Labor History

1910s Today in Labor History January 15, 1919: German Freikorps tortured and murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht at the end of the Spartacist uprising. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were two of the most prominent socialists in Germany. The Spartacist uprising was essentially a power struggle between the Spartacists and other Council Communists against the Social Democrats. […]

1840s Today in Labor History January 12, 1848: The Palermo rising began in Sicily against. It was the first of many revolutions that occurred that year in Europe. Three times the people of Sicily rose up against Bourbon rule in the 1800s. This time they succeeded, creating an independent state that survived for 16 months. Their new constitution included a proposal to confederate the

Today in Labor History January 11, 532: One of the first documented sports hooligan riots escalated into a full-scale revolt against Emperor Justinian I in Constantinople. The Nika Riot began as a quarrel between fans of two different chariot teams, the Blues and the Greens. Over the course of a week, participants burned down nearly

1800s Today in Labor History January 10, 1859: Anarchist Spanish educator Francisco Ferrer was born. Ferrer started the first Modern Schools in Spain and inspired hundreds more to be created throughout the world. He opposed the Church’s monopoly over education and created Spain’s first secular, co-educational schools. In 1909, a kangaroo court convicted him of

Today in Labor History January 8, 1811: Charles Deslondes led an unsuccessful slave revolt on the east bank of the Mississippi River near present day New Orleans. Around 125 enslaved men marched from sugarcane plantations on the German Coast toward New Orleans. They collected more men along the way. Up to 500 slaves participated in total, making it the largest slave insurgency in U.S. history. On