Check out This Day in History for Oct. 26, in MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1774: The First Continental Congress of what would become the United States ends its 45-day gathering in Philadelphia, offering its plan to defy the Coercive Acts Britain had imposed because of the Boston Tea Party. The Acts had banned public meetings in Massachusetts, allowed for trial in England for “crimes” committed against the state in Massachusetts, and more. The new Congress, with its 12 members, included demands and the threat of an economic boycott.
1892: In an investigative summary of lynchings throughout the country, Ida B. Wells-Barnett releases the pamphlet “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law In All Its Phases.” The pamphlet is considered groundbreaking for how it illustrates that white men were rarely brought to justice for attacks on Black women, while Black men were regularly killed by mobs for having sexual relations with white women. Wells-Barnett would continue to advocate against slavery and lynching until her death in 1931.
Above, Ida B. Wells’ groundbreaking pamphlet about lynching, “Southern Horrors;” the International Olympic Committee logo; National Day of the Deployed; and former U.S. President George W. Bush signing the USA PATRIOT Act.
1916: The Brownsville, N.Y., clinic that was to become Planned Parenthood is raided by authorities for violating the Comstock Act that barred obscenity, after a female undercover police officer poses as a patient. Founder Margaret Sanger would serve a 30-day prison sentence for trying to open the clinic.
1949: The minimum wage grows from 40 cents to 75 cents for the country’s 22 million workers, with U.S. President Harry Truman’s signing of changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
1987: The first drug to effectively treat AIDS, AZT, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). AZT, short for Azidothymidine, was an anti-cancer drug from the 1960s that was the only drug shown to reduce the mortality rate among those who developed AIDS. It eventually was revealed to have severe side effects including loss of muscle tone, skin reactions, and liver deterioration.
1989: Black Thursday for hydroponics and cannabis industries takes place when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrests 119 people in 61 states as part of Operation Green Merchant, a crackdown on indoor growers.
2001: The U.S. government gives itself massive new powers to surveil citizens, when U.S. President George Bush signs the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act. The controversial law, proposed within days of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizes “updates wiretap and surveillance laws for the Internet age, addressing real-time communications and stored communications (e-mail, voicemail), and gives “law enforcement greater authority to conduct searches of property.”
2006: National Day of the Deployed starts in 2006 to honor service people deployed by the military. The annual ecognition started when a volunteer with the Soldiers’ Angels veterans’ support nonprofit in North Dakota requested it, to honor the birthday of her cousin who was serving in Iraq.
2015: For the first time in its history, the International Olympic Committee announces, the Olympics allows a team to compete that is compiled of people forcibly displaced from their home countries. The Olympic Refugee Team in 2016 would include 10 athletes from four countries competing in swimming, track and field, and martial arts
2017: The world’s youngest female head of government is sworn in. Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, takes her seat at age 37, coasts to re-election in 2020, leads the country to have one of the lowest COVID death rates worldwide, and then sees her party collapse before she resigns in January 2023.
2019: The founder of ISIS dies. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi founded the Islamic State of Iraqu and Al-Sham in opposition to the Shiite government that had disenfranchised the Sunni minority group in the regio, and became known for incredible acts of cruelty to its prisoners. Al-Baghdadi detonates his suicide vest after being chased into a tunnel in northwest Syria by U.S. forces, killing himself and his three children with the explosion.
Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons
