Scintilla: Against militarization, reaction, and the imperialist EU

See also:  piattaformacomunista.com/index.php/enver-hoxha-esempio-di-chiarezza-coerenza-e-coraggio-per-i-proletari-rivoluzionari/ etc.

Originally posted at:  piattaformacomunista.com/index.php/contro-la-militarizzazione-la-reazione-e-lue-imperialista/ and cipoml.net/en/against-militarization-reaction-and-imperialist-eu/ (for the Spanish and Turkish sections of the ICMLPO website see:  www.cipoml.net ); the translation below was slightly edited based on the above links.

Scintilla, n. 152, April 2025 (piattaformacomunista.com/index.php/leggete-scintilla-n-152-aprile-2025/ ), 

by Communist Platform– for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy

Against militarization, reaction and the imperialist EU

The international solidarity of the working class is crucial in order to strengthen the struggle against the growing danger of war and militarisation. It is the response to the efforts of the bourgeoisie and the monopolies who want the workers of each country to weaken each other. It is a necessary aspect in the struggle against the anti-worker plan of the EU and the European countries that aims to "make Europe great again" (MEGA) through the redistribution of billions of social goods to the arms industry and the strengthening of European monopolies.

Strengthening European imperialism is not the answer to the current situation. The imperialist EU does not mean peace and security, but quite the opposite. This has been clearly shown by the war in Ukraine and support for Israel's genocide in Palestine. 

That is why we say: Neither Trump, nor Putin, nor European "defense"!

With the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States, international conflicts, including those between the United States and the European Union, have dramatically intensified. Trump is the representative of the currently most aggressive sectors of US capital, which want to stop and reverse the decades-long decline of US imperialism in a violent way and make US imperialism "great again". In order to mobilize a large part of society for the goals of imperialism, we can observe an acceleration of fascistization in the United States and around the world.

All this is an expression of the growing contradictions between imperialist powers such as the USA, EU, China and Russia. In particular, the rise of capitalist and imperialist China has ignited the competition and struggle for world economic dominance. Trump and many officials in his administration have always pointed to China as the "strategic" enemy of the United States. It is the only major imperialist power that can challenge US hegemony, especially if it manages to develop alliances.

To win this struggle, US imperialism has made a major change in its foreign relations. Trump is seeking an agreement with Russia on Ukraine to divide this country and its important resources. US imperialism seeks to weaken the ties between Russia and China and to create new alliances. In this way, it is openly showing the real goal of the war in Ukraine: a battle for control of land and resources in which Ukrainian soldiers have died on behalf of US and EU capital, not for "freedom and democracy".

How fragile are US imperialism's attempts to forge new alliances, we see when the Trump administration threatens Russia with new blockades and higher tariffs, as Russian imperialism has taken advantage of the situation to occupy larger parts of Ukraine. It is an agreement between robbers at the expense of the people.

For the European imperialist countries, especially Germany and France, this change means a weakening of their influence. In Ukraine, they have tried to become a major player in the agreement between bandits. They too want to gain control of raw materials, cheap energy and to extend their sphere of influence. They have made large investments by selling weapons, granting loans, and inciting war to bring Russia to defeat. Now they are afraid of not participating in the division of the loot.

Their response to this new situation is more weapons, more militarization and more austerity policies. The EU has approved an €800 billion armaments package, while continuing to work closely with NATO's warmongering alliance. At the same time, all the European countries are increasing their military budgets. Germany, for example, has approved an additional budget of 1,000 billion euros. France is offering its atomic weapons as a protective shield for Europe, but under the control of French imperialism. Britain is seeking to have greater military cooperation with the EU. Although EU membership was rejected by a majority of citizens in a referendum held in Norway in 1994, the Norwegian ruling class is now trying to join the EU under the pretext of "security".

The EU and Britain are encouraging the Ukrainian leadership to continue to intensify and prolong the war. But "European unity" is weak because of the competition between the imperialist countries. France and Germany are fighting each other for leadership in Europe. Italy, with the ultra-reactionary government of Meloni, is trying to establish special relations with Trump, as is Hungary. With this reactionary policy of militarization, fascist and racist forces are growing all over Europe.

All this is threatening the working class and the peoples of Europe. With fascistization, capital wants to subordinate the working class to its policies and at the same time weaken it through division and hatred. The workers have to pay with social cuts, reduced wages, longer working hours, worsening living conditions and, in the event of war, with their lives, as we can see in Ukraine.

We, as Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations of Europe, call on the working class and peoples to unite against this policy and fight together for bread, freedom, peace and friendship among peoples, instead of misery, fascism, rearmament and wars of plunder.

Only the unity and struggle of the working class and oppressed peoples against the barbaric capitalist-imperialist system will pave the way for fundamental changes in working conditions and social life.

Neither Trump, nor Putin, nor European "defense"!

No to national unity behind the warmongers!

No to militarization and fascistization!

March 2025

ICMLPO European parties and organisations:

Communist Party of Albania

Communist Party of the Workers of Denmark – APK

Communist Party of the Workers of France – PCOF

Organization for the Construction of a Communist Party of the Workers of Germany (Labor/Future)

Communist Platform – for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy

Marxist-Leninist organization Revolution of Norway

Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) – PCEML

Party of Labour (EMEP) of Turkey

ADC on Palestinian-American Omar Mohammed Rabea, 14, killed by Israel near Ramallah + more

A news article, also linked below, on the killing:  www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/06/palestinian-teen-citizen-killed-israeli-settler

Originally sent out in early evening April 7th [and posted at:  adc.org/u-s-must-hold-israel-accountable-for-the-murder-of-palestinian-american-child-by-israeli-settlers-and-soldiers/]:

Justice for Omar Mohammed Rabea NOW!

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) calls for justice in the brutal killing of 14-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Mohammed Rabea, who was shot by Israeli settlers at the entrance of Turmus Ayya, a town northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Following the shooting, Omar was detained by Israeli soldiers, denied medical attention, and left to bleed to death—an act of cruelty that constitutes a gross violation of human rights and international law. Two other Palestinian-American boys, ages 14 and 15, were shot and wounded in the same attack. They remain hospitalized in serious condition.   We demand the FBI, the Department of Justice, and all relevant federal agencies immediately launch a criminal investigation into the murder of Omar Rabea and the attempted murder of two other American children. This investigation must be treated with the same urgency and seriousness as any other extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens abroad.   This atrocity is part of a pattern of escalating settler and military violence against Palestinians, including U.S. citizens. The Israeli military's claim that these children were “terrorists” who endangered passing vehicles with stones is not credible. Israel has a well-documented history of misleading the public about its actions, including the recent massacre of unarmed Red Crescent paramedics—a crime Israel initially attempted to justify with false and contradictory statements. Footage of the event later revealed the truth: the paramedics were unarmed and clearly identified, and were killed without provocation. In light of this, any Israeli claim regarding Omar Rabea’s murder must be regarded with deep skepticism.   ADC calls on President Donald Trump to demand full accountability from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently in Washington for official meetings. The murder of American children on foreign soil cannot be dismissed. The United States has a duty to protect its citizens, regardless of where they reside or what ethnicity they are.   This tragedy also reinforces the urgent need to stop arming those who carry out these attacks. Just last week, ADC called on the U.S. Senate to bring to a vote and block the sale of 20,000 Colt 5.56mm fully automatic rifles to Israeli police forces through S.J.Res. 41, citing grave concerns that these weapons would end up in the hands of violent settler militias. Even Israeli officials had previously paused the sale, acknowledging the risk that these rifles could be used by extremist groups that have carried out countless attacks against Palestinian civilians.    We urge the Senate to bring S.J.Res. 41 to a vote. Lawmakers must weigh the moral consequences of arming known human rights abusers and extremist militias. Blocking this sale is not just a policy issue—it is a matter of protecting innocent lives and preventing U.S. complicity in gross human rights violations.   The United States must stop enabling a regime that has shown a repeated willingness to kill American citizens, including children, without consequence. The murder of Omar Rabea cannot be allowed to fade into the background of this ongoing genocide in Palestine. Enough is enough.   Justice for Omar. Justice for every American and Palestinian life lost in this genocide. Contact your Senators to stop U.S aid to Israel! About ADC The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is the largest Arab American grassroots organization in the U.S., founded in 1980 by former Senator James Abourezk.  ADC’s mission is to defend and promote the human rights, civil rights, and liberties of at least 3.7 million Arab Americans residing in the United States. Through its work, ADC fights discrimination in the U.S., enhances public understanding of Arab history and culture, and partners with marginalized communities globally to advance social justice.   Our work is not possible without your support. Consider making a contribution to ADC today.

Click Here to Donate Today

[Reposting:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) calls for justice in the brutal killing of 14-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Mohammed Rabea, who was shot by Israeli settlers at the entrance of Turmus Ayya, a town northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Following the shooting, Omar was detained by Israeli soldiers, denied medical attention, and left to bleed to death—an act of cruelty that constitutes a gross violation of human rights and international law. Two other Palestinian-American boys, ages 14 and 15, were shot and wounded in the same attack. They remain hospitalized in serious condition.

We demand the FBI, the Department of Justice, and all relevant federal agencies immediately launch a criminal investigation into the murder of Omar Rabea and the attempted murder of two other American children. This investigation must be treated with the same urgency and seriousness as any other extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens abroad.

This atrocity is part of a pattern of escalating settler and military violence against Palestinians, including U.S. citizens. The Israeli military's claim that these children were “terrorists” who endangered passing vehicles with stones is not credible. Israel has a well-documented history of misleading the public about its actions, including the recent massacre of unarmed Red Crescent paramedics—a crime Israel initially attempted to justify with false and contradictory statements. Footage of the event later revealed the truth: the paramedics were unarmed and clearly identified, and were killed without provocation. In light of this, any Israeli claim regarding Omar Rabea’s murder must be regarded with deep skepticism.

ADC calls on President Donald Trump to demand full accountability from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently in Washington for official meetings. The murder of American children on foreign soil cannot be dismissed. The United States has a duty to protect its citizens, regardless of where they reside or what ethnicity they are.

This tragedy also reinforces the urgent need to stop arming those who carry out these attacks. Just last week, ADC called on the U.S. Senate to bring to a vote and block the sale of 20,000 Colt 5.56mm fully automatic rifles to Israeli police forces through S.J.Res. 41, citing grave concerns that these weapons would end up in the hands of violent settler militias. Even Israeli officials had previously paused the sale, acknowledging the risk that these rifles could be used by extremist groups that have carried out countless attacks against Palestinian civilians. 

We urge the Senate to bring S.J.Res. 41 to a vote. Lawmakers must weigh the moral consequences of arming known human rights abusers and extremist militias. Blocking this sale is not just a policy issue—it is a matter of protecting innocent lives and preventing U.S. complicity in gross human rights violations.

The United States must stop enabling a regime that has shown a repeated willingness to kill American citizens, including children, without consequence. The murder of Omar Rabea cannot be allowed to fade into the background of this ongoing genocide in Palestine. Enough is enough.

Justice for Omar. Justice for every American and Palestinian life lost in this genocide.]

En Marcha: Pro-imperialist government in Ecuador

Also of interest --

On Lenin's April Theses, discussed April 3, 1917 and published in Pravda on the 7th:  www.pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13711

From March 19th, on Mahmoud Khalil:  pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13680

Originally posted April 2nd at:  pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13698  I slightly edited the translation I received -- 

En Marcha #2132 from April 2 to 8, 2025
Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador

Editorial: Pro-imperialist government

-- The subservience and subservience of Noboa and his government to US imperialism and foreign capital has been his calling card. Even before his inauguration, in November 2023, he went to surrender to investment banks to offer the country's wealth in exchange for foreign investment. --

Daniel Noboa's meeting with Donald Trump had much more than electoral purposes. Noboa went with the idea of "killing two birds with one stone": he sought a meeting with the head of U.S. imperialism to project his image in view of the presidential elections, for which he even paid the company Mercury Public Affairs LLC the sum of US $165,000 in order to get him such a meeting. But at the same time he went with the purpose of agreeing on the steps that will lead to the establishment of a U.S. military base in our country.

According to information published on March 29 on the CNN website, "Ecuador is laying the groundwork for the arrival of U.S. forces." That has been pointed out by a senior official linked to the planning and construction of a naval base in Manta, which will be used to "support U.S. military personnel." The construction plans show that the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense signed an agreement with the Port Authority of Manta for the construction of a dock and expansion of the existing port; the project has the support of the United States, according to documents signed by a representative of the U.S. government.

The intention of establishing one foreign military base or bases in the country has become a priority issue for this government, as it was for the government of Guillermo Lasso. It established agreements on issues of "maritime military cooperation" with the US, which were later endorsed by the Constitutional Court, thus preventing them from being discussed in the National Assembly for approval or not. In October of the previous year, Noboa sent to the National Assembly a constitutional reform that eliminates the prohibition of allowing foreign military bases on the national territory, and the parliamentary commission that dealt with the issue gave the green light for it to be discussed in the plenary session of the legislature. Noboa will do everything in his power to get this unpatriotic reform approved.

The surrender and submission of Noboa and his government to U.S. imperialism and foreign capital has been his letter of introduction. Since before his inauguration, in November 2023,, he went to the investment banks to offer the country's wealth in exchange for foreign investment; he also went to kneel before the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to negotiate loans that, now, their payment will lead to budget cuts in the social sector.

Noboa embodies a government that is economically, politically and militarily subject to the interests of US imperialism: it is an openly pro-imperialist government.

UNAC: Stop the attacks on Palestinian rights activists + demonstrations + other news

Previous calendar postings:  

durhamspark.blogspot.com/2024/04/some-additional-events-and.html

durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/03/update-for-week-12-in-2025.html

I hope to post more shortly.  I had to copy a draft back in.

[International students at NCSU and now Duke have been targeted by the Federal government?] [Around 5-6 people in all?]

[Apparently there has been a Yemen vigil at Union Square, in Manhattan, New York City every Saturday morning at 11am since March 2017 – “Yemen is Starving.” – “Put a human face on war in Yemen.” – “Let Yemen Live.” – Kathy Kelly on World Beyond War, re-posted on popularresistance.org  I don't know if any regular anti-war vigils remain in North Carolina.]

[Correction, apparently there has been an anti-Trump protest of some kind going on at the Chatham County Courthouse circle in the center of Pittsboro, NC (on Saturdays?).]  [There were weekly [or twice a week or monthly] anti-war or anti-torture vigils not that many years ago at two locations on West Franklin Street [I meant in front of the old Post Office and at the Village Plaza shopping center on East Franklin] in Chapel Hill, at Brightleaf Square (and further downtown [where the Bull statue is now]?) in Durham, at Crabtree Mall [and at the local Federal Building (and at squares downtown?) in Raleigh, on Highway 70 near Smithfield; etc. (in Asheville and Fayetteville?  [Greensboro?]) and there could be again.]  [In front of the White House for decades (see:  durhamspark.blogspot.com/2018/10/reportback-from-womens-march-on.html ); SOAW was at Fort Benning once a year; [there was a vigil] in front of a government building in London in the UK?  Beating pots [and boycotting] in Istanbul now...]

Neoliberalism in North Carolina, under two governors from the Democratic Party; the initial comment period on the proposed gameland use pass ends March 28th:  soundrivers.org/wildlife-resources-commission-considers-fee-for-boat-ramp-game-land-use/

[Friends of the Lower Haw:  www.lowerhaw.org ]

[ www.enoriver.org/conservation-groups-permanently-protect-first-conservation-cemetery-in-central-north-carolina/ ]

[ www.kickstarter.com/projects/darrylsjones/tandem-bicycle-romance-short-film ]

[ www.themarginalian.org/2025/03/18/berryman-advice/ ]

[ www.themarginalian.org/2025/03/25/shane-drinkwater-art/ ]

[ earthship.com ]

[In the UK:  katebradbury.substack.com/p/a-false-spring-toad-habitats-and ]

[Spring 'came' here before April 1st; I hope to post more later in April; orthopterans and owls call at night (and during the day), I found a pretty but freshly dead dagger moth of some kind inside (and a large, finely marked jumping spider (?) alive one morning [a female (?) canopy jumper, Phidippus otiosus?  Photos:   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phidippus_otiosus  Another spider inside on the 7th.  Working on identifying the dagger moth]) and I heard and saw blue-gray gnatcatchers and a Spizella (?) sparrow on the 1st, many trees are beginning to leaf or flower (trifoliate oranges and more azaleas on the 1st), a dark violet and cinquefoil are flowering, purple vetch and two purple Lamiaceae spp. too, dogbane and elephant's foot have come up, dayflowers appeared by today, yellow pollen covers the ground, etc.  Thunder the evening of 31st.  WRAL put the average last frost date as April 8th (in Raleigh?), but it can be in May, and the official "growing season" began March 23rd.[

[Ornamental azaleas, red-type oaks, sweetgums, and yellow jessamine began blooming before April 7th and I heard gray treefrogs and American (?) toads at night.  Saw a small bullfrog one night.  Ants came inside.  Cooler over the weekend and some rain on the 7th.  A dry spring again in 2025?]  [Many of the tree catkins and flowers fell by April 7-8th.]  [A chance of frost the night of April 8th?]  [A Chinese (?) fringetree, brought here by a bird [or other animal], began flowering by the morning of the 8th.  A male dance fly (or a March fly?) got inside one day, but died at night.  I see spring coming but I don't catch it, or I haven't caught it in a long time.]

[April 14th:  A rich blue-violet and yellow spiderwort (hairy?), a wild strawberry, yellow Indian strawberries, white clover, a yellow Oxalis, downy arrowwood, blueberries, deciduous hollies, dewberries, onions, a carrotlike and hairy plant (poisonous?), Ajuga, the two Vincas, white star of Bethlehem, bluish violets, a purple vetch, etc. have been blooming; large and fragrant blue irises will open here soon; I forgot that there is a dark pink Loropetalum across the street (finishing now?); the larger trees are about done flowering (the clouds of pine pollen didn't last very long?); new foliage on evergreen wild ginger; a pipevine-type plant hasn't appeared yet (??) and the mermaidweed seems to be gone; ducks have been around, flying low; I saw a talkative bluebird (?) fly into the trees, with a large, struggling caterpillar or grub, earlier today; around midday I saw a butterfly, maybe a female questionmark looking for places to lay eggs; the tentworms are done (?); a rabbit hides in a thicket of 'glowing' white to red-pink azaleas during the day; I heard mowing now and on the 13th, etc.  Black locusts, pinxterflowers, American fringetrees, and maybe Catawba Rhododendrons bloom around mid- to late April in the Triangle.  And white milk-vetch, a large wild geranium, late rue anemones, and bright yellow green and gold?  Warm this afternoon, after a cool period.  Clouding up again now?  Thunder around the 11th in the afternoon.]

"If you can retire due to age within the next three months, you need to call Social Security before close of business this coming Monday if you don’t want to be faced with the choice of navigating the online application process or having to go to a Social Security office, if there’s one open near you, and hope you can be seen that day." – ohiobarbarian.substack.com/p/my-social-security-retirement-saga

[A machine translation –"Belarusian customs intercepts explosives bound for Russia" (580kg in a Mercedes-Benz van entering at Brest, from Poland):  diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/aduana-belarusa-intercepta-explosivos-con-destino-a-rusia/ ]

["Rhode Island School of Design shuts down pro-Palestinian art exhibition" – www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/01/tlig-a01.html ]

[From March 19th, solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil:  pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13680 ]

[A machine translation –"The Daraa ambush marks the rise of the Syrian resistance:"  diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/la-emboscada-de-daraa-marca-el-surgimiento-de-la-resistencia-siria/

[Ongoing attacks on Lebanon:  diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/ejercito-de-libano-despeja-barreras-y-neutraliza-dispositivo-israeli/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/imagenes-del-mayor-ataque-con-cohetes-contra-israel-desde-gaza-en-los-ultimos-meses/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/recuerdan-impronta-de-vilma-espin-en-universidad-del-oriente-de-cuba/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/vilma-la-confianza-inamovible-en-la-fuerza-de-la-mujer/ ]

[On the EU seizures:  diario-octubre.com/2025/03/30/quiza-usted-aun-no-se-haya-dado-cuenta-de-que-es-un-personaje-cercano-a-putin/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/03/31/m-caracol-nuevos-mapas-pero-siempre-la-brujula-que-funciona/ ]

[Commemorating Enver Hoxha's death anniversary (April 11, 1985):  piattaformacomunista.com/index.php/enver-hoxha-esempio-di-chiarezza-coerenza-e-coraggio-per-i-proletari-rivoluzionari/ ]

[ michaelharrison.org.uk/2015/03/16th-march-1968-my-lai-massacre/

mltheory.wordpress.com/2025/02/12/french-art-database/

mltheory.wordpress.com/2025/03/24/reminiscence-about-a-certain-visit-on-the-death-of-a-kollontai-1952/

www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/israel-has-murdered-yet-another-journalist

simplicius76.substack.com/p/secret-history-bombshell-nyt-report

German Anti-Spiegel:  anti-spiegel.ru ]

[More atrocities in Gaza:  www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/israel-attacked-ambulance-crews-and ]

[ www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-president-of-peace-just-bombed ]

[ mronline.org/2025/03/29/it-took-an-oscar-winners-ordeal-for-the-world-to-see-the-truth-of-settler-violence/ ]

[Machine translated – "The West: The New Fascism" – diario-octubre.com/2025/03/29/occidente-el-nuevo-fascismo/ ]

[ mronline.org/2025/03/13/more-than-7000-massacred-in-syria/ ]

[ mronline.org/2025/03/29/senate-intelligence-committee-hearing-turns-ugly-with-mccarthy-style-lies-about-codepink-women-for-peace/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/03/29/la-fuerza-aerea-de-estados-unidos-despliega-un-tercio-de-sus-bombarderos-en-diego-garcia/ ]

[ mronline.org/2025/03/25/the-pentagon-is-recruiting-elon-musk-to-help-them-win-a-nuclear-war-2/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/03/29/el-pentagono-impulso-el-desarrollo-de-las-grandes-empresas-tecnologicas/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/03/29/estudio-viajar-a-marte-es-mas-peligroso-de-lo-que-parece/ ]

www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2025/03/27/auto-war-trump-hits-tokyo-and-frankfurt-with-a-sledgehammer

www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2025/03/16/the-forever-wars-may-be-over-but-trump-is-no-peacemaker

www.algora.com/Algora_blog/2025/03/16/how-to-build-an-omnipotent-thought-control-machine

A campaign to rename Volgograd? – www.rt.com/russia/614862-volgograd-stalingrad-zyuganov-communist/

RT – Russia carries out peaceful activities in the Arctic, but will defend itself if attacked by NATO:  www.rt.com/russia/614875-arctic-nato-conflict-putin/

In Moldova:  www.rt.com/russia/614847-moldova-governor-gutsul-arrest/

www.rt.com/russia/614852-zelensky-hatred-russians-office/

Qatargate:  www.rt.com/news/614867-israel-qatar-netanyahu-scandal/

A student was seized by ICE, working with Rubio, for just once co-authoring a college (?) newspaper op-ed calling for divestment from Israel.  NPR is covering the new McCarthyism at universities, but I don't think they are that interested, after all of their talk prior to the election about Trump being a grave threat.  Nothing further about Mahmoud Khalil and very little about others detained.  [There was a story on Morning Edition on the 28th and the leader of the SUNY system was asked about the issue first thing in an interview the evening of the 29th, but still, it doesn't seem to be a very grave issue for NPR and they don't highlight the Trump-Vance administration's conflation of banned "material support" for "terrorism," or alleged petty "vandalism," and constitutionally-protected free speech (reminiscent of the Obama-Biden administration's targeting of FRSO over solidarity with struggles in Latin America., etc.?).  Legal, constitutionally-protected free speech in favor of Palestinian and neighboring Arab national liberation from "Western" colonialism and imperialism is what the US government, and the NGO CEP, have a problem with, and are trying to tar.] 

[On All Things Considered April 1st Elsa Chang asked someone from the University of Pennsylvania why the Federal government shouldn't withhold funding over "anti-semitism," [there was something like 'reported,' a not very noticeable caveat] and his answer included something like "science" and innovation are separate issues from how universities deal with "anti-semitism;" this is a "fig leaf" (he meant, to attack institutions of higher education, not to attack perfectly legal pro-Palestinian free speech, often said by Jewish students?); universities, or some universities, can do better on "anti-semitism;" and I think he said something about speech and due process.  NPR's question assumed that the charges are true and the administrator's very 'diplomatic' answer did not deny it.  Even legal defenders for the accused aren't going very far in interviews.]  [An interview on Fresh Air April 2nd?]  [1A had a clear-cut program on the government's seizure of students at 10am April 2nd and the author of Presidents and the People (?) put it in perspective, going back to John Adams (and he said that we have no knowledge of who Trump-Vance deported to El Salvador, below); the guests all gave what I would call good comments.]  [And on Latino USA April 2nd.  Now NPR is talking about Mahmoud Khalil, other targeted students and faculty; the deported alleged gang members, etc. again, and the words might be getting harder.  It was speculated at 7pm that naturalized citizens could be next.]  [I think I heard that the targeting of immigrant students under Biden.]

[Someone (in danger from Salvadoran gangs) was inadvertently sent (the new rendition?) to El Salvador and the Trump administration says that it can't and won't try to bring him back, though they half admitted that they were wrong.]

[From ProPublica:  The pilot(s) on a private ICE deportation flight told the airline staff that they should just save themselves in an emergency; how can they evacuate a planeload of restrained people (and the company said don't even make eye contact with them)?]

[They want to execute Mangioni (?).]

[Cory Booker's floor speech ended, beating the record.] 

[Israel is just 'pressuring' Hama with outrageous violence and the cut off of food supplies, etc., but they don't put it that way when Russia bombs Ukrainian infrastructure.] 

[On Due South April 1st, on Emily Fang (?) and her new Let Only Red Flowers Bloom – they didn't focus on her demonstrated pro-imperialist hostility toward the Chinese government (?); she is from Connecticut, spoke Mandarin with her family growing up, and graduated from Duke University.]

[On WUNC's 1pm show on the 1st – organic Chinese social media nicknames for Trump are something like 'Trump Makes China Great Again' and 'Super Clueless.']

[There was a protest against cuts at the Durham VA the afternoon of the 2nd.]

[The continuation of Wolf Hall and something on the Vietnam War (the controversial documentary by Ken Burns?) are airing on the local PBS station.]

[From the NC AFL-CIO – 

March 20: US Mail is Not for Sale Day of Action with APWU 

March 21: Tell Senator Tillis to Stop Hiding from Workers protest (Raleigh)

March 23: "Hell No!" to Dismantling the Postal Service Day of Action with NALC

March 25: Day of Action on Paid Leave, Paid Sick Days, and Raising the Minimum Wage! 

April 17: DPWL Public Hearing in Asheville

April 24: DPWL Public Hearing in Charlotte

April 28: Workers' Memorial Day (Raleigh)

April 29: DPWL Public Hearing in Durham

May 10: National Association of Letter Carriers' Food Drive ]

[Clarity on Gaza from an international volunteer doctor (?) on the BBC early on April 7th.] 

[A free speech series on NPR's Morning Edition the week of April 7th.  Debating the ideal of "objectivity" in journalism at 6pm on the 6th.]

