Michael Bakunin, like many other Russian anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin & Leo Tolstoy, is born into the educated class but spends his life fighting for the peasantry.

Unlike German economist Karl Marx, Bakunin argues that peasants themselves can win freedom & society's transformation.

Competing with Marx for leadership of the International Workingmen's Association, Bakunin believed the Marxist theory of revolution as a recipe for either parliamentary misrepresentation or elitist tyranny.

1827 -- US: Josiah Warren opens his first Time Store in Cincinnati, Ohio — the first commercial cooperative.

Warren, Josiah, 1798–1874, American reformer & anarchist, b. Boston.

An early follower of Robert Owen, he soon rejected Owen's political socialism, advocating instead anarchy based on “the sovereignty of the individual.”
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Warren founded several "equity" or "time" stores, with the idea of exchanging goods for an equivalent amount of labor & on the principle that cost should be the limit of price. He also established three utopian colonies; the most successful was Modern Times (1851–c.1860) , Long Island, N.Y. (now Brentwood).

The most important of Warren's writings is True Civilization (1863, 5th ed. 1875).

See Kenneth Rexroth's chapters on Josiah Warren & Robert Owen in Communalism

http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/warren.html

See "The Lemonade Ocean & Modern Times" by Hakim Bey,
http://www.evolutionzone.com/kulturezone/bey/lemonade.ocean.and.modern.times.html
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/manifesto.shtml
http://www.blackcrayon.com/people/warren/
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/warrentimeline.htm

1852 -- Isaac Leib Peretz lives, ZamoϾ, Poland. Wrote poems, short stories, drama, humorous sketches, & satire & raised the standard of Yiddish literature.alt sp.; Zamosc

1855 -- US: George Speed lives. Anarchist agitator, active in the Haymarket defense of the falsely accused anarchists, Coxey's Army, the Pullman Strike, & as a labor organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

"More threatening to District 2 officials was a Council of Action Convention held at Altoona in February 1921. The convention participants included Ben Legere, George Speed & Dominick Gelotte.

Legere was a national organizer for One Big Union, most likely a less threatening designation for the Industrial Workers of the World, while Speed had a long record as a labor activist on the West Coast, in the South & in the Middle West. His organizational activities for the IWW included organizing timber workers in Louisiana & Texas, involvement in the Akron Rubber Workers Strike of 1913 & organizing the North Dakota wheat fields..."

http://www.lib.iup.edu/spec_coll/articles/coalstrike1919.html
http://www.iww.org/

1862 -- Mows 'Em Down?: Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement for manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower.



1872 -- Wales: Bertrand Russell lives (1872-1970), Trelleck.

Philosopher, mathematician & social critic, one of the most widely read philosophers of the 20th Century. Awarded Nobel for Literature, 1950. Outspoken pacifist, imprisoned during WWI. Abandoned pacifism during WWII, but was a leading figure in the antinuclear movement. Imprisoned in 1961 for taking part in a demonstration in Whitehall. A pioneer of logical positivism.

http://www.mcmaster.ca/russdocs/russell.htm
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/brussell.htm

1874 -- France: Madeleine Pelletier lives (1874-1939). French doctor & feminist, member of the Socialist Party, briefly a Communist, then a libertarian. Founded the review "La suffragiste" & collaborated on other néo-Malthusian & anarchist publications.

"Tout cela me décourage, l'émancipation de la femme ne viendra donc jamais. Autrefois, mes allures d'affranchie ne me valaient que des lazzi des voyous, maintenant, on m'arrête parce que je n'ai pas l'air d'une asservie, comme les autres femmes, évidemment, je suis née plusieurs siècles trop tôt."

— September 16, 1914.

Too radical for her times, she remains wrongfully forgotten & too little known today.

[Details / context]

1876 -- Gigi Damiani lives (1876-1953). Italian anarchico who emigrates to Brazil, directs various publications (Battaglia, Plebs, Guerra Sociale, etc.). Editor, with Errico Malatesta, of "Umanita Nova" (an anarchist daily paper published by Malatesta in Milan, along with Damiani, Camillo Berneri, Nella Giacomelli, Armando Borghi, Luigi Fabbri, etc). Under attack by fascists, Damiani was exiled in Tunisia. Active there with Giuseppe Pasotti, then returned to Rome in 1946 & involved again with "Umanita Nova" until his death.
http://www.municipio.re.it/manifestazioni/berneri/dopo.htm


1889 -- Gunnar Gunnarsson lives (1889-1975). Prolific Icelandic writer, who published in Danish to gain a wider audience. With Guðmundsson & Laxness, among the first internationally known Icelandic authors.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ggunnar.htm


1895 -- Augusto Sandino lives, hero of Nicaraguan independence.

