[[link removed]]

THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, JUL 16–22, 2025  
[[link removed]]


 

xxxxxx

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Deadly Fallout Heralds the Nuclear Age (1945), Bob Marley’s
Breakthrough (1975), Hitler’s Publishing Debut (1925), Struggle Pays
(2000), The Origin of Ignorance (1925), The More Things Change, the
More They Stay the Same (1665) _

Ground zero after the bomb test,

 

_DEADLY FALLOUT HERALDS THE NUCLEAR AGE (1945)_

JULY 16 IS THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY of the world’s first atomic
explosion, the top-secret test of the Manhattan Project’s brainchild
in the New Mexico desert. Before the end of the day, highly
radioactive fallout “snowed down” on thousands of residents of
eastern New Mexico and southern Colorado, who had no way of knowing
either what it was or that it was extremely dangerous.   

The bomb’s designers knew that the bomb would produce radioactive
fallout but they could only guess how much, how far it would spread,
and how radioactive it would be. They were concerned enough about
fallout to attempt to minimize it by placing the bomb on top of a
100-foot tower to reduce the amount of radiation absorbed by the sand
and rock holding the tower up. Nevertheless, the explosion lofted many
pounds of unexploded plutonium and hundreds of tons of radioactive
dust tens of thousands of feet into the air.  

Before the test the Army deployed teams of technicians, wearing
civilian clothes and equipped with Geiger counters, to collect
radiation-related data in communities downwind from the test site. The
bomb’s designers thought it unlikely the explosion would expose
civilians to deadly amounts of radiation, but the data-collecting
technicians had instructions to contact headquarters immediately if
the radiation was strong enough to necessitate evacuation. In the
event, no one was evacuated.

As concerned as the Army was about fallout, it was much more concerned
about keeping the test as secret as possible. It was impossible to
conceal the enormously bright pre-dawn explosion that lit the sky for
hundreds of miles around the test site; ditto the shock wave that was
felt throughout New Mexico and southern Colorado. But the Army told
the media that both were the result of a huge, accidental
ammunition-dump explosion that had caused no injuries, with the result
that the very existence of an atomic bomb remained a secret until the
bombing of Hiroshima three weeks later. 

Immediately after Hiroshima, the people who had experienced the
fallout from the earlier test began to understand what it had been,
but no government agency offered them information or advice concerning
potential health effects. Nor was there any effort to study the health
of those exposed to fallout. It is undeniable that there was an
unusually high incidence of cancer among the downwinders, but it was
never studied in detail. Similarly, right after the test there was a
months-long spike in infant mortality in the communities that were
impacted by the fallout, also never subjected to a close examination.
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_BOB MARLEY’S BREAKTHROUGH AT THE LYCEUM (1975)_

JULY 17 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the concert by Bob Marley and the
Wailers at the Lyceum Theater in London that provided the tracks for
the album, LIVE! 

In particular, the performance of No Woman, No Cry, a glorious
celebration of life in the face of hardship, was the international
breakthrough for Marley and the Wailers, which you can listen to here:
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_HITLER’S PUBLISHING DEBUT (1925)_

JULY 18 IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY of the publication of volume 1 of
Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

If it had not been that Mein Kampf’s author turned out to lead one
of the most deadly and genocidal crime waves in history, his book
would have long been forgotten.

Mein Kampf explains the ideological program for the Holocaust,
identifying Jews and Bolsheviks as racially and ideologically inferior
to "Aryans" and Nazis. Despite being poorly written, it sold more than
five million copies. [link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_STRUGGLE PAYS (2000)_

JULY 19 IS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY of an important, but little-known
victory by 153 striking workers in Givet, France, the result of a
successful workers’ struggle that ought to be more widely known than
it is.  

Very briefly (the link at the bottom provides the missing details) the
owners of Cellatex, the largest employer in Givet, having
unscrupulously looted their corporation, declared bankruptcy. Under
the circumstances, the 153 employees were eligible for only specific
and grossly inadequate severance pay and unemployment benefits.

The plant, which was in the middle of town, was full of highly toxic
and flammable raw materials. The workers occupied it and made clear
they were prepared to set it on fire and cause a huge environmental
catastrophe if they didn’t receive a government guarantee they would
receive a much bigger severance package and much more unemployment pay
than required by law. 

While the workers repeatedly made clear their ability to make good on
their threats, they negotiated – not with the plant’s owners, but
with representatives of the local government, the French department of
labor, and the French parliament. After two weeks the government
negotiators offered severance pay equal to about $10,000, two years of
weekly unemployment compensation equal to what the workers had been
earning when the plant closed, plus official, iron-clad guarantees
that the government would keep its end of the bargain.
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

     

_THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE (1925)_

JULY 21 IS THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY of a Tennessee jury convicting John
Scopes of the crime of teaching about the theory of evolution in a
public school. Visit the Zinn Education Project’s This Day in
History item for more information:
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

 

_THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME (1665)_

JULY 22 IS THE 360TH ANNIVERSARY of Londoner Samuel Pepys recording
this description of the deserted streets of London during the Great
Plague of 1665: "I by [private carriage] home, not meeting with but
two coaches, and but two carts from White Hall to my own house [a
distance of two-and-a-half miles], that I could observe; and the
streets mighty thin of people."

When I was a student I read Pepys’ famous diary, which he kept from
1660 to 1669; during 1665 he often wrote about the bubonic plague’s
affect on London, but I paid very little attention to those entries
because they seemed to me irrelevant to anything I ever had, and ever
would, experience. 

But in 2020, during the days when my daily sights in Brooklyn reminded
me of Pepys, I went back and took a second look. I was amazed to
discover how many ways Covid threw Brooklyn back three and a half
centuries. [link removed]
[[link removed]]

For more People's History, visit
[link removed]
[[link removed]]

* nuclear weapons
[[link removed]]
* Bob Marley
[[link removed]]
* Adolf Hitler
[[link removed]]
* Sit-Down Strikes
[[link removed]]
* Scopes trial
[[link removed]]
* Great Plague of 1665
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]