July 10th-This day in "radical" history (check out '76 & '84)

[underpants]

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17214#10

1886: The steamboat Reutan, returning from Milwaukee, runs aground on a sand bar just offshore of the Chicago waterfront in Lake Michigan, causing the sand bar to sandbar to grow, marshland to fill it in, anf new land to be formed at the end of E. Superior St. The steamboat's captain proclaims the area an 186-acre free district open to the poor, homeless, tramps, etc. The "Streeterville" territory is successfully defended against Chicago cops and developers for over 25 years in the "District of Lake Michigan." The parties fought their war both in the courts and on the land. Hundreds of police officers were sent to Streeterville, many people were injured, and at least one was killed. Authorities repeatedly evicted the Streeters from their shanties in the District with no lasting effect until, finally, they burned down Cap. Streeter's shanty in 1918.

1917: Emma Goldman jailed two years for inciting U.S. draft resisters.

1917: Jerome Deportation, Arizona. Precursor to the better-documented Bisbee Deportation two days later. At 4 AM over 200 men armed with rifles, pick handles, and "billies" swarmed over and into any place where the Wobblies (IWWs) might bed down; about 135 men were rounded up. Each man received a "trial"; 75 were loaded into cattle cars and "deported" into the Sonoran desert. One man said he was leaving behind four children, the youngest of whom was only four days old. He was told that he had had his chance and that it was "too late." The vigilantes and their supporters (none of whom, oddly, seemed to be fighting in Europe) justified the deportation as a legitimate act of a community protecting itself from traitors, spies, and anarchists who were determined to undermine the war effort.

1925: The Scopes 'Monkey' Trial starts. Clarence Darrow for the defense.

1947: Birth, to legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie and wife Marjorie, of son Arlo.

1962: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy choose to go to jail for their part in the December demonstations in Albany, Ga.

1966: Martin Luther King, Jr. begins a Chicago campaign for fair housing -- his first foray into a northern city for desegregation activities.

1974: Sen. Edward J. Gurney, Pres. Nixon's lone defender on the Senate Watergate Committee, indicted in Jacksonville, Fla. on charges of influence peddling and extortion.

1976: KKK members near Georgetown, Illinois, gather for a good old-fashioned cross burning. The meeting got off on the wrong foot, starting an hour late. They went to plant their cross only to find that it was too heavy to move. It took the white robed merrymakers three hours to chop the cross down to a portable size. Then they planted it, only to find it would not light. Finally they gave up and went home.

1984: Acting Pres. Reagan claims that his environmental record is "one of the best kept secrets" of his Presidency. When a reporter asks where former EPA head Anne Burford fits in that record, press secretary Larry Speakes steps forward and orders the lights turned off. Reagan, believed by many to be the most powerful man on the planet, stands behind his aide, saying, "My guardian says I can't talk." And so the secret was kept.

1985: French secret police blow up Greenpeace "Rainbow Warrior" anti- nuclear vessel in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, killing one activist, Fernando Pereira.

[Clark2008]

1. Wait - Greenpeace had an anti-nuclear vessel?

How did a private charity build that?

[RandomKoolzip]

2. I don't think it was equipped with weapons.

I think it was more like a "protest barge."

Unless patchouli oil is considered a WMD (pee-yew!), I don't think Greenpeace posed any real threat to anyone.