Nace en Niquinohomo, Augusto C. Sandino: The magical kings do not come from distant places to greet his birth, but leave gifts for the farmer, carpenter, & vivandera passing to market. The midwife buries the placenta, like a root, in a corner of the orchard. She buries it in good place, where it will get the full strength of the sun.

http://www.patriagrande.net/uruguay/eduardo.galeano/memoria.del.fuego/18950518.htm

1896 -- US: Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson case, approves racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.


1897 -- Populist filmmaker Frank Capra lives, Palermo, Sicily.


1897 -- Bram Stoker play "Dracula, or the Undead," premiers, Royal Lyceum.


1912 -- Ty Cobb has been suspended from playing baseball. Detroit Tigers' manager gives in to players who say they won't play unless Cobb does. He hires St. Joseph's College team in their place, but their pitcher, Aloysius Travers, gets pounded. Travers gave up 24 runs — a single-game record.


1912 -- South Africa: Apartheid fighter Walter Sisulu lives, Engcobo, Transkei. One of the Rivonia Trialists, along with Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada & Dennis Goldberg, who, with Nelson Mandela & others, were serving life imprisonment on the notorious Robben Island.


1917 -- US: WWI draft enacted. That's how popular it was, not enough patriots ready to voluntarily die for flag & pie.

On the same day that the Selective Service Act is passed authorizing federal conscription for the armed forces & requiring the registration of all men between the ages of 21 & 30, Emma Goldman addresses an anti-conscription gathering, of close to 10,000 people, chaired by Leonard Abbott in New York City. Other speakers include Alexander Berkman & Harry Weinberger. No arrests made, but many detectives present.

1917 -- US: The Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen initiated a huge labor organizing campaign in packinghouses across the country. Membership rises from 6,500 to 100,000 two years later.


1917 -- Eric Satie ballet "Parade" premiers, in Paris, with art work by Picasso, choreography by Leonide Massine, & also a book by Jean Cocteau. Apollinaire describes Picasso's sets & costumes as "surrealist" — the first use of the term.


1919 -- Novelist Vladimir Nabokov learns to fox-trot.


1921 -- Author Patrick Dennis, lives, Chicago. Wrote Auntie Mame.


1921 -- US: In Mingo County, West Virginia, where labor organizing is going on amongst the miners, the sheriff authorizes State Police Captain Brockus to assume responsibility for law enforcement in the county. "Volunteer state police" organized. Actually a virtual "police state." Tomorrow the Governor declares marital law. West Virginia is where the famed Matewan, Battle of Blair Mountain & other labor conflicts occur.
[Sources]


1922 -- Italy: Pasquale Binazzi, eminent Italian anarchist from Spezia, contacts the Soviet Minister of Interior Department to help the anarchists imprisoned by the Bolsheviks.


1925 -- Downhill Races?: First celebration of International Goodwill Day.


1927 -- US: Bath, Michigan School Disaster. Andrew Kehoe, seeking revenge against the community for taxes imposed on his farm to pay for a new school, set off a TNT bomb in the school, killing 43 people, including 39 grade-school children. After the explosion, Kehoe killed his wife, then drove his truck back, loaded with dynamite & nails, to the school, & set it off, killing himself & the school superintendent.



1928 -- Russia: Big Bill Haywood, IWW & labor activist, dies in lonely exile, Moscow.

Known as "Big Bill" Haywood, William Dudley Haywood, b. Salt Lake City, Utah, Feb. 4, 1869, d. May 18, 1928, was a radical militant labor leader who founded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

At the age of 15 he began working as a miner. He led the Western Federation of Miners from 1900 to 1905 & in 1905 helped found the IWW, which aimed to organize all workers in "one big union." In 1906, Haywood & others were tried for the murder of a former governor of Idaho, but the noted trial lawyer Clarence Darrow won their acquittal. In 1918, the last year of WWI, Haywood & 165 other IWW leaders were convicted of sedition for opposing the US war effort. Haywood jumped bail in 1921 & went to the USSR, where he remained until his death.

