December 2, 1914 Karl Liebnecht Karl Liebknecht was the only member of German Parliament to vote against war with France and Britain. He was arrested shortly thereafter and conscripted into the German Army. Refusing to fight, Liebknecht served on the Eastern Front burying the dead. More about Karl Liebnecht ———————————– December 2, 1942 Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist, directed and controlled the first self-sustaining fission reaction in his laboratory beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.The result of this experiment made the atomic bomb possible and ushered in the nuclear age. Upon successful completion of the experiment, a coded message was transmitted to President Roosevelt: “The Italian navigator has landed in the new world.”  More on Fermi and the bomb ——————————————- December 2, 1954 The U.S. Senate voted 65 to 22 to censure Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”The condemnation, with all the Democrats and about half the Republicans voting against him, was related to McCarthy’s controversial, abusive and indiscriminate investigation of suspected communists in the U.S. government, military, and civilian society. The House of Representatives and many states continued their own investigations.  Senator Joseph P. McCarthy with chief counsel Roy Cohn (L) See a video clip of McCarthy reacting to the censure ——————————————– December 2, 1961  Fidel Castro Following a year of severely strained relations with the United States and his country, Cuban leader Fidel Castro openly declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist. ————————————- December 2, 1964 Thousands who were part of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement gathered on the steps of Sproul Hall, the administration building at that University of California campus, to protest four students being disciplined for distributing political literature; Joan Baez performed in support. The next day, police arrested 773 who began a sit-in at Sproul Hall. 10,000 more students then went on strike and shut down the school.  photo: © Ron EnfieldThe Free Speech Movement had begun in October, when three thousand students surrounded a police car for 36 hours. Inside the car was a civil rights worker, Jack Weinberg, who had been arrested for distributing political literature on the UC-Berkeley campus.  Jack Weinberg in police car. What was the Free Speech Movement? ———————————- December 2, 1977 A demonstration erupted outside a South African court after a magistrate ruled that security police were to be exonerated in the death of black consciousness leader Steve Biko, who died while in their custody. The demonstrators chanted, “They have killed Steve Biko. What have we done? Our sin is that we are black?”  Biko’s funeralHis funeral had been attended by more than 15,000 mourners, not including the thousands who were turned away by the police. He had been arrested for writing inflammatory pamphlets and “inciting unrest” among the black community.  Steve BikoThe news story ————————————- December 2, 1980 Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Ursuline Sr. Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Marie Donovan were raped, murdered, buried outside San Salvador, and unearthed shortly thereafter.   American Nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Marie Donovan- killed in El Salvador in 1980. U.S.-trained and -supported Salvadoran national guardsmen, widely known to act as death squads, were suspected.The Reagan administration, taking office seven weeks later, and relying in part on the Salvadoran military to rid Central America of communism, denied the National Guard’s involvement. General Alexander Haig, the president’s secretary of state, explained the churchwomen’s deaths to Congress as an accident caused by nervous soldiers who “misread the mere traveling down the road (of the nuns’ van) as an effort to run a roadblock.” The FBI and CIA later reported this as a total fabrication, and five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder. More about the Maryknoll Sisters |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december2
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