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On this day, 11 May 1968, French riot police began their assault at 2:15 AM on Paris's Latin Quarter, which had been occupied and barricaded by student protesters on the evening of May 10.
Over the course of the night, they eventually managed to evict the demonstrators, but the violence they employed against students and local residents provoked public anger, and protests continued to grow.
Reproduction artwork from the rebellion is available with global shipping in our online store to help fund our work: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/may-68

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On this day, 10 May 2009, leading Ecuadorian Indigenous rights activist and revolutionary Tránsito Amaguaña died a few weeks away from her 100th birthday in her native village of Pesillo.
Born into a Quechua family of hacienda workers, Amaguaña took part in a strike in 1931 demanding an eight-hour working day and Sundays off, amongst other improvements. Then, she later recounted, “the soldiers arrived. Fifty at every hacienda. They destroyed houses and arrested the leaders, tying them up and beating them.”
Amaguaña joined the Communist Party and helped found some of the first unions in the country for agricultural workers, and later helped set up rural cooperatives to provide land for other Indigenous people. She also helped establish schools for rural poor children teaching in Spanish and Quechua, and was jailed by authorities several times.
In the 1940s, campaigning was successful in achieving the abolition of forced taxes by the Catholic Church. Amaguaña recalled:…

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mane da russians on top

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On this day, 9 May 1763, what became known as Pontiac's war began when warriors from several Indigenous nations under the Ottawa leader Pontiac attacked British colonial troops at Fort Detroit in present-day Michigan.
While Fort Detroit itself did not fall, Native American fighters captured several forts, with Seneca warriors seizing Venango and Le Boeuf.
Despite British forces massacring unarmed Native Americans, and attempting to spread smallpox among the Native population, fighting continued into the following year, causing around 450 British casualties. The eventual peace agreement reached ensured important concessions to Native Americans, including a ban on colonisation west of the Appalachian ridge, and the loss of several forts.
Learn more about Indigenous peoples' history in these books: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/indigenous
Pictured: Painting of the Siege of Fort Detroit by Frederic Remington

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On this day, 9 May 1978, communist anti-Mafia campaigner Giuseppe ‘Peppino’ Impastato was murdered during an election campaign in which he was standing as a candidate for Democrazia Proletaria (Proletarian Democracy).
Badly beaten, his body was stretched over some railway lines with a charge of TNT placed under it.
Initially, police tried to paint Peppino as a left-wing terrorist, blown up by his own bomb; it would not be until 2001 that Peppino’s killers would be brought to justice.
His death was dramatised in the film "I cento passi".
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10936/giuseppe-impastato-murdered

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On this day, 9 May 1936 in Thessaloniki, Greece, police and soldiers attacked a workers' demonstration during a general strike against police repression, killing 12.
The funerals of the workers became mass demonstrations by over 200,000 people, and a further nationwide protest strike took place a few days later.
Just three months later General Metaxas declared a dictatorship to end the disorder, but was forced to introduce a maximum eight hour working day and introduce social protections like pensions and welfare payments.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10934/thessaloniki-massacre

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On this day, 8 May 1928, Luisa Lallana, an 18 year old Argentinian anarchist factory worker was murdered by a strikebreaker during a dockers' strike.
The previous month, stevedores in Rosario walked out demanding their first pay increase in 5 years.
Luisa and some of her colleagues from the Mancini burlap bag factory were distributing leaflets from the Women's Port Committee in support of the dockworkers, when Juan Romero, a scab and member of the extreme right paramilitary Patriotic League of Argentina, shot her in the head. She died that afternoon.
The following day, local unions, including her union, the anarchist Argentine Regional Workers' Federation and the Communist Party called a general strike in protest. Thousands of people downed tools and marched, and her funeral procession of 10,000 workers was led by a column of 1,000 women.
Police violently attacked the mourners, while two warships arrived in the port to reinforce the police and paramilitaries.…

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On this day, 8 May 1974, in India, the national railway strike started, involving 1.7 million workers, demanding higher wages and shorter working hours.
The strike had begun spontaneously on May 2 and spread across the country.
The government of Indira Gandhi set about brutally repressing the strike. They arrested 50,000 workers, evicted 30,000 families from their homes, and fired 50,000 workers from their jobs.
The opposition leadership refused to call for solidarity strikes in solidarity with the rail workers, and eventually, by May 27, the workers were forced to call off the strike and return to work.
1 million strikers were then penalised by being treated as new recruits, and having their previous years of service, leave and pensions disregarded. Although this measure was later overturned after 1977 when the Indian National Congress was voted out of power.
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10841/Indian-national…

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On this day, 7 May 1954, French colonial forces in Vietnam were effectively defeated by the pro-independence Viet Minh in the battle of Dien Bien Phu.
The French army, receiving significant aid from the US, had occupied the town of Dien Bien Phu the previous year in an attempt to cut supply lines for the anti-colonial forces. But the Viet Minh took them by surprise, surrounding the French base with 40,000 troops and eventually overrunning it on May 7.
By 5:30 PM, Vietnamese troops had overtaken the command post and captured the senior officers. Eventually, the last 2000 French soldiers at the base surrendered.
The battle ended with the Viet Minh capturing over 10,000 French prisoners of war.
In the wake of the defeat, France was forced to surrender and, following a peace agreement, retreat temporarily into South Vietnam pending an election to unify the country within two years. These elections were later blocked by the US as they predicted a communist victory…

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