1800s
Today in Labor History December 24, 1800: The Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise failed to kill Napoleon Bonaparte. However, the bomb killed five other people and injured twenty-six. The plotters used a Machine Infernale, an explosive device made from a barrel bound with iron hoops and filled with gunpowder, flammable materials and bullets. They set it off with a sawed-off shotgun triggered with a string. Catherine Delors portrayed the event in her 2010 historical novel “For the King.” Surrealist Jean Cocteau wrote a play called “La Machine Infernale,” but it was based on the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus
Today in Labor History December 24, 1807: Elizabeth Chandler, abolitionist, was born on this date. She published her first poem, “The Slave-Ship,” in 1825, when she was only eighteen years old. Benjamin Lundy, a well-known abolitionist and publisher, asked her to write for his periodical, “The Genius of Universal Emancipation.” Chandler called for better treatment for Native Americans and the immediate emancipation of slaves. She was also responsible for popularizing one of the most famous abolitionist images, the kneeling female slave with the slogan “Am I not a Woman and a Sister?”
1820s-1860s
Today in Labor History December 24, 1826: The Eggnog Riot began at the West Point Military Academy. It was caused by a drunken Christmas party in the North Barracks. Over one-third of the cadets participated, including future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. They court-martialed 20 of the rioters, but Davis got off without consequences.
Today in Labor History December 24, 1865: Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby and other Confederate veterans formed The Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee. The KKK is the oldest and most infamous of U.S. terrorist groups. At their height, in the 1920s, they had as many as 6 million members. In 1979, Klan and Nazis killed 5 Communists in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1980, they shot four elderly black women in Chattanooga. A Klansman lynched Michael Donald in Alabama in 1981. In 1997, the Klansman was executed. It was the first time since 1913 that Alabama executed a white man for killing a black man.
1910s
Today in Labor History December 24, 1913: Seventy-three people in Calumet, Michigan died in the “Calumet Massacre,” including 59 kids. The Western Federation of Miners was having a Christmas party for striking copper miners. About 500 miners and their family members were at the party. Someone yelled “Fire!” and dozens were trampled in the panic. Goons and scabs barred the doors, trapping people inside, exacerbating the injuries. They never determined who yelled “fire,” but many strikers believed it was a company guard.
1930s
Today in Labor History December 24, 1936: On Christmas Eve, drunk cops beat up 150 strikers on the Houston docks, sending 18 to the hospital. They were members of the Maritime Federation of the Gulf Coast. Gilbert Mers, who had dual membership in the Maritime Federation and the IWW, was their leader. Violence against dockers was rampant along the gulf coast in the 1930s. In July 1934, three black longshoremen were shot to death during a strike. In 1935, longshoremen struck along the entire gulf coast. Another 14 workers died in that struggle. From 1936 to 1938, 28 union members were killed and over 300 injured in strikes.
1960s
Today in Labor History December 24, 1969: Nigerian troops captured Umuahia, the Biafran capital, leading to the end of Biafran independence. Igbo nationalists in the southeastern region of Nigeria seceded from Nigeria in 1967 and created the independent state Biafra, which existed from May 1967 to January 1970. Many nations recognized Biafra or provided support, including Tanzania, Zambia, France, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Rhodesia and South Africa. Doctors Without Borders provided medical support. Nigeria, however, never accepted their independence. In the civil war that followed succession, as many as 100,000 people died. However, the Nigerian naval blockade of Biafra resulted in 2 million deaths by starvation. In 1999, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra emerged as a nonviolent means toward re-independence. They have organized numerous peaceful protests, which the Nigerian government has attacked, leading to many deaths.