#OnThisDay, 4 Jun 1972, civil rights activist Angela Davis is acquitted in a trial over her alleged involvement in the 1970 Marin County Civic Centre attack.
Davis had been prosecuted for three capital felonies, including conspiracy to murder, after guns she owned were used in the attack. The all-white jury cleared her of all charges.
"I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad."
Happy birthday to antifascist bisexual icon, entertainer, and truth teller, Josephine Baker, born June 3, 1906.
100 years ago #OnThisDay, 3 Jun 1924, Alfonsina Strada crosses the finish line of the Giro d'Italia. She remains the only woman to have officially ridden in a Grand Tour.
At one point she had been disqualified on time grounds but was allowed to continue without the option of prizes. She finished ahead of the lantern rouge (the last cyclist to finish).
Greetings from Charmylos…I've sent you 5,000 nuts. Please order someone to receive them from our agent. Thanks. #OTD#OnThisDay June 3rd, 257 BCE #5000nuts
#OnThisDay, May 31, 1921, the Greenwood district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as “Black Wall Street”, was attacked by a white mob that burned the neighborhood, killing between 100 and 300 black people and injuring hundreds more (depicted in Watchmen, 2019)
#OnThisDay, May 29, 1953, mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest (depicted in Hillary, "Everest" s01e03, 2018)
#OnThisDay, 28 May 1944, Sonia Butt parachutes into occupied France as an explosives expert for the British Special Operations Executive. She had turned 20 two weeks earlier.
She trained the maquis and coordinated sabotage operations. She was never captured.
The Evening Post, 27 May 1924:
WOMEN IN PRINT.
…
Patriotic New Zealanders occasionally are shocked by the ignorance of those with whom they come in contact abroad of the whereabouts of the best little country in the world. The training of business men does not always include geography, says the Otago “Daily Times,” but a university should not fall into the crude error revealed in an envelope received in Dunedin. A member of the Otago University staff has been in communication with the University of Geneva, and was pained to receive from that distinguished seat of learning the other day a letter addressed: “University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, U.S.A.” https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19240527.2.116
See also Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_of_New_Zealand_from_maps #OnThisDay#OTD#PapersPast#NewZealand#Geography#WhereIsNewZealand
#OnThisDay, 26 May 2010, Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the first woman to be sworn in as Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. She is currently the leader of the opposition.
In 2010 she also became the first woman to chair the Commonwealth of Nations.
#OnThisDay, 25 May 2018, Mia Mottley is sworn in as the Prime Minister of Barbados. She is the first woman to hold the role, and has since been re-elected.
Under her leadership, Barbados became a republic, 55 years after it declared independence from Britain.
May 24th, 124 CE—#OTD#OnThisDay Apollonios acts as a judge in a trial deciding who will be held responsible for damaged papyrus rolls in the public archives. Various former keepers of the archives are summoned as defendants.
#OnThisDay, 23 May 1988, four women storm the BBC news studio whilst the news is live on air, protesting the introduction of Section 28. Section 28 banned the “promotion of homosexuality” by local government in the UK, and was intended to stop LGBT+ campaigns for equal rights.
#OnThisDay, 23 May 1430, Jeanne d'Arc, fighting in the rearguard, is pulled from her horse and captured by the Burgundians at the siege of Compiègne. She is then sold as a prisoner to the British, who put her on trial for heresy.
#OnThisDay, 22 May 2003, Annika Sörenstam teed off at Fort Worth’s Colonial golf club. She became the third woman to play a PGA Tour golf tournament, and the first for over 50 years. One male player withdrew from the contest in protest at her inclusion.
#OnThisDay, May 21, in 1927, pilot Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis in Paris, becoming the first person to make a solo transatlantic flight (depicted in The Spirit of St. Louis, 1957)