Apr 16 1930 - Death of José Carlos Mariátegui, a Peruvian journalist, activist and Marxist. He visited Europe in the 1920s and became a convinced Marxist, but developed Marxism for a Latin American context - relating to indigenous & peasant movements.

Apr 16 73 - The Jewish fortress at Masada falls to Romans after a 1-year siege ending the Great Jewish Revolt.

Apr 16 1871 - The Paris Commune announces the postponement of all debt obligations for three years and abolition of interest on them.

Apr 16 1797 - Beginning of the Spithead Mutiny, 16 Royal Navy ships taken over by mutineers angry at conditions and low pay. Together with the Nore mutiny now known as the “Floating Republic.

Apr 15 1945 - Liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by British & Canadian forces. About 60,000 people died there, including 20,000 Soviet POWs; 60,000 starving and ill prisoners were liberated. iwm.org.uk/history/the-li…

Apr 14 1816 – Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a 400 others in rebellion and is killed by British troops. This is a flag they used “Happiness ever remains the endeavor”

Apr 14 1775 – The first slavery abolition society in North America established -'The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage'.

Apr 14 1919 - The Freikorps, counter-revolutionaries and fore-runners of the Nazis suppress Communists in Dresden.

Apr 13 1919 - US socialist Eugene V. Debs goes to prison for speaking out against the draft during WW1.

Apr 13 1919 - The Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar massacre) takes place as British troops open fire on an unarmed crowd, kill 100s. The massacre sparks a new wave of resistance to British rule; and violence shocks people worldwide.

Apr 12 1975 - Death of Josephine Baker, actor, dancer, singer, French military veteran & civil rights activist. The only official female speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, she used her position to campaign against racism and refused to play segregated venues.

Apr 12 1807 - End of the Froberg mutiny by 200 Greeks & Albanian servicemen, part of the British armed forces at Fort Ricasoli on Malta. Troops were upset about rank, pay & conditions, several people were killed during the rising & the leaders were executed at the mutiny's end.

Apr 12 1927 - Chaing Kai Sek crushes the Shanghei Commune, created by a mass workers uprising. Thousands of workers are killed.

April 10 1848 – A Chartist rally held in Kennington Park London, headed by Feargus O'Connor, who claimed 300,000 came. Demands included a radical extension of suffrage to all men, recall of MPs & secret ballots. The photo is very likely the earliest image of a demonstration.

Apr 10 1919 - Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata dies. A radical leader of peasant movements. He was tricked into a meeting and assassinated, his body photographed to prove his death to those who continued to support him.

Apr 9 1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins. Organised to challenge segregation laws on buses in the Southern US. Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women took part in the two-week journey.

Apr 9 1898 - Birth of Paul Robeson. US singer, actor, socialist and campaigner. His left wing ideas meant he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. In this video he sings to Scottish coal miners 👉🏿 youtube.com/watch?v=B0bezs…

Apr 9 2000 - Death of Tony Cliff; Palestinian Jew, lifelong revolutionary socialist, Marxist, prolific author & activist. Biographer of Lenin & Trotsky. Founder of the International Socialist Tendency. marxists.org/archive/cliff/…

Apr 9 1917 – The German Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) was founded at conference of anti-war Social Democrats in Gotha.

Apr 8 2013 - British PM Margaret Thatcher dies. Vicious Tory leader who put the interests of her class way before those of others. She smashed working class communities & trade unions, drove through neoliberalism & undermined the society she claimed didn't exist. Good riddance.