[Around the evening of April 7th or 6th NPR had a headline about Israel renaming the Jerusalem nymph or eastern knapweed fritillary (Melitaea ornata ; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melitaea_ornata ) for Ariel Bibas (in Hebrew?  What is it called in Arabic?  Ariel is a name for Jerusalem, they say.  Is Jerusalem named for a god of dusk and Venus as an evening star, Shalem, related to the great god El and the goddess Asherah? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalim ), leaving it to the BBC to report the new revelations about the apparent summary execution of first responders in Gaza.  In the UK there have been complaints about the BBC being biased for Israel, but it is seemingly less pro-Israel than NPR, and NPR is apparently less pro-Israel than other US mainstream media, unless their attitudes have changed.] 

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/27/thousands-protest-ice-abduction-of-tufts-student/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/27/losing-academic-freedom/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/21/the-chris-hedges-report-americas-constitutional-crisis/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/27/the-hate-group-helping-trump-deport-israels-critics/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/26/alleged-war-crime-applauded-in-leaked-signal-chat/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/27/chris-hedges-surrendering-to-authoritarianism/

Senator Tom Cotton follows Nancy Pelosi:  consortiumnews.com/2025/03/26/codepink-responds-to-us-senate-mccarthy-style-attack/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/24/a-journalists-last-story-before-israel-killed-him/

fair.org/home/publishers-firing-shows-double-standard-in-israel-palestine-cartooning/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/24/palestinian-rights-are-human-rights/

consortiumnews.com/2025/03/25/uks-secret-meeting-with-top-israeli-arms-firm/

husseini.substack.com/p/interview-with-jim-clancy-and-cnns

husseini.substack.com/p/israel-escalates-genocide-kills-journalists

www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-becomes-rent-a-cops-for-ceos

[ www.normalisland.co.uk/p/doctor-cancelled-by-new-york-university ]

[ www.normalisland.co.uk/p/snow-white-obviously-flopped-because ]

www.normalisland.co.uk/p/clashes-in-west-bank-as-settlers

fair.org/home/israel-kills-palestinian-journalist-hossam-shabat-as-us-media-look-away/ 

www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-children-israel-sniper-shoot-jazeera

jfkfacts.substack.com/p/jfk-records-release-brings-lone-gunman

On the March 24-June 10, 1999 NATO attack on Yugoslavia:  michelchossudovsky.substack.com/p/twenty-six-years-ago-nato-war-aggression-yugoslavia

www.dropsitenews.com/p/hossam-shabat-journalist-killed-gaza-last-article

jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-new-fascism-israel-is-the-template

jonathancook.substack.com/p/would-it-be-okay-for-hamas-to-strike

On the anniversary of the German Peasants War:  portside.org/2025-03-24/momentous-class-struggle-german-peasants-war

On the truck-swallowing sinkhole in Saitama, Japan:  www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d01102/

The cherry blossom or sakura forecast in Japan; I think I heard a news headline that the cherries are flowering on time this year:  www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h02345/

From a survivor of the March 20, 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway:  www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02493/

Post-colonial 20th century Yemen history:  edberg.substack.com/p/destination-yemen

From the Town of Carrboro:  

"The Grand Opening CELEBRATION of the Drakeford Library Complex was held on Friday, March 21, 2025 with much joy and spirit of community connections past, present and future. The main hall was packed for remarks by elected officials from the Town of Carrboro and Orange County, U.S. Congresswoman Varlerie Foushee, Carrboro Poet Laureate Liza Wolff-Francis, Town Manager Patrice Toney, and Derrick Drakeford (son of Robert Drakeford, for whom the complex is named), a ribbon cutting, refreshments, building tours, and special presentations honoring the construction workers who built the complex, historic background about Robert Drakeford and more. 

If you haven't yet visited the Drakeford Library Complex, you need to make the trip! 

Watch the full video from this historic occasion for Carrboro  at https://youtu.be/Q0tjpvIGQhU "

[The Town of Carrboro hosted a Town Hall meeting at the Drakeford Library Complex "at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 29, to give residents an opportunity to express their thoughts in the wake of enacted or proposed changes across various policy areas at state and federal levels of government."]

Forsyth Creek Week 2025 is March 22nd-31st:  www.forsythcreekweek.org

sonar21.com/it-wasnt-a-leak-it-was-a-devious-charlie-foxtrot/

Uri Berliner on NPR in the rightist Free Press:  www.thefp.com/p/uri-berliner-npr-should-refuse-to-take-federal-funds

www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/israel-is-gunning-down-children-with

fair.org/home/sanitizing-resumption-of-genocide-as-pressure-on-hamas/ 

On the AMA:  www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-the-american-medical-association 

travelbetweenthepages.com/2025/03/24/mapping-monday/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/europa-belica-gasto-militar-en-alza-un-motor-para-dinamizar-la-acumulacion-de-capital/

On Azov in Ukraine:  diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/el-batallon-azov-sale-de-la-lista-negra-de-grupos-extremistas-de-la-universidad-de-stanford/

On VI Lenin, with many photos:  diario-octubre.com/2017/04/22/147-anos-del-nacimiento-de-vladimir-ilich-ulianov-lenin/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/07/jano-martinez-rego-el-lobo-esta-dentro-de-la-casa-sobre-la-ola-reaccionaria-y-la-derechizacion-de-los-partidos-institucionales/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/la-gran-hipnosis/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/la-adhesion-de-ucrania-a-la-ue-la-llevara-a-la-quiebra-dice-un-estudio/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/un-macabro-hallazgo-en-alta-mar-convierte-en-pesadilla-una-aventura-de-amigos/

The "Western" threat to shipping in the English Channel:  diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/rusia-escolta-sus-mercantes-con-buques-de-guerra-en-el-canal-de-la-mancha/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/07/feminismo-privatizaciones-y-conciencia-de-clase/

diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/el-mensaje-con-advertencia-que-japon-le-envia-a-china/

World Water Day (March 22nd) in Nicaragua:  diario-octubre.com/2025/03/23/nicaragua-cobertura-de-agua-potable-supera-95-por-ciento/

www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-the-democrats-corporate 

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=vin-SvqWY40&ab_channel=DialogueWorks

From BAJ:  "Pepe Escobar: Yemen Strikes Back as U.S. and Israel Escalate

Nima Alkhorshid interviewing Pepe Escobar."

In Colorado:  theworker.news/2025/03/27/immigrant-rights-and-union-activist-arrested-by-ice/

In Tennessee:  theworker.news/2025/03/23/vw-plans-mass-layoffs-at-recently-unionized-chattanooga-plant/

www.rt.com/russia/614654-investigation-ukranian-crimes-kursk-sudzha/

On Artyom Dmitruk:  www.rt.com/russia/614649-mp-zelensky-murder-plot/

www.rt.com/news/614674-cia-contaminated-sugar-cuba-ussr/

www.rt.com/news/614667-macron-russians-jihadists-france/

theintercept.com/2025/03/21/trump-epa-monsanto-roundup-bayer-cancer-chemicals/

theintercept.com/2025/03/20/ucla-palestine-israel-campus-protest-lawsuit/

On the case of Cornell University British-Gambian graduate student Momodou Taal:  theintercept.com/2025/03/21/trump-free-speech-lawsuit-ice-momodou-taal/

"Israel’s 'Culture of Cruelty' Inspires the Far Right Worldwide, Says Pankaj Mishra" theintercept.com/2025/03/22/briefing-podcast-pankaj-mishra-gaza/

newleftreview.org/issues/ii114/articles/dylan-riley-what-is-trump

newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/constitutional-collapse

newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/contre-attaque

On the conflict in DR Congo:  newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/causes-of-war

newleftreview.org/issues/ii118/articles/anders-stephanson-neo-impressionist-hegemon

newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/american-destiny

On three prominent women in revolutionary and Napoleonic France:  www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n04/rosemary-hill/no-more-corsets

On Victor Serge's manual:  www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n04/greg-afinogenov/thank-god-for-dynamite

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Serge

Deciphering Linear Elamite:  www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n04/tom-stevenson/beyond-mesopotamia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Elamite

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/paul-taylor/ai-wars

On the Grimm brothers:  www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/colin-burrow/ogres-are-cool

[ tannerfboyle.substack.com/p/forbidden-science-dispatches-9 ]

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/jan-werner-mueller/no-one-is-further-right-than-me

On German finances:  www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/thomas-meaney/goodbye-black-zero

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/sheila-fitzpatrick/not-corrupt-enough

/www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/march/not-conducive-to-the-public-good

World Water Day proclamation in Carrboro:  www.carrboronc.gov//CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2945

World Water Day 2025 theme – "Glacier Preservation"

Regarding the May 2, 2014 trade union building massacre in Odessa, Ukraine:  mronline.org/2025/03/22/european-court-rules-ukraine-guilty-in-odessa-massacre/

Wikipedia's version:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Odesa_clashes

On Romania; but the EU condemned the decision? – mronline.org/2025/03/12/romania-a-captured-state/

On "Cultural Marxism" – mronline.org/2025/03/19/cultural-marxism-the-mainstreaming-of-a-nazi-trope/

mronline.org/2025/03/22/google-imports-ex-israeli-spies-the-genocide-resumes-cruel-britannia

www.dropsitenews.com/p/mahmoud-khalil-journey-refugee-syria-columbia-university

Chuck Schumer on Israel:  www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/senate-majority-leader-admits-what

And see:  mondoweiss.net

[In history this week:  www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/03/23/mezp-m23.html ]

[History:  portside.org/2025-03-17/week-peoples-history-mar-19-25 ]

[ www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/07/vlqh-a07.html ]

[ portside.org/2025-04-07/week-peoples-history-april-9-15-2025 ]

[Hainan captured, etc. www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/13/tlod-a13.html ]

[ theworker.news/2025/03/29/book-review-the-great-san-francisco-general-strike/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/03/29/miguel-hernandez-poeta-y-comunista-que-murio-hace-83-anos-en-una-carcel-franquista/ ]

[ diario-octubre.com/2025/03/29/una-pagina-para-la-tierra-palestina/ ]

[From Haaretz; allegedly Palestinians are demanding that Hamas roll over, presumably to be followed by extrajudicial mass killing of its surviving members, Israeli and maybe US occupation, and further bloodshed; more praise for HTS' new Syria and even George W Bush's Iraq; bombing cities didn't produce movements for surrender in WWII, etc., yet they claim that Gaza is different; there was contradictory coverage on NPR and the BBC:  portside.org/2025-03-28/stop-turning-gaza-rubble-fed-war-and-hamas-rule-palestinians-ramp-their-protest  The BBC is going on about whether the government of Myanmar will allow earthquake aid into rebel-held areas, unlike the case of Gaza.  US wars?  90's Iraq?  The speakers said something about Russia and Ukrainian and Syrian hospitals, ambulances, and schools – again like Gaza and the "War on Terror," but only Russia is considered tainted ('forever?') and beyond the pale, the new "Hun."  A military hospital in Kharkiv.  Trump just had an apartment building blown up in Yemen to kill one man.  The mainstream media for its part is going on about how this was revealed to Jeffrey Goldberg, a dual US and Israeli citizen who volunteered to be an Israeli military prison guard and was "one of the leading media cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq" (at David Remnick's New Yorker?):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg  Hostile to Irish-American too??  Israel allegedly executed first responders and has a mass grave next to a military base.  A mass grave.  Can it be seen by private reconnaissance satellites?  Where is the great Bellingcat?  Months ago the BBC had an interview with a media witness/refugee in Gaza implying that detained people were being shot to death just behind a berm of sand.  March 28th I thought about what it means if a government is determined to be "fascist," a term being thrown around in recent years.  Lightly?  What is to be done if you expect open terror to begin imminently?]  [A poem by Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet?]  [And if catastrophic climate change comes for the "West" too, aside from the new cold/hot world war?]

 

Twice this week (so far), separately talking to US scholars of China and a Chinese scholar of the US in China, NPR likened Trump's actions to Mao and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (!).

[There was another anti-Tesla day of action March 29th and someone's Tesla was alleged vandalized (scratched?) in Pittsboro recently, after yelling by the Courthouse at a coupon promotion for Tesla (on... ).]  

[Someone was punched at an event in Pittsboro around April 4th?  A very big rally on the 5th.]

NC Governor Stein's State of the State address was in March, on... and Raleigh's State of the City address was...

Electronic Intifada's weekly livestream was this afternoon, EDT.

From the Veterans for Peace Democracy and Peace Working Group – March 27th at 7:30pm ET "VFP Democracy & Peace Webinar #3 of 4:  A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing; Help! I'm Colonized and Can't Get Up!"  Discussing:  poclad.org/BWA/2005/BWA_2005_FEB.html  Register at:  us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/1-orKukCQDS6TtUBeeTRjg#/registration

April 24th:  "Our Corporate Elite and the Constitution; AIPAC's War on Democracy and Capitol Hill Citizen" 

There will be an Al-Quds Day rally in New York City (at Times Square; at the corner 42nd Street and Broadway) Friday, March 28th at 4pm; from the Al-Quds Day Committee of New York:  "Al Quds Day demonstrates the unity, will, and power of those seeking justice in the face of arrogant imperialist powers today.  All are requested to attend."  Al-Quds Day (or Jerusalem Day) is the last Friday in the month of Ramadan:   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Day

[Peak ornamental cherry blossoms in Washington, DC (two weeks??)?  But the National Festival is March 20th-April 13th:  nationalcherryblossomfestival.org ]

The 17th Annual Small Treasures Juried Exhibition will be at the Cary Gallery of Artists March 28, 2025 to April 22, 2025; events March 29th and 30th (?):  www.carygalleryofartists.org/small-treasures

March 28th-May 11th:  ackland.org/exhibition/phantom-limb-selected-works-by-the-mfa-class-of-2025/ 

"The Ethics of Memory with David Treuer, Ryan Falcioni, and Bz Zhang" will be March 28th 5:30pm- 7:00pm at Duke's Nasher Museum of Art; organized by the Kenan Institute for Ethics:  kenan.ethics.duke.edu/event/the-ethics-of-memory-with-david-treuer-ryan-falcioni-and-bz-zhang/

From BAJ; slightly edited:

"Resisting the calculated blizzard of crises intended to paralyze us,

the company we find among people taking on the struggles 

                helps keep us all human!

Two nearby events on issues BAJ features, ARE our April program!

Friday March 28: 6:30 potluck 7pm program 

6:30 pm on Friday March 28^th

Join CommunEcos and Eno River Earth Justice Committee 

for a plant-based potluck dinner and an insider’s report on 

ongoing environmental mayhem just a few miles north of Durham.

Bring a dish if you can, but come even if you can’t. 

This is important news. Dinner at 6:30 pm, presentation starts 7 – 7:10 pm. 

Location:  the Fellowship Hall at Eno River UU Fellowship

                  4907 Garrett Rd, Durham, NC 27707

 

Saving Person County from the Enbridge / Duke Energy Plan 

to turn the county into a Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone

     A Report on the Ongoing Struggle w/ visuals 

     by  Climate Educator Steve Laning   

There is a lot more going on than we knew. 

“Our” new gas utility Enbridge owns the Moriah Energy Center, 

where two gigantic natural gas storage tanks are planned 

just north of the Durham Co. line. But there’s more:  

A planned Enbridge gas pipeline that will traverse three counties, 

a new gas power plant that Duke Energy plans to build by Hyco Lake, 

and a mysterious Microsoft purchase of over 1000 acres 

for possibly a data center?  Too much secrecy!

Bio: Steve Laning is retired from a long career in the food business 

and 5-years chairing the American Cocoa Research Institute in Washington, DC 

(which works to sustain the cacao crop and improve the lives of cocoa farming families), 

and a top management position in a Swiss chocolate and cocoa business.  

Recently he has been producing the newsletter Climate Times, 

giving talks on the climate crisis to community groups and working with Person County activists 

to protect the local environment and people from an onslaught of natural gas infrastructure.

Hosted by Sandy Smith-Nonini, PhD Department of Anthropology

University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Wednesday April 2, 3PM    305 Languages Bldg, 413 Chapel Drive,Duke U.

   Parking: Garage 4, 135 Science Drive

   To carpool fr Chapel Hill phone 919 542-2139 by Wed noon.

   Photography, Documentary and Music 
   Reclaim Indigenous Historical Memory 

          Featuring

   roderico yool-diaz

Originally from Guatemala, Roderico Y. Diaz is an indigenous 

Maya Kaqchikel independent photojournalist and documentary videographer 

who has worked in photojournalism and documentary film for fifteen years. 

He has focused his work primarily on documenting the search for justice after the genocide in Guatemala (1960-1996).

        [and]

   Emily gibson rhyne

Emily Gibson Rhyne comes to videography and journalism from a background in human rights. 

She spent over a decade in community organizing for immigrant rights in NC and worked as a human

 rights monitor in Guatemala in 2014. As director of Witness for Peace Southeast (2017-2021), 

she organized human rights delegations to Colombia, Cuba, Honduras and Mexico and 

coordinated several speakers tours across the southeastern United States 

with Latin American social leaders on environmental justice and human rights. 

In 2021 she co-founded Iximché Media (www.iximchemedia.com), a digital content producer 

focused on visual narratives that empower communities.

https://www.iximchemedia.com/ "

There will be a partial solar eclipse around 6:32am EDT on the 29th (the New Moon), visible from northwestern Russia to the US Northeast, and from northwestern Africa to Greenland, but best seen from northern Quebec, Canada and dropping to 1% coverage of the Sun in Washington, DC; see is.gd/2025partial

Mars will appear closer than half a degree from Pollux, the brightest star in Gemini, on March 30th.

The Moon will be at perigee March 30th at 1:25am EDT.

Venus and Saturn will appear 10 degrees apart on the 30th, around 2am?

The free Triangle Bonsai Society Expo 2025 will be at the NCBG March 29-30th.

"History Hike: The Civil War at West Point on the Eno" will be March 29th at 10am in Durham:   durhamparksandrecreation.substack.com/p/explore-nineteenth-century-durhams

The African American Legacy in Gardening and Horticulture Symposium will be March 29th 9:30am-4:30pm at the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham; in-person and online; preregistration required.

The 8th annual KoreaFest will be March 29th 10am-3pm at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh (?):   www.inwavemovement.com/koreafest-2025

The Chatham County AgFest will be March 29th 10am-3pm at the Chatham County Agriculture and Conference Center (1192 US 64 West Business in Pittsboro); Grand Trees of Chatham will be tabling, etc.  [ growingchatham.my.canva.site/heading and growingsmallfarms.ces.ncsu.edu/2024/11/2025-ag-fest/ ]

March 29th at 10am at the Constitution Party of North Carolina State Convention – 3901 Raeford Road in Fayetteville, NC 28304:  secure.anedot.com/the-constitution-party-of-north-carolina/gunraffle 

Stop the Coup – March 29th at 1pm at 1898 Memorial Park in Wilmington, NC (1018 North 3rd Street):   emancipatenc.org/stop-the-coup/ 

[BST began in the UK March 30th?  The BBC's Hard Talk program ends soon.]

Israeli Apartheid Week (March 21-30; “People Power Makes Apartheid History” "Resist. Rise. Decolonize." – bdsmovement.net ) and National Farmworker Awareness Week (March 25-31; saf-unite.org/national-farmworker-awareness-week/ ) are at the end of March.  More?  It was or still is Agriculture Week?  

[ icssmarx.org/africa-confederation-strengthens-the-sahel-states-while-balkanization-looms-in-congo-and-the-horn-ann-garrison-march-30-2025-1030-am-pacific-time/ ]

[Free Stuff Market in Raleigh March 30th:  triangleonthecheap.com ]

[Philip Hoare at the Oxford Literary Festival in the UK:  oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events/2025/march-31/william-blake-the-sea-monsters-of-love ]

Forsyth Creek Week 2025 is March 22nd-31st:  www.forsythcreekweek.org

Eid al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan) will be March 31st.

Participatory Budgeting (PB Durham) by March 31st:  www.pbdurham.org 

The annual NC Science Festival is held throughout April and throughout the State; organized by UNC's Morehead Planetarium.and presented by RTI (?).  [ ncsciencefestival.org/ ]

From HASTRO, on the 1st:

Early the night of April 1st "...most of Europe will be able to observe an occultation of several stars in the Pleiades by the 3-day old lunar crescent." –

www.imcce.fr/lettre-information/archives/222#current-article1

In "most of North America," earlier in the evening –

ssp.imcce.fr/forms/occultations/HIP-17499/301/2025-04-01G "

Land Back

Indigenous Resistance from Turtle Island to Palestine

Click here to register for the livestream of the meeting

Join several organizations on Land Day 2025 to discuss land back efforts from the Levant to Turtle Island. From an internationalist and anti-capitalist perspective, we will discuss forms of resisting occupation, honoring the land, and indigeneity.

Register at:  us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_EsigybMrTYOR4QYteNvCzQ#/registration 

[Mama Cookie Day April 3rd 2-5pm in Durham; USSW:  www.instagram.com/raiseupthesouth/p/C5WLOBMs7Y6/]

[From Democracy North Carolina:

Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence Event

Join us on Thursday, April 3, starting at 7:00 PM, as we discuss King's courage to speak truth to power, even when it cost him allies and endangered his life, and how it calls us to similar moral courage today.

• What: "Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence"
• When: Thursday, April 3rd at 7:00 PM
• Where: Virtual Event registration

www.mobilize.us/democracync/event/771829/ and www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm [

[Earth in Focus: A Dialogue Between Art and Environment opening reception April 4th 6-8pm at (?) the Halle Cultural Arts Center of Apex (237 Salem Street in Apex, NC) [on exhibit through May]:  chathamartistsguild.org/artists/irena-cepulyte ]  [Tapping into Spirit - Featured Artists Exhibit at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts (121 North Churton Street in Hillsborough, NC) through April 20th:  chathamartistsguild.org/artists/martha-danek/ ]

[A Star Party at the White Oak parking area of the ATT (1305 White Oak Church Road in Apex) Friday, April 4th (April 5th if the weather is poor on the 5th) 6:30-9:30pm:  wake.gov/StarParty ]

[A Star Party at the White Oak parking area of the ATT (1305 White Oak Church Road in Apex) Friday, April 4th (April 5th if the weather is poor on the 5th) 6:30-9:30pm; part of the Statewide Star Party and the NC Science Festival:  wake.gov/StarParty and ncsciencefestival.org/ – #NCSciFest #EveryDayWhereOne #EveryDayScience #GoKelvinGo]

The Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival and Sakura Weekend [April 5-6th] in Philadelphia will be in early April :  PhillySakura.org

Arbor Day in Cary will be (or was)...  [Arbor Day was March 21st in North Carolina overall in 2025:  www.arborday.org/celebrate/globe and March 22nd 12-3pm in Cary, at the Town Hall; part of Tree City USA for 42 years:  www.carync.gov/recreation-enjoyment/events/environmental-events/arbor-day  Durham?]

Durham's annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival [the 17th?] will be... [April 3rd-6th; many of the featured documentaries are about the Ukraine War and at least one is about Palestine:  www.fullframefest.org ]

Raleigh's Dreamville music festival, the last, will be... [April 5-6th:  dreamvillefest.com/home/ ]

There will be Hands Off! rallies on around Saturday, April 5th, there will be a national rally that day at the Washington Monument in DC 12-3:30pm ET:  handsoff2025.com/ [Events in Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Wilmington, Hickory, Hendersonville, Asheville, Greenville, Greensboro, Watauga County, and a few other places?]

There will be a March on Washington – Stop the Genocide! in in DC the same day at 1pm:  marchforpalestine.org/bus  Buses will be coming from Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia (SC), Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Richmond, Newark, throughout New York City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Dearborn, Chicago, Providence, Montpelier, Martinsburg (WV), and more.

Someone from the Close Guantanamo Coalition recommends:  CUT (government) COSTS-CLOSE GUANTANAMO and CUT WASTE-CLOSE GUANTANAMO

The Party for the Pine 2025 will be April 5th 10am-3pm at Weymouth Woods State Park in Southern Pines, NC:  friendsofwewo.org/party-for-the-pine-2025

There will be Revolutionary War living history events in Hillsborough, NC 10am-4pm April 5th:  visithillsboroughnc.com/event/revolutionary-war-living-history-day-3/ 

[Beyond the Book Children’s Book and Art Festival 10m-3pm April 5th:  triangleonthecheap.com ]

[The Apex Holi Festival will be April 5th:  triangleonthecheap.com ] 

In the UK April 5-6th:  weirdweekendnorth.com

Earth Day and Open Streets in Carrboro:  "Enjoy a car-free Weaver Street on Sunday, April 6 from noon to 4 p.m." –  www.carrboronc.gov/745/Carrboro-Earth-Day-Open-Streets

Twilight Thursdays at the NC Botanical Garden will begin...  The NCBG's annual Evelyn McNeill Sims Native Plant Lecture, featuring ecological horticulturalist Rebecca McMackin, will be April 6th 5:30-6:45pm, in-person and online.  "North Carolina Birds and Where They Live

Watercolors by Catherine Kramer" will be on view through April 27th:   ncbg.unc.edu

The annual NC Azalea Festival in Wilmington will be April... [2-6]:  ncazaleafestival.org

In Charlotte? – there will be a "Loray Mills Strike Presentation" Wednesday, April 2nd at 7 pm at Watershed Church, [organized by] the Working People's Association"

[The Durham County Library's 2025 Library Fest – North Carolina Edition will be April 7-12th:  triangleonthecheap.com ]  

["Public sector labor struggles, then and now," part of the ILR School's Union Days 2025 –April 8th at 4pm:  cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gZmjfA2BQvSWVJShUv4Dsw#/registration ]

[Palestinian Solidarity Activism: Students, Faculty, and Universities Under Attack

"Michael Arria, journalist with Mondoweiss, author of "The Shift" column, has extensive contacts with student movements, enabling him to track the latest developments in U.S. pro-Palestine solidarity activism. Join us for a deep dive into the Trump administration's authoritarian tactics criminalizing genocide dissent, bullying universities, ramping up arrests and deportations, and what we can do."

April 10th 7:30-9:00pm ET; organized by Durham-based Voices for Justice in Palestine:  lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/qggpztc/lp/de44cd00-f1b8-4f4d-94a2-6168754344ea ]

["Targeted Professors, Targeted Institutions: Fighting the Attacks on Higher Education" webinar April 10th at 8pm ET[; organized by Tempest Collective]:  us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/O13RCXH_RxC-6H4kDEoRew#/registration ]

[With:

Sherry Wolf, senior organizer of American Association of University Professors—Rutgers University, JVP member, and Tempest member
Joshua Hamilton, former Director of the Multicultural Center at the University of North Texas.
Professor Bryan McCann, United Campus Workers; secretary of the Louisiana State University AAUP. 
Professor Pranav Jani, president, AAUP-Ohio State University; advisor, SJP-Ohio State
Kristen Godfried, Arizona PhD student, organizer, and Tempest member  
Moderated by Professor Dana Cloud, AAUP-University of Cincinnati ]

["The 27th RiverRun International Film Festival will take place from April 11 – 19, 2025 in Winston-Salem and Greensboro, NC." – riverrunfilm.com ]

[Was March 21-23 in Chapel Hill:  cosmicraysfilmfest.com ]

From the Chatham County Government

SILER CITY, NC—The Friends of the Wren Memorial Library will host a book sale on April 11 – 12, 2025, at the Wren Memorial Library. This event is free and open to the public.

