Author: Nino Mohammad

History LGBT Tragedy

History LGBT Tragedy

The Stonewall Riots begin. Just after 3 a.m., police raided the Stonewall Inn—a gay club located on New York City’s Christopher Street. The incident turned violent as patrons and local sympathizers begin rioting against the police. Although the police were technically within their legal purview in raiding the club, which was serving liquor without a license, New York’s gay community had grown weary and wary of the police department frequently targeting gay clubs specifically because of their clientele. It is claimed that activist Marsha P Johnson yelled “I got my civil rights,” and threw a shot glass at the wall, referred to as “the shot glass heard ‘round the world.” As the two groups faced off against each other, the protest spilled over into the neighboring streets, and order was not restored until the deployment of New York’s riot police. The Stonewall Riots were followed by several days of demonstrations in New York and was the impetus for the formation of the Gay Liberation Front as well as other gay, lesbian and bisexual civil rights organizations. It’s also regarded by many as history’s first major LGBT protest on behalf of equal rights.

Adolf Hitler Political Party 1934

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready. It was referred to as “The Night of the Long Knives.” Image Credit:  German Federal Archive.

Circus Tragedy 1944

Photo legend history, a fire breaks out under the Hartford, Connecticut big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus. The disaster killed 167 people and left 682 injured. The cause of the fire was unknown, but it spread at incredible speed, racing up the canvas of the circus tent. Scarcely before the 8,000 spectators inside the big top could react, patches of burning canvas began falling on them from above, and a stampede for the exits began. Many were trapped under fallen canvas, but most were able to rip through it and escape. However, after the tent’s ropes burned and its poles gave way, the whole burning big top came crashing down, consuming those who remained inside. Within 10 minutes it was over, and because of a picture that appeared in newspapers of clown Emmett Kelly holding a water bucket, the event became colloquially known as “the day the clowns cried.” An investigation later revealed that the tent had undergone a treatment with flammable paraffin thinned with three parts of gasoline to make it waterproof. The Circus eventually agreed to pay $5 million in compensation, and several of the organizers were convicted on manslaughter charges. In 1950, in a late development in the case, Robert D. Segee of Circleville, Ohio, confessed to starting the Hartford circus fire. Segee claimed that he had been an arsonist since the age of six. In November 1950, Segee was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 22 years in prison, the maximum penalty in Ohio at the time.

German Bombing 1940

The Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins. After the occupation of France by Germany, Britain knew it was only a matter of time before the Axis power turned its sights across the Channel. And on July 10, 120 German bombers and fighters struck a British shipping convoy in that very Channel. Although Britain had far fewer fighters than the Germans–600 to 1,300–it had a few advantages, such as an effective radar system, which made the prospects of a German sneak attack unlikely. Britain also produced superior quality aircraft. Its Spitfires could turn tighter than Germany’s ME109s, enabling it to better elude pursuers; and its Hurricanes could carry 40mm cannon, and would shoot down, with its American Browning machine guns, over 1,500 Luftwaffe aircraft. But in the opening days of battle, Britain was in immediate need of two things: a collective stiff upper lip–and aluminum. A plea was made by the government to turn in all available aluminum to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. “We will turn your pots and pans into Spitfires and Hurricanes,” the ministry declared. And they did.

Anti Slavery Convention in London 1840

The Seneca Falls Convention begins. The first ever women’s rights convention held in the United States–convened with almost 200 women in attendance. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. As women, Mott and Stanton were barred from the convention floor, and the common indignation that this aroused in both of them was the impetus for their founding of the women’s rights movement in the United States. For proclaiming a women’s right to vote in their Statement of Sentiments and Grievances, the Seneca Falls Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women’s rights withdrew their support. However, the resolution marked the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in America. The Seneca Falls Convention was followed two weeks later by an even larger meeting in Rochester, N.Y. Thereafter, national woman’s rights conventions were held annually, providing an important focus for the growing women’s suffrage movement. After years of struggle, the 19th Amendment was adopted in 1920, granting certain groups of American women the constitutionally protected right to vote. 

Happy Ice Cream Day

Ice cream has been around in some form since 2nd century B.C., but until the 1800s it remained a rare treat only enjoyed by elites. It was eventually sold by street vendors and after prohibition, when the popularity of soda fountains and malt shops surged, in storefronts as well. The first ice cream trucks, as we know them, emerged in the 1920s as street vendors made use of automobiles. The rest is, as they say, history.  Do you have a favorite ice cream treat?

Explorers Mount Everest

Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa, become the first explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth. News of their achievement broke around the world on June 2, the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, and Britons hailed it as a good omen for their country’s future. Mount Everest sits on the crest of the Great Himalayas in Asia, lying on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Called Chomo-Lungma, or “Mother Goddess of the Land,” by the Tibetans, the English named the mountain after Sir George Everest, a 19th-century British surveyor of South Asia. The first recorded attempt to climb Everest was made in 1921 by a British expedition that trekked 400 difficult miles across the Tibetan plateau to the foot of the great mountain. A raging storm forced them to abort their ascent, but the mountaineers, among them George Leigh Mallory, had seen what appeared to be a feasible route up the peak. It was Mallory who quipped when later asked by a journalist why he wanted to climb Everest, “Because it’s there.” Since Hillary and Norgay’s historic climb, numerous expeditions have made their way up to Everest’s summit. In 1960, a Chinese expedition was the first to conquer the mountain from the Tibetan side, and in 1963 James Whittaker became the first American to top Everest. In 1975, Tabei Junko of Japan became the first woman to reach the summit. Three years later, Reinhold Messner of Italy and Peter Habeler of Austria achieved what had been previously thought impossible: climbing to the Everest summit without oxygen.