -- US: Late this month 4000 demonstrators protest at U.C. Berkeley after Regents denied credit for Eldrigde Cleaver's course.
http://boomersint.org/octhist.html
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/Chi7_imag.htm

1969 -- US: Small swarm of earthquakes from the San Andreas fault hit Southern California. Two strategically placed homes are cut in half.

"San Andreas, It's Not Your Fault?"

— Words by Gus Hellthaler (I forget the tune it's sung to — editor's note)

1972 -- US: Wearing Dress Whites? US Navy charges 22 black seamen — but no whites — in conjunction with interracial fighting aboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk on Oct. 12.



1975 -- Outer Space: Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus.



1975 -- US: Air Force Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, is given a "general" discharge by the Air Force after publicly declaring his homosexuality. In 1979, after winning a much publicized case, his discharge is upgraded to "honorable." Nine years later, age 44, he dies & is buried at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., with a tombstone that reads:

"A gay Vietnam Veteran ... they gave me a medal for killing two men & a discharge for loving one."

1976 -- China: The arrest of Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Qiang Qing, widow of Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Mao Tse-tung, is announced.


1981 -- Cancun: 22 Third World leaders convene in Mexico.


1981 -- US: National debt tops $1 trillion. As of October 20, 1999: $5,669,462,199,918.75 The US government borrowed $130,077,992,717.81 in fiscal year 1999. The politicians brag of a 100 billion dollar surplus!

"If the Securities & Exchange Commission had jurisdiction over the way the executive & legislative branches have handled the deficit, many of us would be in jail."

— David Stockman

One must have some occupation nowadays. If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about.

— Oscar Wilde

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

1982 -- US: Worchester, Massachusetts Mayor Sara Robertson declares today Van Halen Day after local fans collect 25,000 signatures on a petition requesting that the band add another show to their tour.


1983 -- Capping a week of protests, over two million people in six European cities march against U.S. deployment of cruise & Pershing nuclear missiles. 1.2 million Germans, including 180,000 at Bonn; a 64 mile human chain between Stuttgart & New Ulm (+ Hamburg, W. Berlin); + hundreds of thousands in London + 350,000 Rome + 100,000 Vienna + 25,000 Paris + 20,000 Stockholm + 4000 Dublin + 140 sites in US.


1986 -- In an interview with the Washington Post, Spike Lee says, "Movies are the most powerful medium in the world & we just can't sit back & let other people define our existence, especially when they're putting lies out there on the screens."


1986 -- US: Jane Dornnacker WNBC-AM NYC helicopter traffic reporter dies doing a live traffic report as her copter crashes.

"High? Man, I was flying; but not on the old gravy. It was the kind of high you get on when you've got to do something & can't. When you've got to have the answers & don't know any."

— Jim Thompson, A Hell of a Woman

1987 -- Deer hunter discovers unmanned plane crashed in a tree — after the pilot crank-started it & it had taken off without him — 65 miles away.


1987 -- Highest price paid for a printed book — $5.39 million, Gutenberg Bible.


1988 -- Canada: Lubicon Lake Cree Indians reach preliminary agreement with Alberta to settle long-standing land claim. Unfortunately, the clearcut logging the agreement was designed to stop has continued with provincial approval.


1989 -- Denver McNuggets beat Jugoplastika Split 135-129 in 3rd McDonald Open.


1992 -- Iraq: 5,000 Turkish troops invade Iraq to attack the Kurds.


1995 -- Chile: Beloved & Respected comrade Leader Gen. Manuel Contreras finally enters prison for murder. http://recollectionbooks.com/cs/index.htm#chile


1996 -- Venezuela: 25 inmates die in a Caracas jail fire set by guards.



1998 -- US: National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, & the Criminalization of a Generation! Among the signatories is longtime Chicago anarchist protester Joffre Stewart.

http://www.refuseandresist.org/ndp/index.html
http://www.usk.org/poetry/stage/stewart/stewart.html

2000 -- US: Stop Police Brutality demonstrations. Prime example this year was the police attack on Errol Maitland, award winning radio producer at WBAI/Pacifica, who was targeted, beaten & arrested by NYC police while reporting live at Patrick Dorismond's funeral in Brooklyn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:WBAI



2001 -- US: Government confirms it is attacking Taliban front lines north of Kabul; meanwhile officials say two Washington DC postal workers have died of inhalation anthrax & two others are infected.



2001 -- US: 300 demonstrators attend the 6th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation, Los Angeles.
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/new/newstuff.html


2002 -- Canadian Yann Martel wins the Booker Prize, for his Life of Pi.


2002 -- Author Carol Shields is named a companion in the Order of Canada.


2002 -- Canada: CBC telecasts a controversial mock "retrial" of Metis rebel Louis Riel.

2005 -- England: 24th Annual Anarchist Book Fair. Camden Centre, Judd Street. Followed by benefit gig with Chumbawamba & Gertrude. Following the fair, London streets were marred by a police riot in front of a nearby pub, determined to liberate them from the Misery Of Drink & Alienation: "We have nothing to lose but our chainpubs."
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2005/10/326267.htmlhttp://www.anarchistbookfair.org/


3000 --

I AM the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass.

— Carl Sandburg