365 days 

1 April
‘Sam Larned, it is said, steadily refused to drink milk on the ground that his relations with the cow did not justify him in drawing on her reserves

1 August
‘[The Helsinki Accords] gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement ... What this meant was that the people who lived under these systems - at least the more courageous - could claim official permission to say what they thought.’
John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2005)

1 December
Never had your balls come up in the televised Lottery draw? Sometimes it’s best if they don’t.

1 February
‘Negro student demonstrations against segregated eating facilities have raised grave questions in the South over the future of the region’s race relations.

1 January
The only successful large-scale slave revolt in history culminated in a declaration of independence and the establishment of a free republic on new year’s day 1804.

1 July
’Whatever was gained, it wasn’t worth the price the men had to paid to gain that advantage. It was no advantage to anybody. It was just sheer bloody murder. That’s the only words you can use for it.’
Corporal Harry Shaw, Royal Welsh Fusiliers

1 June
‘And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen ’em mos’ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?’
Aint I A Woman speech by Sojourner Truth as recorded by Frances Gage

1 March
By 1 March 1912 the national coal strike had begun with over one million miners out on strike calling for a minimum wage

1 May
It’s Mayday, Beltane, International Workers Day – and the anniversary of the suppression of the traditional May Fayre in what is now Mayfair

1 November
It’s All Saints Day, the last day by which all Jews were to leave England under Edward I’s Edict of Expulsion in 1290.

1 October
‘There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.’

1 September
‘This is crack cocaine seized a few days ago by Drug Enforcement agents in a park just across the street from the White House.

10 April
¡Tierra y Libertad!

10 August
‘I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers, and some of the women have bastards.

10 December
The baptism of Adolf Hitler took place on this day in London in 1994.

10 February
’To unscramble a complicated posture for purposes of classification, turn the partners round mentally and see if they can finish up face to face in a matrimonial without crossing legs.

10 January
One copy of it was sold for every three people in the country in its first year of publication. Yet its author died lonely, embittered and almost forgotten.

10 July
‘Your honor, I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom - that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom.’ John Scopes

10 June
Today in 1942, the small Czech mining village of Lidice was wiped off the map

10 March
Suffragette Mary ’slasher’ Richardson attacks Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus with a meat cleaver on this day in 1914

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |...