| Stonemasons and other construction workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House. They advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest. Their direct action protest was a success, becoming the first organized workers in the world to achieve an eight-hour workday, inspiring the celebration of Labor Day and May Day. |
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| Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students from more than 40 universities gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu prior to his funeral. They voiced their discontent with China’s authoritarian communist government, and called for greater democracy. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, the students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants. |
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The Mothers for Peace, a group made up of Catholic Workers, members of PAX (which became Pax Christi in 1972), Women Strike for Peace, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and others, met with Pope John XXIII to plead for a condemnation of nuclear war and the development of nonviolent resistance.
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About Women Strike for Peace 
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 Poster at the first Earth Day
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On the first Earth Day observance, an estimated 20 million participated in peaceful demonstrations of concern for the environment across the U.S. An
estimated 20 million people participated including ten thousand grade schools and high schools, two thousand colleges across one thousand communities.
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 1st Earth Day, 1970
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Ron Cobb
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Beginnings of Earth Day from then Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin)
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read more about
Earth Day
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50,000 attended “Don’t Count On Us,” an anti-war rock concert in Belgrade, Serbia. It was an expression to the nationalist regime of President Slobodan Milosevic of the resistance within society to the military aggression he had been pursuing in the name of Serbian nationalism. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the various constituent republics of the former Yugoslavia — Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina — declared their independence.
Following a military draft call-up, fewer than 10% had reported for duty, and there was considerable dissension within what was then still called the Yugoslav People’s Army.
read more
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Students at Columbia University in New York City occupied campus buildings to protest military research and the razing of part of the neighboring Morningside Heights section of Harlem to make way for a new student gymnasium. |
read more
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In the final event of Operation Dewey Canyon III, nearly 1,000 Vietnam War veterans threw their combat ribbons, helmets, and uniforms on the Capitol steps along with toy weapons. |
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read more about Operation Dewey Canyon III
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Nineteen Ukrainian demonstrators were arrested in the capital, Kiev, during an illegal anti-nuclear protest marking the 10th anniversary of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the largest and deadliest nuclear accident in history [see April 26, 1986].
Chernobyl veterans
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The Ottoman Turkish government arrested 200 of the most prominent political and intellectual leaders of the Armenian community in the capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul). These men and hundreds more were then imprisoned from throughout Anatolia (present-day Turkey) and, shortly thereafter, most were summarily executed.
This is the day on which the genocide of more than a million Armenians is commemorated: when the intention of the Turkish government to eliminate the Armenian people became clear. Already Armenian recruits in the Ottoman Turkish army had been disarmed and organized as laborers working under slave-like conditions. |
Fact sheet on the Armenian genocide from University of Michigan-Dearborn
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| The Easter Uprising began when between 1,000 and 1,500 members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood attempted to seize Dublin and issued the declaration of Irish independence from Britain. |
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This editorial cartoon appeared in New Masses magazine.
It refers to the attempt of anti-radical vigilantes and repressive college administrators to disrupt the first national student strike against war. |
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At a news conference in Washington, D.C., Gen. William Westmoreland, senior U.S. commander in South Vietnam, said that the enemy, considered to be North Vietnam and the Viet Cong southern insurgents, had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”
Though he said that ninety-five percent of the people were behind the United States effort in Vietnam, he asserted that the American soldiers in Vietnam were “dismayed, and so am I, by recent unpatriotic acts at home.” This criticism of the anti-war movement was not received well by many in and out of the movement, who believed it was both their right and responsibility to speak out against the war. |
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500,000 demonstrated against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C.
It was the largest-ever demonstration opposing U.S. war in Southeast Asia. 150,000 marched at a simultaneous rally in San Francisco.
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Delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco for the United Nations Conference on International Organization.
Pres. Roosevelt had just died and had been working on his speech to the conference: “The work, my friends, is peace; more than an end of this war—an end to the beginning of all wars; … as we go forward toward the greatest contribution that any generation of human beings can make in this world—the contribution of lasting peace—I ask you to keep up your faith….” |
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| Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) sponsored what was then the largest anti-war demonstration in U.S. history. 25,000 turned out in Washington, D.C. to oppose Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s recent escalation of the war in Vietnam. Johnson had ordered sustained bombing of North Vietnam, and had committed the first combat troops. |
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The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and 100 others were arrested while picketing a Charleston, South Carolina, hospital to support unionization by its workers.
read more about Rev Ralph Aberathy
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| A peaceful uprising by army and civilians, known as the Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos), ended 48 years of fascism in Portugal. People holding red carnations urged soldiers not to resist the overthrow and many placed the flowers in the muzzles of their rifles. The regime killed four before giving in to the popular resistance. |
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Lisbon demonstration ‘74
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Over one million marched for homosexual rights and liberation in Washington, D.C.
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Health Care Rally at April 25, 1993
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The AIDS quilt on display as part of the event.
