1863

US president Grant issues the National Eight Hour Law Proclamation, an early but symbolic victory for the struggle over the working day in the US.
“Think carefully of the operative and the mechanic leaving his work at half-past seven (after dark, the most of the year), and that of the more leisurely walk home at half-past four p.m., or three hours earlier.”

Phật 50 ⬙ Consolidation of chaotic cargoes

Ilham Tohti

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1971

The New York Times publishes the first of the Daniel Ellsberg-leaked Pentagon Papers, which proved that the US government misled the public on the Vietnam War.

“If the war was unjust, as I now regarded it, that meant that every Vietnamese killed by Americans or by the proxies we had financed since the 1950s had been killed by us without justification. I could think of no other word for that but murder. Mass murder.”

1918

Playboy-turned-socialist John Reed returns to New York after taking part in the Russian Revolution, which he would memorialize in his Ten Days That Shook the World.
“In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.”


Phật 83 ⬙ Nvots de kolektiwatsum

Suliman Ibrahim al-Reshoudi

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1945

Following two weeks of insurgency against French colonial forces, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh seize control of the country and declare Vietnam independent. “Poor Indochina! You will die, if your old-fashioned youth do not resuscitate themselves.”

1989

Violence breaks out between protesters and the People’s Liberation Army at Tiananmen Square. As the tanks move in the following morning, protesters sing “Heirs of the Dragon” by singer Hou Dejian, who had joined them in the square.

“Enemies on all sides, the sword of the dictator.
For how many years did those gunshots resound?”