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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June 19, 1891
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Birth of John Heartfield (1891-1968), radical artist. Born Helmut Herzfeld, he changes his name to John Heartfield in 1916 to protest against the extreme nationalism prevalent in Germany. He is active in the Dada art movement, organizing the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. In the 1920s, he develops photomontage as a political art form. His work appears in communist publications in the 1920s and 1930s. He moves to Czechoslovakia after the Nazi takeover of Germany, and then flees to England in 1938.
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June 19, 1914
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A coal mine disaster at Hillcrest, Alberta kills 189 men.
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June 19, 1938
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Bloody Sunday in Vancouver: At 5:00 am, police launch an attack on unemployed workers, members of the Relief Project Workers’ Union, who have been occupying Vancouver’s post office and art gallery for the past month in an effort to get help for unemployed workers. The occupiers are forcibly evicted, and then beaten up with extreme brutality by police waiting outside.
When the news of the police attack becomes known later that day, between ten and fifteen thousand people turn up to protest against “police terror.”
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June 19, 1953
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The United States government executes Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage after a contentious and flawed trial.
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June 19, 1960
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Portuguese troops fire on a nationalist demonstration in Mueda, Mozambique and kill between 200 and 325 people.
Revulsion at this mass murder helps prepare the ground for the founding of the FRELIMO independence movement, which wages a war of independence until Portugal is forced to pull out in 1975.
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