WHAT: Friends of the Wren Memorial Library Book Sale

WHEN: Friday, April 11: 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Saturday, April 12: 10 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

WHERE: Wren Memorial Library

500 N 2nd Ave

Siler City, NC 27344

WHO: Friends of the Wren Memorial Library

The Chatham County community is invited to the Friends of the Wren Memorial Library Book Sale. This sale features over 3,000 items, including hardbacks, softbacks, DVDs, audio books, and CDs.

Items are sorted and conveniently displayed for easy browsing, including a larger than usual number of North Carolina history books. Admission is free, and purchases may be made by cash, check, or card. All proceeds from the book sale are used to benefit the library for programs; purchasing needed books, materials, and equipment; and improving its technology and services.

For more information about the sale, call the library at Call: 919-742-2016 919-742-2016 or contact the Friends of the Wren Memorial Library at wrenfriends2[at gmail com].

Kara Lusk

Public Information Officer

Chatham County Government"

[From Friends of Lower Haw River:

Nature Photo Outing with Dr. Kevin Ricker

Date [and] Time: April 12th from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm

Location: US 64 Haw River Canoe Access at 348 River Access Road, Pittsboro NC 27312

Friends of Lower Haw is offering this free event that is open to the public. Meet nature photographer Dr. Kevin Ricker and join him on a walking tour where he will point out common places to find different species of wildlife, where to take cool photos, and different approaches to photographing wildlife. He will be taking photographs of wildlife we see during the walk, so this is a great opportunity to see how he gets such great images.  Bring your own camera if you want to, but it is not mandatory.  We will be walking in the Lower Haw River State Natural Area on uneven ground so wear sturdy shoes and bring your own drinking water.  This outing is part of our “Meet the Photographer” series that offers the opportunity for a fascinating "behind the scenes" experience with a nature photographer. See Dr. Kev's nature photos @chathampediatricdentistry

Friends of Lower Haw River

www.lowerhaw.org

lowerhawevents [at gmail com] ]

[The 25th Annual Triangle Lebanese Festival will be April 12-13th at the Triangle Lebanese-American Center in Raleigh:  triangleonthecheap.com ] 

[From the NLG:

Webinar: The Feds are Knocking: Federal Grand Juries [and] State Repression, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 6:30-8 PM ET, Via Zoom

The NLG National Office is excited to announce a new webinar!

Federal agents use tactics like “door knocks” and grand jury subpoenas to target activists and surveil social movements. This training will cover how to support activists in federal investigations and grand jury proceedings. Attendees will learn about federal grand jury subpoenas and litigation, with a focus on representing witnesses who wish to litigate the validity of a subpoena. This training will provide guidance for attorneys, and help prepare activists and support teams for what to expect throughout the grand jury process.

Date and Time: Wednesday, April 16, 2025 6:30-8:00 PM ET Via Zoom.

Speaker: Mo Meltzer-Cohen is an educator, attorney, and abolitionist, serving overlapping communities of activists, queers, and prisoners. Their work includes criminal defense, particularly for those arrested in the course of justice struggles; representation of witnesses before federal grand juries; and advocacy for those seeking gender affirming and other necessary (but often withheld) health care while in prison.

NOTE: The NLG Federal Defense Hotline is also available to activists and lawyers in order to report verified incidents of federal repression, such as FBI “door-knocks” at activists’ homes, grand jury investigations and subpoenas, and any other federal law enforcement efforts to undermine civil rights, including federal grab squads and the use of unidentified federal agents to police protests. Hotline allows callers to have privileged conversations with attorneys and to receive attorney referrals, know-your-rights information, and resources for responding to grand jury investigations and subpoenas. The line is live at: (212)-679-2811.]

NC Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice should be in mid-April?  See Witness for Peace Southeast, renamed?

Good Friday is April 18th in 2025, in both Eastern and Western Christianity and Easter Sunday is April 20th. – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_of_Easter

[The famous Major the Bull’s 21st Birthday Bash – "hosted by Liberty Arts and friends on April 18th from 5-9 p.m. in CCB Plaza!"  This large bull statue was created "in 2004 by Liberty Artists Michael Waller and Leah Foushee-Waller" – downtowndurham.com/majors-birthday-bash/  Searching brings up photos.]  [See:  www.wallerfoushee.com and www.libertyartsnc.org ]  [I couldn't get good photos just driving around this square in the center of downtown.  Is Major a Taurus?]

International Dark-Sky Week is held annually the week of the New Moon in April, and highlights light pollution and stargazing:   idsw.darksky.org  [April 21-28 in 2025]

[From the Chatham Artists Guild – wildlife photography by Barb Case at:

Raleigh Underground Market - Sun., April 13th & May 11th, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.                                  Midtown Park - North Hills 4011 Cardinal at North Hills St, Raleigh, NC

Cary Spring Daze Arts [and] Crafts Festival - Sat., April 26th, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Fred G. Bond Metro Park, 801 High House Road, Cary, NC Booth #D411

Mystic Mother's Day Market - Sat., May 10th, 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Mystic Farm & Distilling CO 1413 Stallings Rd, Durham, NC]

[Shut Down Drone Warfare –  April 20-26th at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, New Mexico:  www.shutdowndronewarfare.org/

The relatively strong Lyrid meteor shower is visible April 14-30, and peaks on the 22nd.

[The Blake Society – April 23rd at 7:30pm, "free and online," Mark Crosby talks about Blake’s formative years as an apprentice engraver.]

[A few local Earth and Arbor Day events will be around April 25-27th:  triangleonthecheap.com ] 

[April 25-27th in Durham:  www.keepdurhambeautiful.org/events/2025/gardentour ]

A Spring Plant Sale during Raulston Blooms, 10am-pm April 26th at the JCRA in Raleigh. 

[Historic Garden Week is April 26th-May 3rd?]

[Friday, April 28th is the international Save the Frogs Day ( savethefrogs.com ) and Workers' Memorial Day (there is usually an event in Raleigh).]  

Asteroid Vesta will reach opposition May 2nd, and be closest to the Earth five days later; potentially it could be seen just by eyesight.

The NCBG's Spring Native Plant Sale will be 9am-2pm on Saturday, May 3rd.

[The Durham Greek Festival will be Saturday, May 3rd-Sunday, May 4th:  triangleonthecheap.com ]

[May 3rd in 2025; it began May 4, 2002; usually celebrated in the Durham area, but not with East Asian manga/manhwa/manhua? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Comic_Book_Day and www.freecomicbookday.com ]

[30th Annual Art in the Garden Sculpture Exhibition 2025 – Garden Art Gallery, 1902 Borland Road, Hillsborough, NC:  garden-art-gallery.com ]

[May 16-18th in Sumter, SC:  www.sumtersc.gov/tourism/things-do/festivals-events/iris-festival ]

[From NC STN:

[ ncchurches.org/event-single/guantanamos-future-detention-expansion-and-resistance/ ]

"Guantanamo's Future: Detention, Expansion [and] Resistance

Sunday, May 18, 2025 -- 12:15 - 3:00 PM
Benson Memorial United Methodist Church
4706 Creedmoor Rd, Raleigh

It has been 23 years since the U.S. opened an offshore prison for Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. government chose this location to escape the rule of law—allowing it to detain men secretly and torture with impunity. Hundreds of Muslim men have passed through Guantanamo, and today, 15 remain. Three of them are slated to be held forever, without charge or trial. Now, in 2025, the Trump Administration is expanding Guantanamo once again—this time to imprison immigrants. The President has suggested as many as 30,000 immigrants could be detained there. What can we do to push back?

The event will begin with lunch, followed by a panel discussion moderated by the Rev. Dr. Jennifer Copeland, Executive Director of the North Carolina Council of Churches. Panelists include:

Yumna Rizvi, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Victims of Torture, who will speak on the ongoing use of Guantanamo in the U.S. "War on Terror"
Rev. Dr. Ben Boswell, who previously served as an Infantry Officer in the North Carolina Army National Guard and as an Adjunct Professor of Political Theology and Ethics at the John Leland Center for Theological      Studies in Arlington, VA, and was a member of the NC Commission of Inquiry on Torture
Joe Furtick, a paralegal with the Immigration Office of Church World Service Durham, who will address the threats facing immigrants and how we can help

Following the panel we will take action together to mobilize against this expansion of injustice.

This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Council of Churches and NC Stop Torture Now."]

[May 19th at 6pm:  www.eventbrite.com/e/lecture-ufos-men-in-black-and-the-unbelievable-life-of-gray-barker-tickets-1259769176519 ]

[From SOAW:  May 26th-June 1st – "22nd annual Migrant Trail, a 75-mile pilgrimage from Sasabe, Sonora, to Tucson, Arizona" – azmigranttrail.com ]

[Ocrafolk Festival (June 6–8, 2025) – ocracokealive.org ]

[The 46th Annual Festival for the Eno.]

[In Pittsboro:  a new Fall Sculpture Show – September 19-20th; the deadline for submissions is May 1, 2025:  theplantnc.com ]

Originally posted at:  nepajac.org/stoptheattacksonpalestinianrightactivists.htm

Stop the attacks on Palestinian Rights Activists

A UNAC Statement

3/17/2025

Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian born Palestinian and former graduate student at Columbia University, has been detained in a prison in Louisiana and threatened with deportation for his association with pro-Palestine protests at Columbia, where he was a negotiator between the University and the student activists.   He is not the only foreign student to be threatened with deportation over his participation in these actions. At Cornell University, Momodou Taal, a Gambian-born UK citizen has been fighting expulsion and deportation for his participation in pro-Palestine protests, and at Yale, Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi, an Associate Research Scholar from Iran has been suspended for an alleged connection with Samidoun, an organization that supports Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. There are tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, many of them incarcerated without charge.

The detention and threat of deportation against Mahmoud Khalil and the punitive actions against other foreign students is a continuation of state repression practiced by Donald Trump and by his predecessors. The accusations against Khalil and the others are inventions meant to make examples of them and crush opposition to United States complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Zionist groups openly boast of giving the Trump administration names of non-citizens who they want to see deported. Yet Trump’s actions are an extension of the Patriot Act, the illegal detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and of institutions like Columbia University working with police departments to end peaceful protests. At other institutions faculty have been fired and students have been suspended or even expelled in an effort to placate the state and their own wealthy donors.

Trump is not just claiming a right to deport non-citizens who exercise their rights to speak and assemble freely, but he is continuing the Biden administration’s commitment to ethnic cleansing in Gaza, while Israel continues bombing and cutting off water and electricity, which are war crimes by definition, and in violation of a ceasefire agreement. Like other presidents, Trump is bombing Ansar Allah and civilians in Yemen to punish their steadfast solidarity with Palestine.  The Obama/Clinton initiative to destroy the Syrian Republic has also come to fruition, with the leader of Al Qaeda in Syria now ruling the country. At the same time, his multinational force of Takfiri-Wahhabi-Salifist extremists slaughters Alawite, Shia and Christian Syrians in the thousands.

Palestine is not the only point of contention that drives the state to repress speech. The Uhuru 3 were indicted by the Biden Department of Justice, accused of being Russian agents when they spoke against the proxy war in Ukraine. They were ultimately acquitted, but their case exemplified the commitment to silence individuals and movements who speak out against U.S. imperialism. The most common form of repression in the U.S. is the police state, as in Chicago, where the local police department ran a black site prison, Homan Square, with the help of the Justice Department under the Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies.

Trump’s deportations in violation of court orders are a new threat to human rights. But Guantanamo Bay still holds prisoners, and the Patriot Act has been renewed several times since it was first passed in 2001.

UNAC demands freedom for Mahmoud Khalil and others repressed for exercising their rights to speak and assemble freely, an end to genocide and wars of aggression, and the end of university complicity in the suppression of political speech.

Free Palestine!

Stop Deportations! 

Free all Political Prisoners!

Defend the Human Rights of Free Speech and Assembly!

Stop Imperialist Aggression! 

David Herbert Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930).

[North Carolina's Wilmington and Weldon Railroad:  Last spike March 7, 1840; a celebration April 5, 1840 in Wilmington; "longest in the world at that point in time;" helped to create Goldsboro (?); vital infrastructure in the Civil War:   www.carolana.com/NC/Transportation/railroads/nc_rrs_wilmington_raleigh.html and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_and_Weldon_Railroad ]

Luther Burbank (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank

[The Civil War Battle of Pea Ridge was March 7–8, 1862, near Leetown and Fayetteville in Arkansas:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pea_Ridge ]

Founded [or incorporated] March 13, 1893 [?]:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Valley,_California

[ michaelharrison.org.uk/2015/03/16th-march-1968-my-lai-massacre/ ]

[Arbor Day was March 21st in North Carolina in 2025:  www.arborday.org/celebrate/globe ]

[Jeremy John Wade, host of River Monsters (aired 2009–2017), etc., was born March 23, 1956 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, UK:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Wade ]

Paleontologist Robert Thomas Bakker was born March 24, 1945 in Bergen County, New Jersey; author of The Dinosaur Heresies (1986)and Raptor Red (1995):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_T._Bakker and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance

Bridget Rose Dugdale (March 25, 1941 – March 18, 2024):  mronline.org/2024/04/04/dr-rose-dugdale-fighter-for-irish-freedom-student-of-chairman-mao/ and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Dugdale

[Novelist/writer Larry Jeff McMurtry (June 3, 1936 – March 25, 2021):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_McMurtry ]

World Water Day is March 22nd every year:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks and www.un.org/en/observances/water-day  /Theme – "Glacier Preservation" in 2025?

