Section » History
Reclaim Our History: May 1-15
May 1, 1654: “Under penalty of death, no Irish man, woman, or child, is to let himself, herself, itself be found east of the River Shannon.” An Order from the Parliament of England. 1830: Birth of Irish-American anti-war activist and labor organizer Mary Harris, better known as Mother Jones. Cork, Ireland.
May 2, 1896: US Marines landed at Corinto, Nicaragua to “protect” US interests, after a newly elected government nationalizes foreign assets; the invasion comes a year and a day after a similar expedition. 1967: Armed Black Panther contingent marches into California State Assembly in Sacramento in protest against a bill that would ban the carrying of unconcealed weapons. 1998: Silent marches outside eight gunmaking corporations’ headquarters across US.
May 4, 1887: First modern communitarian experiment in Washington state: Puget Sound Cooperative Colony founded at Port Angeles. 1983: Nuclear freeze resolution approved by US House of Representatives.
May 5, 1821: Wycomb, England issues order that all unemployed shall be whipped. 1980: Bobby Sands, Irish political prisoner and member of Parliament, dies of hunger strike. 2000: Conjunction of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Moon. And we all know what that means.
May 7, 1518: Juan de Grijalva’s expedition, sailing the Yucatan coast, reports the Mayan city of Tulum is larger and as grand as Seville. 1844: Protestant mob in Philadelphia, shouting “Kill them! Kill them!” burned down over 30 homes in the predominantly Irish suburb of Kensington. 1873: Marines land in Panama to “protect” US interests. 1927: US troops intervene in Nicaragua.
May 8, 1958: Vice President Richard Nixon shoved, stoned, booed, and spat upon by protesters in Peru.
May 9, 1897: US cruiser ordered to Honduras to protect “US interests.”
May 10, 1920: English dockers refuse to load armaments onto the “Jolly George” for use against Russia in the war by US and European-backed White Armies. 1984: World Court orders US to stop mining of Nicaraguan harbors. US ignores the order. 1993: 188 die, 469 injured in fire at Kader toy factory in Thailand, used by Hasbro and other US companies. Deaths were blamed on doors and windows locked to keep sweatshop workers on the job.
May ,1898: US bombards San Juan, Puerto Rico in effort to prevent island’s independence from Spain. Would later annex the island as part of the settlement of the Spanish-American War. 1916: Execution of James Connolly, IWW organizer and Irish freedom fighter.
May 13, 1846: The US Congress declares war on Mexico. Following its victory the US annexes Mexico’s northern territories, including much of what are now California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, to satisfy Southern political pressure to add new slave-owning states. 1958: Five days after getting the same treatment in Peru, Vice Pres. Nixon’s motorcade greeted with rocks and bottles, Caracas, Venezuela.
May 14, 1856: US President Franklin Pierce unofficially “recognized” the government of American adventurer William Walker, who had set himself up as the pro-slavery dictator of Nicaragua. Walker was later deposed after he interfered with Cornelius Vanderbilt’s transportation network.