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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September 20, 1260
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Prussian tribes revolt against Teutonic Knights. The Knights were a crusading military order, supported by the Popes and the rulers of Christian Europe, that sought to conquer the pagan Prussian tribes and impose Christianity on them. The Prussians revolted against the invaders repeatedly; in later rebellions, class divisions came to the forefront, to the extent that peasants rising in revolt began by killing their own nobility, who had meanwhile converted to Christianity and formed alliances with the Teutonic knights. The Prussian tribes were eventually swamped by colonists from Germany, and were assimilated; their language is thought to have disappeared around the beginning of the 18th century.
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September 20, 1878
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Birth of Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), American journalist, socialist, and political activist.
His 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle depicts the horrific conditions faced by workers in the meat-packing industry of the time, including terrible working conditions, poverty wages, and unhealthy living conditions; and contrasts them with the wealth and corruption of those in power. The novel causes a public outcry that helps to lead to the passage, a few months later, of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.
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September 20, 1997
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3,000 protesters in Germany rip up railroad tracks leading from the Krummel nuclear power station to the main Hamburg-Berlin line. Scientists had linked the nuclear station to an increased incidence of leukemia among the population around the plant.
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