[Cody Allen Balmer, 38, of Penbrook, Pennsylvania, accused of carrying out an arson attack April 13, 2025 at the Pennsylvania Governor's Residence, in Harrisburg, is supposed to have been born March 23, 1987:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Governor%27s_Residence_fire ]

The intentional crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the high French Massif des Trois-Évêchés mountain range was March 24, 2015:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

Thity-nine members of the Heaven's Gate cult were found dead March 26, 1997 in Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, having committed mass suicide so that their souls could board a spacecraft they believed to be following Comet Hale-Bopp, a very bright comet at the time.  Comet Hyakutake was bright the March before, though I think my memory wants to say that Hale-Bopp was first and that I saw both, without optical aids.   

The "Saudi Coalition," materially supported by the US, intervened in the Yemeni Civil War March 26, 2015, fighting the Ansar Allah (Houthi) coalition (termed Operation Decisive Storm).  See also:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5302.HTM#4  US ending in 2021??

[March 26th is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day – Days of the Year website.]

Manatee Appreciation Day is supposed to be the last Wednesday in March, the 26th in 2025. 

A "'bright light'" was reportedly seen in Lyons, Wayne County, New York December 9, 1891, January 5, 1892, February 2, February 29, March 27, April 23 – Weird America:  A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States, by Jim Brandon, 1978.

Russian revolutionary Sergei Kirov was born March 27, 1886 in Urzhum, Russia, in what is now Kirov Oblast.  He was assassinated December 1, 1934 at the Smolny Institute in Leningrad; his ashes were placed in the Kremlin Wall necropolis:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Kirov

Two Boeing 747s collided on a runway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands March 27, 1977, the deadliest airliner crash.  

Hungarian sociologist Karl Mannheim (Károly Manheim), author of Ideology and Utopia, was born March 27, 1893 in Budapest; he passed away January 9, 1947.

The North Carolina Green Party gained official recognition March 27, 2018, meaning people could register as Greens and the Green Party could appear on ballots, making it easier for Greens to run for office ( www.ncgreenparty.org/sb656 ).  It lost recognition again after the 2020 election, and then had to petition again and even go the courts to force the Democrat-run NC State Board Elections to follow the law in 2022 and again in 2024.

[March 27th is International Scribble Day – Days of the Year website.]

Soviet writer Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov) was born March 28, 1868.  Some of his works are online at:  www.marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/index.htm and in print from redstarpublishers.org/

The second known asteroid, 2 Pallas, was discovered March 28, 1802 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthaus Olbers.

Silo Plowshares 

On March 28, 1986 (Good Friday that year) five peace activists damaged two Minuteman II ballistic missile silos controlled from Whiteman Air Force Base, near Holden, Missouri.  The activists displayed banners including ""Disarmament - An Act of Healing."  Working in two groups, they used sledgehammers to damage the tracks used to open the 120-ton silo covers, used masonry hammers to damage sensors, and cut wires.  They drew crosses in blood on the silo covers and wrote "Disarm and Live" and "For the Children" with spraypaint on the silo pads.  They also indicted the government for violating religious and secular law and indicted churches that abet the arms race.  About 40 minutes later they were arrested by military police.  They were found guilty of destroying government property and conspiracy.  Three were jailed for contempt because they refused to answer questions, such as who had alerted CBS' "60 Minutes" about the action.  The remaining two were again jailed for lack of cooperation in protest of the three jailed for contempt.  Four were sentenced to eight years imprisonment and five years probation and one to seven years imprisonment and the same five years probation.  All were fined $100 dollars, two had to pay $1680 in restitution and two $424.  These summaries come from Swords Into Plowshares:  Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, edited by Arthur J Laffin and Anne Montgomery, and published in 1987. 

March 28th is Weed Appreciation Day, etc. – the National Day Calendar website.

[March 28th is Respect Your Cat Day – Days of the Year website.]

Al-Quds Day (or Jerusalem Day) is the last Friday in the month of Ramadan:   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Day

Emanuel Swedenborg (born Emanuel Swedberg; February 8, 1688 – March 29, 1772).

US president John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) 

March 29, 1835 – the Treaty of New Echota, in Georgia, with the Cherokee – This Country Was Ours:  A Documentary History of the American Indian, by Virgil J Vogel, 1974.

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria was born March 29, 1899 in what is now Abkhazia, a Soviet autonomous republic that seceded from the Republic of Georgia after Georgia seceded from the disintegrating USSR.  Beria and people associated with him were tried and executed December 23, 1953, paving the way for Khrushchev's rise, though it has been alleged that Beria poisoned Stalin and was involved in other crimes.  Some of Beria's works are online at:   www.marxists.org/archive/beria/index.htm , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Beria , michaelharrison.org.uk/2022/03/writings-of-the-soviet-leadership/ , and in print from redstarpublishers.org ; there is some discussion of Beria in articles at ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html#b


The Maoist New People's Army, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (English-language website:  cpp.ph/ ), was established March 29, 1969 and has been waging armed struggle ever since.  The US government classified it as a "terrorist" group in 2002.  I think this Smithsonian Folkways CD has music from the NPA :  folkways.si.edu/philippines-bangon-arise/historical-song-struggle-protest-world/music/album/Smithsonian

The Communist Party of the Philippines was founded December 26, 1968, according to Wikipedia, and the CPP's armed wing, the New People's Army, was founded March 29, 1969.  Copying Alliance! at a UPS Store I heard that the guerilla army has been referred to as "No Postal Address."  I don't know if that is true or what it amounts to.  The US Socialist Unity Party hailed the Philippine Revolution on the 55th anniversary of the CPP; "From Palestine to the Philippines stop the US war machine!:"  www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/12/30/statement-on-the-55th-anniversary-of-the-communist-party-of-the-philippines/

March 29th is the unofficial Day of the Young Combatant / Día del joven combatiente in Chile, commemorating the killing of Rafael and Eduardo Vergara Toledo, brothers who allegedly belonged to MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement) during the US and China-supported Pinochet dictatorship.

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place / La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu by French sociologist Jean Baudrillard (July 27, 1929 – March 6, 2007) was published in Libération and The Guardian newspapers in a series, January 4, February 6, and March 29 in 1991.  Referred to in:  www.workers.org/2024/02/76700/

Two Army HH60 Black Hawk helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division crashed during training the night of March 29, 2023 near Fort Campbell, in western Kentucky near Hopkinsville and Clarksville:  www.foxnews.com/us/fort-campbell-helicopter-crash-kentucky-gov-andy-beshear-confirms-multiple-fatalities-expected

[March 29th is Smoke and Mirrors Day – Days of the Year website.]

The partial solar eclipse closest to total, the diameter of the Moon appearing to be 0.99985 of the Sun's, was March 30, 1578 BCE.  

[Vincent Van Gogh was born March 30, 1853 in Zundert, Netherlands; Anna Sewell was born March 30, 1820; Jon Hassler was born March 30, 1933; and the Alaska purchase was March 30, 1867:  The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. ]

The March 30, 1856 Treaty of Paris ended the 19th century Crimean War (humiliating Russia, the first time a great power was disarmed after a war?) but now there is a new one.  Timothy, a UK Royal Navy Greek tortoise, was found during the War, in 1854, and lived from about 1844 to April 3, 2004.

The Civil War Battle/Skirmish of Stanwix Station was March 30, 1862 at the southwest corner of Arizona, somewhat close to Yuma. 

Patricio José Argüello Ryan (March 30, 1943 – September 6, 1970).

March 30th is Land Day in Palestine, commemorating 1976:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Day

The attempted assassination of President Reagan was March 30, 1981.

A ship was acquired March 30, 2010, to be used to transport aid to Gaza; it was re-named the MV Rachel Corrie.  It was intercepted June 5, 2010, though reportedly the aid did get to Gaza; other ships had been seized in international waters by Israel and people on board killed May 31st:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie

Mach 30th:  www.un.org/en/observances/zero-waste-day

[March 30th is Take a Walk in the Park Day – Days of the Year website.]

The Convention of Kanagawa / Kanagawa Treaty (神奈川条約, Kanagawa Jōyaku) / Japan–US Treaty of Peace and Amity (日米和親条約, Nichibei Washin Jōyaku) was signed March 31, 1854, under pressure:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Kanagawa  Followed by the:   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amity_and_Commerce_(United_States–Japan)

Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai was born March 31, 1872.  See also:  www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/index.htm , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Kolontai , michaelharrison.org.uk/2022/03/writings-of-the-soviet-leadership/ , and redstarpublishers.org/  See also the March 8, 2023 posts here and recent posts on mltheory.wordpress.com.  [And:  mltheory.wordpress.com/2025/03/24/reminiscence-about-a-certain-visit-on-the-death-of-a-kollontai-1952/ ]

The annual US Farmworker Awareness Week is March 25-31, ending on the birth anniversary of labor organizer Cesar Chavez in 1927 in Yuma, Arizona (Chavez passed away April 23, 1993 in San Luis, Arizona, near Yuma):  saf-unite.org/national-farmworker-awareness-week/ , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez_Day  He worked closely with Dolores Huerta, born April 10, 1930 in what is now the ghost town of Dawson, New Mexico, near Cimarron:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Huerta

[George Henson Page, host of Nature, etc. was born March 31, 1935 in Hartwell, Georgia and passed away June 28, 2006 in Equinunk, Pennsylvania:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Page_(television_presenter) ]

Ilir Hoxha was born March 31, 1949 and was also imprisoned for years after the counterrevolution in Albania.

A US-backed military coup in Brazil beginning March 31, 1964 installed a brutal military government that lasted until 1985, praised by former rightist president Jair Bolsonaro.

According to Wikipedia, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), known as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada for electoral purposes, to separate it from the unrelated Communist Party of Canada, was founded March 31, 1970.  On the 53rd anniversary:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5304.HTM#1  On the 54th:  cpcml.ca/cpcmlarticle2403311409/  Some music from the CPCML is online at:  www.youtube.com/channel/UCGM05kHPxsmToUjm-sSZefg

Activist Norman David Mayer (March 31, 1916 – December 9, 1982), claiming to have explosives, threatened to blow up the Washington Monument December 8, 1982, over nuclear weapons; he was shot and killed.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout – "holdouts" after WWII:  December 1, 1945; January 1, 1946; late March-April 1947; May 12, 1948; January 6, 1949; March 1950; June 27, 1951 and later; 1953; May 1954; November 1955, November 1956; May 1960; May 23, 1960; January 24, 1972; October 1972, March 1974; December 18, 1974; etc and unconfirmed 1980-May 2005?  Others joined national uprisings and civil wars in East and Southeast Asia. 

Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo (December 9, 1974 – March 31, 2008 in Gebze, Turkey):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_Bacca

March 31st is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, declared in 2009 and officially proclaimed by Biden in 2021, and Cesar Chavez Day (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993), proclaimed nationally in 2014 by Obama, at the end of Farmworker Awareness Week:  saf-unite.org/national-farmworker-awareness-week/

[March 31st is Crayon Day – Days of the Year website.]

[March 31st is Tater Day, Bunsen Burner Day, Crayon Day, etc.; the public Bellevue Hospital in New York City in 1736; Wabash, Indiana was reportedly lit with electric streetlights by March 31, 1880; DST in 1918; the Marshall Aid Act was passed in 1948; the creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1953; Vietnam War US surge ordered in 1968; 10 Things I Hate About You, based on The Taming of the Shrew, came out March 31, 1999? – the National Day Calendar website.]

It was reported that slices of meat fell from a cloud near Cloverlea (Clover Lea? Not Clover leaf), on the south bank of the Pamunkey River, close to Richmond (?), in Hanover County, Virginia, on land belonging to Dr GW Bassett, a medical doctor, on Good Friday, 1850. The brief mention in Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States (page 175) says that the cloud was red. In Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America it is said that several men observed a small cloud going northeast to southwest overhead and fragments of flesh and liver fell over a span of 5 yards. Bassett and another person picked up 15 – 20 samples, some of which weighed an ounce, the next morning. The samples were preserved in alcohol and one was sent to a doctor in Richmond. This Dr Bassett seems to be the George Washington Bassett (August 23, 1800 – August 25, 1878) buried in Old Church, Hanover County – www.findagrave.com/memorial/6446088/george-washington-bassett 

Similar showers of flesh and blood from red clouds (dust?) were reported at a farm on Spring Creek, near Bairds Mills (near Lebanon), in Wilson County, Tennessee in August 1841 and February 15, 1850 on the farm of Thomas Clarkson, 13 miles from Clinton, Sampson County, NC (published in the March 8, 1850 issue of the North Carolinian). Accuse of copying?  The sky was clear when hundreds of pounds of thinly sliced meat edged with “fine black bristles” is supposed to have fallen over two acres in Los Nietos, California, in the Los Angeles area, August 1, 1869.

By Easter Sunday 1987 every known California condor had been captured, for a captive breeding program.  The birds were de-loused, apparently exterminating the California condor louse Colpocephalum californici , discovered in 1963, destroying the information that could have been gained from studying them and possibly causing future problems for the condors, when they get new parasites, the ecological niche of their skin or feathers now being vacant.  Insights into human evolution have come through the study of our parasites, also going extinct, just through better hygiene or through active extermination campaigns, though some are generalists and could live without feeding on us.  I feel like there is some tension or problematic questions that public health workers and officials ignore.  The BBC frequently reminds me of it.  Apparently when the first nuclear bomb was detonated there was some acknowledgement of the magnitude of what the Manhattan Project had done or achieved.  More examples at:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-induced_extinction 

Muhammad XII of the Emirate of Granada surrendered January 2, 1492, ending the Reconquest of what is now Spain from Muslim rulers, just before the seizure of a Spanish empire in the New Word.  There were two rebellions of the Alpujarras around December 18, 1499 to April 1501 and December 24, 1568 to March 1571.

Among other 'months,' April is Arab American Heritage Month, National Volunteer Month, Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month, Community College Awareness Month, National Volunteer Month, National Poetry/Poetry Writing Month, Financial Literacy Month, Donate Life Month, and Sexual Assault Awareness Month, among other annual commemorations.  library.unc.edu/2024/04/celebrate-asian-pacific-american-heritage-month-with-the-university-libraries/  ? 12-1:30pm:  duke.libcal.com/event/11961561  National Poetry Month:  durhamcountylibrary.libcal.com/calendar?t=d&q=poetry&cid=14288&cal=14288&inc=0

The US Senate unanimously declared April National Native Plant Month in Resolution 109.

The Diggers began occupying Saint George's Hill, Weybridge in Surrey, England April 1, 1649:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers ?  Billy Bragg has a song about it.

January 17, 1771, or December 5, 1770 to April 1. 1771, Chatham County, NC was created? –  www.chathamcountync.gov/our-community/learn-more-about-chatham-county\

Germany's "Iron Chancellor," Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck or Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (April 1, 1815 – July 30 1898):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck

Wikipedia dates the First Red Scare as being January 21, 1919 to April 1, 1920, and the Palmer Raids took place November 1919 and January 1920, under President Woodrow Wilson.

The great Gastonia textile strike of 1929, near Charlotte, North Carolina, was April 1st-September 14th at the Loray Mill.  The chief of police and a striker were killed during the violence, several people on the union side were imprisoned, and two leaders fled to the USSR.  An event April 2nd.

The Catalonia Offensive, December 23, 1938 to February 10, 1939, during the Spanish Civil War, July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939.

 

The Spanish Civil War ended April 1, 1939, with the Nationalists, aided by Germany, Italy, Portugal, and others, overthrowing the Second Republic, aided by the USSR, Mexico, secretly by France, and others.  Many volunteers from other countries fought on both sides. 

The WWII Battle of Okinawa began April 1, 1945.

Terry Lynn Nichols, convicted of assisting in the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, was born April 1, 1955 in Lapeer, Michigan and is currently held in the Federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

The world's largest nuclear power station is reportedly in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, and the first of six pressurized light water nuclear reactor units was built starting April 1, 1980.  This is a different type of reactor than those used in Chernobyl and is used in many countries.   Thanks to nuclear and hydroelectric powerplants Ukraine probably has a lower carbon footprint than similar countries.  (Rich Germany, supposedly concerned about climate change, had to go back to coal because of anti-nuclear sentiments and economic warfare with Russia on behalf of the USA cutting off natural gas pipelines?  Japan is also going from nuclear energy back to fossil fuels when there is a climate crisis?)

The Hainan Incident, George W Bush's first foreign policy crisis, was April 1, 2001, and resulted in the destruction of a Chinese PLA Navy J-8II fighter and the presumed death of pilot Lt Cmdr Wang Wei and the capture of the offending US Navy EP-3 ARIES and its 24 crew members when they landed at a Chinese base. The EP-3 was shipped back to the US in pieces and rebuilt.  EP-3's and military aircraft from other countries apparently came very close January 29 and November 5, 2018 over the Black Sea, July 19, 2019 near Venezuela, etc, in each case the US claiming to be the innocent party, operating over international waters.

April 1st is Fossil Fools Day noting the foolishness of burning more fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere, started in 2004.  April Fool's Day has been marked for at least hundreds of years.  April 1st is also Edible Book Day.    

[April 1st is Reading Is Funny Day – Days of the Year website.]

[April 1st is One Cent Day (against Musk and Trump??), Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) Day of Action, Sourdough Bread Day, Take Down Tobacco National Day of Action, etc. – the National Day Calendar website.]

The Sacred Stone Camp, a center of resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, was established April 1, 2016.  In 2025 there was a lawsuit to neutralize Greenpeace. 

April 1st in 2024 (?):  www.atlantanewsfirst.com/app/2024/04/01/person-rams-into-front-gate-fbi-atlanta-headquarters/  Israel bombed an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus, Syria.

[A new Yahoo! email incorporating "AI" debuted around April 1, 2025.  Tyler Cowen joined Free Press, or was it a prank for April Fool's Day??]

The US Capitol Car Attack was April 2, 2021. 

Early on April 16, 2013 several people cut communication cables and then carefully shot up 17 transformers at PG and E's Metcalf substation in Coyote, near San Jose, California, but there wasn't much power loss:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack  In August and October of that year one man attacked electrical equipment in central Arkansas.  In March and April 1975 a guarded PG and E substation was bombed twice by the NWLF, or so they claimed.  December 31st that year the George Jackson Brigade bombed a substation in Seattle.  In 2016 a man shot at a substation in Utah and had plans for further attacks. November 11, 2022 a Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative substation in Jones County, NC was vandalized, knocking out power for over 12,000 people.  In late November 2023 (?) there were at least six attacks in the Pacific Northwest, two with guns.  The morning of December 25th four substations were attacked around Tacoma, knocking out the power to more than 14,000 people.  Two men were arrested January 3rd, but apparently did it only as part of a plan for burglaries.  There were also attacks on electrical infrastructure in Brazil around January 8, 2023.  A man was arrested on suspicion that he bombed PG and E transformers in December and January 2022-23? –  abc7news.com/san-jose-explosives-pge-transformers-blown-up-peter-karasev-arrest-sj-man-arrested-in/12910094/ , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_grid_security_in_the_United_States

A Reichsbürger monarchist coup plot was allegedly foiled December 7, 2022 in Germany.  In April 2017 rightist soldiers in Germany's special forces were charged with planning to assassinate several politicians in a Day X plot.

The advanced F-22's first kill was a lost Chinese research "airship"/weather balloon or a sinister Chinese spy balloon, violating US sovereignty, until it was shot down at great expense as it was leaving US territory off of South Carolina February 4th (near Hainan, China January 15, 2023, the Aleutians in AK January 28th, over Canada January 30th, Idaho January 31st, seen from an airliner, near Billings, Montana February 1st; NORAD supposedly knew about it for days before February 2nd).  The US media portrays it as China accidentally or intentionally derailing an attempt to cool US-China tensions, but it could be asked whether a faction in the US government created an incident to worsen relations.  I heard recently that a military official expected the US war with China to start in 2025, and earlier testimony to Congress predicted war by something like 2028, rather than decades from now.  Consider the comments at:  www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/02/chinese-spy-balloon-over-the-us-an-aerospace-expert-explains-how-the-balloons-work-and-what-they-can-see.html   First aircraft shot down over the USA after WWII and the highest air-to air ever, supposedly??  February 2 Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela; February 9-10 Beaufort Sea, AK; February 11 Yukon; February 11-12 Lake Huron; February 12 Shandong; February 14 Romania and Moldova; February 16 Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport in Hebei; February 19 northeast of Hawaii; April-May over HI, going towards Mexico, but these UFOs stopped being news:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Chinese_balloon_incident and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-altitude_object_events_in_2023

Charlemagne (around April 2, 748 – January 28, 814):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne

Florida joined the Union, March 3, 1845, seceded January 10, 1861, and rejoined the Union June 25, 1868.  It had been named April 2, 1513.  The first known Christian marriage in the territory of the lower 48 of the future US is supposed to have been a mixed race marriage in Florida in 1565:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida

German naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian was born April 2, 1647 in Frankfort, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire.  She passed away January 13, 1717 in Amsterdam and is especially known for studying insects and spent a few years studying the plants and animals of what is today Suriname.  Several species have been named for her and she was honored on a West German postage stamp, the 500 Deutsche Mark note, and in 2013 on Google's homepage. 

The Civil War Siege of Petersburg, in Virginia, ended April 2, 1865.

The Falklands War, between the military government of Argentina and the UK, was April 2nd-June 14th in 1982.

April 2nd:  www.un.org/en/observances/autism-day

April 2 is International Children's Book Day.

[April 2nd is Ferret Day – Days of the Year website.]

[April 2nd is DIY Day, Walking Day, etc. – the National Day Calendar website.]

[Giacomo Casanova, Hans Christian Andersen, Émile Zola, and Camille Paglia were born on April 2nd:   thewritersalmanac.substack.com/p/the-writers-almanac-from-wednesday-0e7  Nikolai Gogol was born March 31, 1809 in Sorochintsy:  The Writer's Almanac.

"The father of meteoritics," German physicist Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni November 30, 1756 – April 3, 1827

[Naturalist and author John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 in Roxbury, New York – March 29, 1921 on a train in the vicinity of Kingsville, in the northeast corner of Ohio; his grave is in Roxbury, in New York's Delaware County):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burroughs ]

Soviet WW2 sniper Roza Georgiyevna Shanina was born April 3, 1924 in the village of Yedma in Arkhangelsk Oblast (in northwest Russia).  She is supposed to have been named after Polish communist Rosa Luxemburg (born March 5, 1871 in Zamość).  At 14 she walked about 120 miles to go to college in Arkhangelsk , after having had to walk about 8 miles to get to middle school in another village.  Shanina joined the Komsomol youth organization in 1938.  Germany bombed Arkhangelsk and after one of her brothers was killed fighting in the Siege of Leningrad she asked to enlist.  She was the first woman fighting on the 3rd Belorussian Front to be decorated with the Order of Glory.  Once she is supposed to have been in a trench with eleven other female snipers when they were charged by about 50 Germans, who the Soviet soldiers captured or killed.  Shanina died while fighting in what was then East Prussia January 28, 1945.  She had surreptitiously kept a war diary, which was published in 1965, leading to streets being name for her and other commemorations, including in recent years.

Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944).

The Jeju Uprising on Jeju Island off the south end of what is now the Republic of Korea officially began April 3, 1948 and ended in 1949, after tens of thousands had been killed.  The ROK police and military apologized for the brutal suppression of the uprising April 3 in 2022?  The US military directly controlled the southern part of Korea during most of this time and later the US had indirect control through the undemocratic ROK government it established.  

There were many UFO reports in Lumberton, NC April 3-5, 1975, according to the book Weird Carolinas.  

April 4-6, 1975 Robeson County (above) + five more counties in NC; five NC counties on the 3rd; June 6, 1975 Greensboro, NC UFO landing; Jan-Feb 1973 Cherokee (county?), SC; Jan 24, 1963 Lexington, Kentucky; Feb 10, 1975 Staten Island NY; Jan 6, 1974 Orange County, FL; 4/30/1962 from an X-15 rocketplane; Jan 16, 1958 Trindade Island, Brazil; March 9, 1957 Jacksonville, FL; Dec 29, 1952 off Honshu in Japan; around Japan December 1952 to January 1953, etc.; Jan 29, 1952 from Maine to Virginia; Feb 24-25 in 1893 around 10pm North China Sea Caroline; December 20, 1893 VA to SC; during January 1910 in Chattanooga, TN; Jan 12, 1947 PR meteor? The January 1944 Amazing Stories magazine? Dec 2, 1896 Pacific Grove, north of San Francisco, in CA; April 10, 1897 Chicago; Dec 22 (?), 1909 Worcester, MA; December 22nd Marlboro, the 23rd in Boston, MA; Loss of the Star Tiger Jan 29, 1948, the Star Ariel Jan 17, 1949; July 28, 1946 – censoring ghost rocket information in Sweden; dates of red rains page 181-182; UFO Exist!, by Paris Flammonde, 1976. 

Through the USSR's Interkosmos program, the Soyuz T-11 mission to the Salyut 7 space station, launched April 3, 1984, included Rakesh Sharma, India's first cosmonaut.

World Aquatic Animal Day is supposed to be April 3rd.

[April 3rd is Independent Artist Day™ – Days of the Year website.]

The Ingenuity helicopter on Mars was deployed April 3, 2021, operated between April 19th of that year and January 18th in 2024 and the mission was ended January 25th; subject of the first interplanetary crash investigation? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter) 

[April 3rd is Burrito Day 2025 (the first Thursday of April), Film Score Day, Tweed Day, Find a Rainbow Day, etc.; Washington Irving was born in 1783; Charles Wilkes was born in 1798; Bud Fisher was born in 1885; Dooley Wilson was born in 1886; Russel Wright was born in 1904; Doris Day was born in 1922; Marlon Brando was born in 1924; Carl Boenish was born in 1941; Wayne Newton was born in 1942; Francesca Woodman  was born in 1958; Eddie Murphy was born in 1961; etc. – the National Day Calendar website.]

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841):  www.nps.gov/people/william-henry-harrison.htm  

Bolivia lost its access to the ocean to Chile in the War of the Pacific, which also involved Peru, April 5th.  Peace between Chile and Peru October 20, 1883 and between Chile and Bolivia April 4, 1884, October 20, 1904, etc.

The Caroll A Deering was launched April 4, 1919 in Bath, Maine; January 31, 1921 – the ship was found off Cape Hatteras, NC.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed April 4, 1949, while the Warsaw Pact was formed May 14, 1955.  NATO was formed to keep capitalist Europe under US hegemony and threaten the socialist bloc in Europe.  After the Cold War ended, NATO expanded further east (and now even wants to add world war tinderboxes like Ukraine and Georgia), breaking pledges that were made to Russia, and it now carries out aggression in Africa and Asia and might add South America.  The media has made a slight effort in the information war with Russia, claiming that there was an offer to not expand NATO east, but that this offer was superseded by a subsequent agreement.

Turkish revolutionary Garbis Altinoglu was born April 4, 1946. 