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An editorial at the time from The Progressive
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read the march’s platform
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| The March for Women’s Lives drew a record 1.15 million people to Washington, D.C. The marchers wanted to protect legal and safe access to reproductive services including abortion, birth control and emergency contraception. Organized by a coalition that included the National Organization for Women (NOW), Black Women’s Health Imperative, Feminist Majority, National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and Planned Parenthood, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the March for Women’s Lives was the largest protest in U.S. history. |
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The Geneva Conference began for the purpose of bringing to an end the conflicts in Korea and Indochina. This followed the defeat of the French in Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu. France had been trying to reassert colonial control over Indochina following World War II.
The conferees included Cambodia, France, Laos, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Soviet Union, the State of Vietnam, the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
As a result, Vietnam was temporarily partitioned pending elections on reunification to be held in 1956; those elections were never held.
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Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice, a Chicano activist group, in Denver, Colorado, and marked his departure from the Democratic Party. It was the beginning of a nationalist strategy for the attainment of Chicano civil rights.
read more
Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales
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A major accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine near the border with Belarus, both then part of the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere. Only after Swedish authorities reported the fallout over their country did Soviet authorities reluctantly admit that an accident had occurred.
During a radioactive fire that burned for 10 days, 190 tons of toxic materials were expelled into the atmosphere (3% of the reactor core). The wind blew 70% of the radioactive material into neighboring Belarus. |
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The explosion at Chernobyl was the world’s largest-scale nuclear accident. Approximately 134 power-station workers were exposed to extremely high doses of radiation directly after the accident. About 31 of these people died within 3 months. Another 25,000 “liquidators” — the Soviet soldiers and firefighters who were involved in clean-up operations — have died since the incident of diseases such as lung cancer, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease. 400,000 were evacuated and over 2,000 towns and villages were bulldozed to the ground in areas considered permanently contaminated. Deaths and illnesses directly attributable to radiation exposure continue. |
| Deaths and illnesses directly attributable to radiation exposure continue. |
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“Chernobyl is a global environment event of a new kind. It is characterized by the presence of thousands of environmental refugees, long-term contamination of land, water and air and possibly irreparable damage to ecosystems.”
- Christine K. Durbak, Chairwoman of the World Information Transfer, New York
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Chernobyl for Kids
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South Africa held its first multiracial elections and chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela (with more than 62% of the vote) to head a new coalition government that included his African National Congress Party.
read more
Nelson Mandela
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| The UAW (United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America), gained autonomy from the AFL (American Federation of Labor), becoming the first democratic, independent labor union concerned with the rights of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers. |
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| The Social Security Administration began operation by making its first payment to an American protected under the law, principally the elderly, and children who’ve lost their parents. |
the social security debate today
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Sixteen pacifists, including A.J. Muste and Evan Thomas, refused to register for the World War II draft. |
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A.J. Muste still working for peace 25 years later with Dorothy Day, leader of the Catholic Worker movement
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| Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, was blockaded by people protesting U.S. policies in Central America and Southern Africa. 700 were arrested. |
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| Thousands of Chinese students took to the streets in Beijing to protest government policies and issued a call for greater democracy in the communist People’s Republic of China. The protests grew until the Chinese government ruthlessly suppressed them in June during what came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, students from more than 40 universities began a march to Tiananmen this day.
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| The students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants and, by mid-May, more than a million people filled the square.
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Tim Ramsey said,
April 21, 2008 at 7:00 am
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.
Tim Ramsey
Brian said,
April 21, 2008 at 6:08 pm
That is a lot of interesting history… and next week is May Day too…
DL said,
April 21, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I think Kent State also happened this week. This was an interesting read, but for us here in the US, this week (or I should say, a week beginning with April 19 to the 27th) is more infamous: Ruby Ridge, Waco, Republic of Texas Standoff, and this year, the stealing of the FLDS children by the State of Texas. Funny how Texas is the oppressor in three of these four attempts at restoring and exercising Constitutional Rights. come to think of it, Kent State was either on the 19th or 20th of April…then, in early May, the same sort of event happened at Jackson State. But it’s nice to know the People have also won a few!
desertpeace said,
April 21, 2008 at 7:07 pm
So good to see you Brian…. come by more often
Frank Friedenberg said,
April 21, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I hope that 20 or 30 years from now, we can look back on these next few years and talk about the Demonstrations and Revolts around the world, that brought these NeoCon Fascists down. Add to that their trials and executions, as Traitors and War Criminals.
Frank Fredenburg said,
April 21, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Lets hope that 20 or 30 years from now, we can look back on these times and talk about the Demonstrations and Revolts around the world, that led to the fall of the NeoCon Fascists. Add to that their trials and executions as Traitors and War Criminals. That would be nice. Saddam was hung for the people he killed, so why shouldn’t they hang for killing far more Iraqis? If Saddam lived a hundred years, he couldn’t have killed as many as they did. I didn’t even mention the people tortured, raped and murdered in prisons. All done with their approval. I wonder how long it will be before they do the same to Americans???
Frank Fredenburg said,
April 21, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Maybe I was wrong. My other comment disappeared, as soon as I posted it and I thought this site pulled it. Sorry if I falsely accused you of censoring me. I have been censored on other sites, for making similar statements. I’m a little touchy when I think I can not state my opinions! Sorry again!