Check out This Day in History for Ot. 29, in MainStream’s daily look at significant progressive, intersectional historical events.
1390: The first-ever trial for witchcraft takes place in Paris, leading to the conviction and eventual burning of soothsayer Jeanne de Brigue.
1863: The International Committee of Red Cross forms in Geneva and goes on to build humanitarian offices in 90 countries and provide aid to civilians injured in more than 120 international conflicts.
Above, Malcolm X, the National Organization for Women logo, the International Committee of the Red Cross logo, and Osama Bin Laden.
1915: Suffrage organizations in New York City hold more than 250 meetings and rallies in a major push to appeal to male voters in upcoming elections that could enfranchise women. Some rallies included a band or orchestra, and prominent speakers include Rabbi Stephen Wise, a co-founder of the NAACP.
1929: The economic crash continues with Black Tuesday, with over 16.4 million shares traded. The stock market will downturn consistently until 1932, contributing to the Great Depression, when it dips to just 10% of its pre-crash value.
1941: Nazis in Lithuania massacre over 9,000 Jewish people in the city of Kaunas, including over 4,000 children, after forcing them to dig their own mass grave. Representing over one-third of the city’s Jewish population, the victims were judged by the Nazis as not being fit for work.
1964: In the largest jewel heist in in American history, former surfing champion Jack Murphy (AKA Murph the Surf) and two accomplices steal 24 jewels, including the famous Star of India diamond equaling over $4 million in today’s money.
1965: The Autobiography of Malcolm X is published posthumously following the civil rights leader’s assassination in February. A collaboration between Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley, with Haley finishing the book following Malcolm’s death, today it is one of the most critically acclaimed autobiographies in modern American literature.
1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded and will eventually grow to be the country’s largest feminist organization. “We… believe that the time has come or a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders,” says NOW’s Statement of Purpose.
1969: Bobby Seale, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, is bound and gagged by Judge Julius Hoffman during the trial against the Chicago Eight, activists charged with conspiracy after disrupting the Democratic National Convention. Seale, whose lawyer was in the hospital, was denied a rescheduled trial date and self-representation. He continued to object, and will spend several days of the trial bound and gagged again as a result. 1969 US Supreme Court orders end to all school segregation “at once”
1975: NOW, founded nine years earlier, “Alice Doesn’t Day,” a one-day hiatus from shopping, volunteering, and working to show their importance to the American economy. The name came from a 1974 Martin Scorsese film called Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
2004: Arabic news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a video of Osama bin Laden in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks.
2007: A new report indicates the HIV virus likely started in the United States in 1969 and came from Haiti — a much different conclusion than had been assumed since the early 1980s. The virus was originally thought to have come to the United States in the early 1980s through a flight attendant from the Netherlands. Researchers learned the real origina by studying blood samples collected by the University of Miami’s Dr. Arthur Pitchenik, who had noticed a mystery illness among Haitian immigrants in Miami as early as 1979.
2025: American computer chip maker Nvidia becomes the world’s first company to reach a $5 trillion market value.
Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons
