Seeds of Fire: A People’s Chronology
Recalling events that happened on this day in history.
Memories of struggle, resistance and persistence.
Compiled by Ulli Diemer
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April 28, 1925
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Strike, Sergei Eisenstein’s first feature film, is released. The film depicts a 1903 strike by Russian factory workers. Eisenstein makes a point of highlighting the workers’ collective action rather than focusing on individual heroes in the way a Hollywood film would have done.
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April 28, 1933
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Birth of Israel Shahak (1933-2001), Holocaust survivor, chemistry professor, writer, human rights activist, President of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, and an outspoken critic of the Israeli government.
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April 28, 1965
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The United States invades and occupies the Dominican Republic. The ostensible reason for the invasion is to ‘protect’ foreigners (none of whom have been killed, injured, or threatened); the real reason, as stated by U.S. Chief of Staff General Wheeler, is “to prevent the Dominican Republic from going Communist.” The U.S. fears the return to office of Juan Bosch, a popular social democrat who had overwhelmingly won the 1963 election, the first free election in the country’s history, only to be overthrown in a military coup seven months later. Bosch had angered wealthy landowners, the Roman Catholic Church, and the U.S. government, by making moves to break up plantations, recognize trade unions, reduce the power of the church, and put the military under civilian control. U.S. forces lstay long enough to ensure that a compliant right-wing government is in place.
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April 28, 1978
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A protest at Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility in the United States results in the arrest of 60 protesters.
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April 28, 2004
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The first photos showing widespread and systematic abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq are shown on CBS’s 60 Minutes II. The photos, and subsequent reports, document torture, psychological and sexual abuse, and murder of prisoners at the American-run prison in Baghdad.
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