See Melvin Dubofsky's Big Bill Haywood (Vol 1, 1987) or Haywood's own autobiography.

http://www.iww.org/
http://www.pifmagazine.com/SID/391/

1929 -- Italy: Nuova legge per l'assistenza all'infanzia. Vengono istituite colonie in montagna e al mare per ospitare ogni anno migliaia di bambini e ragazzi. Lo stato manipola i giovani non solo a scuola ma anche in vacanza.
[Source: Crimini e Misfatti]


1933 -- US: Congress authorizes the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Commies obviously after the Hicks.


1933 -- Dylan Thomas's first poem published outside Wales, in the "New English Weekly."


1935 -- François Segond Casteu (1876-1935) dies (or on the 21st?) in Paris. French anarchist who attended Sébastien Faure's "Ruche" colony & a collaborator (with his partner, the teacher Eugènie Trébuqueton) on "Libertaire" & weekly magazine "Germinal." His remarks often have him in hot water with authorities &, in September 1927, he was imprisoned at Amiens for a series of anticlerical articles. Casteu was released following a hunger strike.

Among those attending was the teacher Eugènie Trébuquet, who with her husband François Segond Casteu wrote for "Germinal" & "Libertaire." Eugènie Casteu was killed in a bombardment while visiting her wounded brother at the anarchist front during the Spanish Revolution.

1936 -- Ralph Metzner lives.


1942 -- US: New York City ends night baseball games for the rest of WW II.


1949 -- US: Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America incorporates.


1950 -- Lukas Foss opera "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" premiers, Indiana.


1951 -- US: American hobo, Industrial Army of the Poor organizer, Jacob Coxey dies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_S._Coxey_Sr.



1952 -- US / Canada: Which Side Are You on? Paul Robeson, in dramatic defiance of government’s ban on his leaving US soil, standing on a flatbed truck parked one foot inside the US border at the Peace Arch, in Blaine, Washington, speaks & sings to a crowd of 40,000 Canadians & Americans gathered on both sides of the border.

http://www.bayarearobeson.org/Chronology_7.htm

1953 -- US: First woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, pilots F-86 Sabrejet at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.


1955 -- US: Black educator Mary McLead Bethune dies, Daytona Beach, Florida.

MARY MACLEOD BETHUNE
American advocate of education for Black women, Daily Bleed Saint October, 24 1998
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McLeod_Bethune

1958 -- Indonesia: In the face of Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader President Eisenhower's denials the US is aiding anti-Sukarno rebels, an American B-26 is shot down by Indonesia while bombing Sumatra. US dismisses the pilot as a "soldier of fortune," but he was eventually unmasked as a CIA employee.


1960 -- England: Michael Ryan, who become's England's worst mass murderer when he shoots 16 in the 1987 "Hungerford Massacre," lives, Hungerford.


1965 -- Outer Space: Gene Roddenberry suggests 16 names — including Kirk — for Star Trek Captain. It will never fly, say some.

1968 --

France '68: The Wild Days of May continues.

Such is the power of this upswell that tumultuous mass meetings are called by people in almost every conceivable walk of life.

A mania for organization sweeps the people. Housing estate (project) housewives, office employees & highly paid professionals, astronomers & museum curators, hospital staff members & people in the most varied workplaces & neighborhoods set up "action committees" to organize the practical needs of the struggle as well as the details of daily life, since official authority is paralyzed.

By the end of May, 450 such committees spring up — in Paris alone — in loose coordination with the Sorbonne General Assembly.

---

18 mai 68   Le général de Gaulle rentre de Roumanie
On dénombre entre 3 et 6 millions de grévistes en France.

18. May - de Gaulle arrives back from Romania, 12 hours earlier than expected. Cinema professionals occupy the Cannes Film Festival. Major French directors withdraw their films from competition & the jury resigns, closing the festival.

[Sources]

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1968 -- England: Ralph Schoenman is arrested in Dublin, & is to be deported back to Italy. He is said to have been attempting to enter Britain.



1968 -- Spain: 10,000 march in Madrid, Spain, erect barricades & clash with police, in solidarity with the May revolt in France. Multitudinario recital de Raimon en Madrid, que termina con enfrentamientos.
http://www.elmundo.es/larevista/num132/textos/crono.html


1968 -- Italy: Protests flare up in Rome during the May Days.
[Details / context]


1969 -- US: The Klamath tribe wins $4.1 million for loss of Oregon lands during fraudulent government surveys in 1880s.


1970 -- US: Black protesters occupy administration offices at Seattle University.


1972 -- US: Founding of radical senior advocacy group Gray Panthers.


1972 -- US: Phil Berrigan back to jail (Danbury) to complete six-year term for destruction of draft records in Baltimore & Catonsville, Maryland.


1974 -- India: Government explodes its first nuclear device underground in the Rajasthen Desert.


1979 -- US: Silkwood vs. Kerr-McGee case establishes corporations are responsible for the people they irradiate.


1980 -- South Korea: Widespread civilian uprising for democracy begins in Kwangju, where police kill at least 200 protesters. Beginning of the May Movement.

The Uprising begins today, lasting until May 27, 1980 in Kwanju & surrounding towns. It is a mass uprising of the people fighting for their rights & democracy. The May Movement carried on the spirit of the Uprising & the people's fight to expose the truth & punish those guilty of mass killings.

http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/43kwang.htm

1980 -- US: McDuffie Riots, Liberty City section of Miami, when four cops are acquitted after killing an innocent black man in his home. 14 killed, 200 injured.


1980 -- US: Not So Saintly?: Mt. St. Helens, dormant for 123 years, erupts, Washington state. Kills 61 & destroys160,000 acres of forest. The violent blast, estimated to be 500 times as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was followed by others on 25 May & 12 June. Economic losses estimated at nearly $3 billion. Harry Truman, who refused to leave the area, buried alive.

1981 -- Italy: Voters retain one of the most liberal abortion laws in Europe despite intense pressure from the Vatican.


1982 -- US: Keep The Faith? Beloved & Respected Comrade Moonie Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Unification Church founder, convicted of tax fraud.



1983 -- Sam Shepard play "Fool for Love" opens, off Broadway.


1984 -- "Under the Volcano" (based on the novel by Malcolm Lowry) receives a great ovation at Cannes Film Festival.


1986 -- David Goch finishes swimming 55,682 miles in a 25-yard pool & Chung Kwung Ying does 2,750 "atomic" hand-stand push-ups.



1989 -- China: Demonstrations in Tiananmen (Tian'anmen) Square during USSR-China talks.



1989 -- Louis Dorlet (1905-1989) dies. French labor organizer & pacifist. Sent to prison in 1925 for desertion. Member of l'Union Anarchiste, organized among the unemployed & founded a consumer co-op. Dorlet wrote for many libertarian publications & was a co-editor of "Libertaire." Mobilized in 1939, he was captured & sent to a stalag. Released in 1945, he resumed his work with "Libertaire."
http://www.ephemanar.net/mai18.html


1991 -- South Korea: 200,000 are involved in violent antigovernment protests.


1993 -- Amnesty International says Guatemalan military continues to murder & torture.


1993 -- México: Greenpeace protesters place a gas mask on statue of Diana, México City.



1995 -- Henri Laborit (1914-1995) dies. French libertarian writer & researcher.

Laborit was, in turn, a surgeon, biologist, philosopher, theorist of behavior.

His work revolutionized modern psychiatry, & his studies of human behavior were adapted to cinema by Alain Resnais in the film "Mon oncle d'Amérique."

Henri Laborit wrote several books, including Dieu ne joue pas aux dés; Eloge de la fuite. A posthumous book of discussions with Claude Grenié has also appeared. Laborit was a familiar figure to listeners of Radio Libertaire Paris, where he made numerous broadcasts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Laborit
http://www.lerustre.com/bouquiner/
http://www.esculape.com/textes/laborit.html
http://www.ecologiasociale.org/pg/laborit.html
http://membres.lycos.fr/ptombal/laborit.htm
http://www.ephemanar.net/mai18.html
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/libertaire/archive/98/210-oct/arena2.htm

1996 -- Italy: 2° Festival Léo Ferré, at the Teatro Calabresi in San Benedetto del Tronto, with Giuseppe Gennari.



2001 -- UNESCO declares Honduran music & dance patrimony of humanity.