Originally posted here in October 2019 durhamspark.blogspot.com/2019/10/some-early-fall-events-and-anniversaries.html , durhamspark.blogspot.com/2020/03/some-events-and-anniversaries-this.html :


Garbis Altinoglu (pen name Gumus Velli) passed away in mid-October and his funeral was October 21st in Belgium.  At one time he was a leader in the underground Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Turkey and was active in the International Struggle Marxist-Leninist project more recently.  He was born April 4, 1946 in Armenia but lived in Turkey from a young age.  After the military coup in 1980 he was arrested and held for 11 years, with torture and harsh conditions, after which he was exiled and became a refugee in Belgium.  He wrote or translated a number of essays and books; for some of his English-language works posted online see: ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/ALL37-GARBISPRISONS2000.HTM , on repression, political prisoners, torture, and assassinations in Turkey up to 2000 (but still relevant today, as can be seen in Turkey's continuing suppression of leftists and activism and its fight against Kurdish self-determination both inside Turkey and in Syria and Iraq); ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/HIZBULLAHGA2000.HTM ; and ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/ALL35MLCP%28TURKEY%29GA2000.HTM , outlining some of the history of the communist movement in Turkey.  A biographical article was planned for ml-today.com/ and there is a short biography at: theredphoenixapl.org/2019/10/27/in-memory-of-comrade-garbis-altinoglu-1946-2019/ 


Some of his works are online at:  neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Garbis%20Alt%C4%B1noglu ]



One of his books, Portrait of a Terrorist State, published in 2001 ©.

Table of contents ©

Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated April 4, 1968 while organizing in support of black public workers in Memphis. 

April 4th:  www.un.org/en/observances/mine-awareness-day

[April 4th is Walk to Work Day – Days of the Year website.]

April 4, 2022 the Supreme Court reinstated a Trump Administration regulatory change limiting the power of the states regarding Clean Water Act enforcement, according to a HRA email. 

[April 4th is School Librarian Day, Vitamin C Day, [Hug a Newsperson Day,] etc. – the National Day Calendar website.]  [National Library Week?  Library Workers Day is Tuesday the 8th.  Zoo Lovers Day is also on the 8th.]

April 4, 2024:  a McDonald's buyout in Israel?

[A World Rat Day is around April 4th or 5th? – Unexpected Elements on the BBC that weekend.]

The second Japanese destroyer named Hibiki (Echo), in the Fubuki or Akatsuki-class of destroyers but similar to a light cruiser, was given to the USSR as a war reparation April 5, 1947 and renamed Verniy (Faithful) and later Dekabrist (Decembrist).  The ship had been launched June 16, 1932 and was state of the art at the time.  She was sunk at on apparently unrecorded date in the mid-70's.

The Weather-connected May 19th Communist Organization bombed an Israeli Aircraft Industries  Building April 5, 1984.

Brian Avery, an International Solidarity Movement volunteer, was shot in the face by Israeli soldiers in an unprovoked attack April 5, 2003 in the West Bank, Palestine town of Jenin, leaving him with disfiguring injuries and other health problems.  According to Wikipedia Israel denied any soldiers were in the area at the time, but Israel paid Avery $150,000 dollars to drop a lawsuit in 2008.  Avery is from Connecticut but spent part of his childhood in Chapel Hill and was an student at UNC-Greensboro and last I heard lives in the state:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Avery_(activist)

April 5th:  www.un.org/en/observances/conscience-day

[April 5th is Handmade Day – Days of the Year website.]

[April 5th is Read a Road Map Day, Caramel Day, Flash Drive Day, Deep Dish Pizza Day, Love Our Children Day, the Play Outside Day in April, etc.– the National Day Calendar website.]  [New York City had the first Chamber of Commerce, in 1768; Washington's first veto, in 1792; the American Birth Control League was created in 1922.]

The Civil War Battle of Shiloh was April 6-7, 1862 in Tennessee, but very close to Mississippi.

The Civil War Battle of Sailor's Creek was April 6, 1865 near Farmville, Virginia:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sailor%27s_Creek

The USA officially entered WWI April 6, 1917, declaring war against Germany.  The US had been indirectly supporting the Allies before entering the war against the Central powers in the first worldwide inter-imperialist war.

Following a coup that toppled an Axis-allied government, Germany bombed Belgrade, April 6-8, 1941, killing thousands, and then invaded with Italy, which was already occupying Albania.  The UK bombed targets in Axis ally Bulgaria, though it was not formally at war with Bulgaria at the time.  Yugoslavia surrendered April 17th and was later liberated by Yugoslav and Albanian partisans. 

[On Intelsat I, or "Early Bird," in orbit April 6, 1965 – "60 Years Ago: Arthur C. Clarke's Vision of Geostationary Satellites Comes True" – spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2025/04/60-years-ago-arthur-c-clarkes-vision-of.html ]

The war in Bosnia was around April 6, 1992 to December 14, 1995; February 28, 1994 air combat by NATO and its first bombing, ever, was April 10-11th:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War

Tartan Day is April 6th.

April 6th:  www.un.org/en/observances/sport-day

[April 6th is Pajama Day – Days of the Year website.]

[April 6th is Teflon Day (1938), Hostess Twinkies were invented in 1938 (!) by James Dewar, the New York Slave Revolt of 1712 began, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized in 1830 (?), Windows 3.1 announcement in 1992 (?), etc.– the National Day Calendar website.]

Geologists Day is April 6th in 2025 (the first Sunday in April) and began in the USSR to commemorate an oil discovery. 

Writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born April 7, 1890 in Minneapolis.  She wrote The Everglades:  River of Grass, published in 1947, and is known for her work to preserve Florida's Everglades as well as activism for women's suffrage, civil rights, civil liberties, the Equal Rights Amendment, and other causes.  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas

Lê Duẩn, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam during the struggle against American imperialism, was born April 7, 1907 or 1908 in Bich La village, Triệu Đông, Triệu Phong, Quảng Trị Province, and passed away July 10, 1986.  Some of his writings are online at:  www.marxists.org/reference/archive/le-duan/index.htm and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lê_Duẩn  

[The First Moroccan Crisis / Tangier Crisis March 31, 1905 to April 7, 1906:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Moroccan_Crisis ]

[On Lenin's April Theses, discussed within the Party April 3, 1917 and published in Pravda on the 7th:  www.pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13711 ]

[The 95th birth anniversary of Cuban Vilma Espín Guillois, "the Heroine of the Sierra and the Plains" (a machine translation), was April 7th:  diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/recuerdan-impronta-de-vilma-espin-en-universidad-del-oriente-de-cuba/ and diario-octubre.com/2025/04/07/vilma-la-confianza-inamovible-en-la-fuerza-de-la-mujer/ ]

Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci was born January 22, 1891.  He was a leader of the Communist Party of Italy, founded January 21, 1921 and is well-known for works such as the Prison Notebooks, written while he was imprisoned by Italy's Fascist government.  Prison conditions resulted in his death April 7, 1937.  Some of his works are online at:  www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/index.htm 

Fascist Italy invaded Albania April 7-12, 1939.  Albanian partisans fought the Italians and then the Germans, becoming (with Yugoslavia) one of only two European countries to liberate themselves without an outside army crossing their border.

In Operation Ten-Go or the Battle of the East China Sea, the Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, and a few other ships were sent on a futile mission to engage a much larger US fleet during the Battle of Okinawa, but aircraft sank the Yamato, light cruiser Yahagi, and four destroyers (the Asahimo, Isokaze, Kasumi, and Hamakaze) April 7, 1945.  The loss of the Yamato alone is thought to have resulted in more than 3000 deaths and a magazine explosion, audible in Kagoshima 120 miles away, generated a mushroom cloud visible from Kyushu 99 miles away.  There were no survivors from the Asahimo.  There are reports that US aircraft fired on survivors from the battle, though there are also reports that Japanese destroyers were allowed to rescue survivors unmolested. 

[The Truman administration released NSC-68, “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” April 7, 1950:  www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/07/vlqh-a07.html ]

[The late Battle of Xuan Loc, near Saigon in Vietnam, began April 9, 1975:  www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/07/vlqh-a07.html ]

April 7, 1979-Janury 26, 1980:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam  [Add?]

The Rwandan Genocide began April 7th and ended July 15, 1994:  www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/day-of-reflection.shtml and www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day


Indian revolutionary Moni Guha passed away April 7, 2009:  www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv16n1/moniguha.htm , moniguha.blogspot.com/ , otheraspect.org/category/moni-guha/ , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Moni%20Guha, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moni_Guha , etc.  Some of his writings are available at redstarpublishers.org and there should be polemics at ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html

International Beaver Day is supposed to be April 7th.

[April 7th is National Beer Day (1933 [; see:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Beer_Day_(United_States) ]), Coffee Cake Day, No Housework Day, "the first long-distance public television broadcast" (1927), Booker T. Washington appeared on a stamp in 1940, IBM's System/360 Mainframe was announced in 1964, the Internet began in 1969 (?), etc.– the National Day Calendar website.]

April 7, 2024 South China Sea US, Philippines, Japan, etc. anti-China maneuvers.  And en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson_2024_presidential_campaign – out by May?  More US propaganda on the 2024 presidential election in Slovakia.

The birth of Buddha is celebrated as Hanamatsuri (Flower Festival) April 8th in Japan.  Elsewhere it is often based on the movement of the Moon and will be in May (?) in most countries where it is a major holiday.  As Chopali it is sometimes a holiday in DPR Korea.  The UN's 1999 founded Vesak, the Day of the Full Moon is ...:  www.un.org/en/observances/vesak-day , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha%27s_Birthday , and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesak

Edith Baumann (August 1, 1909 – April 7, 1973)

[April 8, 1271 the Krak des Chevaliers, a Syrian castle near Tartus then held by the Knights Hospitaller, surrendered to the Mamluks, under Sultan Baybars:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_des_Chevaliers , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baybars , and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Hospitaller ; an article on the Knights Hospitaller in an April issue of LRB?? ]

Timur or Tamerlane (1320s near Kesh, now in Uzbekistan – February 17–18, 1405 in Otrar, now in Kazakhstan; he is interred in the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum in Samarkand, Uzbekistan) was said to have been born April 8, 1336:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur

A mystery airship, a period UFO, with a searchlight, reportedly travelled rapidly (but airships aren't noted for their speed even today) over Wilmington, North Carolina April 8, 1897, according to the book Weird Carolinas.

[Signed April 8, 1904 between the UK and France:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entente_Cordiale ]

[A vote in favor of secession, April 8, 1933:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Western_Australian_secession_referendum ]

Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh (born April 8, 1937).

April 8th is International Romani Day.

[The Axiom-1 private mission to the International Space Station lifted off April 8, 2022. – the National Day Calendar website.]

A total solar eclipse visible in parts of Canada, the USA, and Mexico was April 8, 2024.  3/30:  an Illinois eclipse "conspiracy theory?"  NPR, etc. have so few terms for disapproval? – www.atlasobscura.com/articles/conspiracy-theory-eclipse-illinois  A  sequel to the Great American Eclipse of Monday (?), August 21, 2017.  

Singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson was born April 9, 1898.  There are links to his English versions of the WWII-era Soviet and Chinese anthems in a previous post:  durhamspark.blogspot.com/2017/04/communist-fight-songs-and-musical.html and he has a Marxist Internet Archive page at:  www.marxists.org/archive/robeson/index.htm

[Laotian revolutionary and third president Nouhak Phoumsavanh or Phoumsavan (Lao: ໜູຮັກ ພູມສະຫວັນ; Thai: หนูฮัก พูมสะหวัน) April 9, 1910 in Mukdahan, Siam – September 9, 2008 in Vientiane, Laos):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouhak_Phoumsavanh ]

Leila Khaled (ليلى خالد, born April 9, 1944).

April 9, 1948 a neutral Palestinian village near Jerusalem, Deir Yassin, was attacked by the Irgun and Lehi Zionist groups, which were later integrated into the Israeli military.  The residents were killed during and after the fighting.  The Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center was built over the remains of the village:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

Interstate bus desegregation 7/16/1944, 4/9/1947, 4/12, 8/1/1952:  chapelhillhistory.org/places/journey-of-reconciliation/  A page on the Peace and Justice Plaza as well.

Santiago Rafael Cruz, an employee of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee working at their office in Monterrey, Mexico was assassinated April 9, 2007.  The crime might remain unsolved. 

[April 9th is Unicorn Day – Days of the Year website.]

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will again be close to the Sun April 9, 2028.

[The City of Durham, NC was incorporated April 10, 1869? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham,_North_Carolina ]

Dolores Huerta, born April 10, 1930 in what is now the ghost town of Dawson, New Mexico, near Cimarron:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Huerta

Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954).

Rachel Aliene Corrie, an American volunteer in the International Solidarity Movement, was killed, intentionally or unintentionally, by an Israeli military Caterpillar D9 bulldozer on March 16, 2003, during a campaign to resist the demolition of Palestinian homes in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.  Corrie was born April 10, 1979, in Olympia, Washington state.  There is a boycott against Caterpillar because it does business with Israel and other countries, knowing their machines will be used in criminal acts ( www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycotts/israel-boycott ).  See also:  www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/16/please-remember-rachel-corrie-april-10-1979-march-16-2003/ and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie (note spying by Caterpillar)

Siblings Day is April 10th every year. 

The Brightleaf (Mall? Square?) District gas explosion around 10:06-7am April 10, 2019 on North Duke Street in Durham; two killed, 25 injured, and that south or east-facing decades old mural of an Aztec warrior/knight seems to be gone, for whatever reason (see a previous post):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Durham_gas_explosion

[April 10th is Hug Your Dog Day – Days of the Year website.]

A Green Party Day?

German social-democrat Ferdinand Lassalle was born April 11, 1825 in what is now Wrocław, Poland.

[Anthropologist George Bird Grinnell (September 20, 1849 – April 11, 1938):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bird_Grinnell ]

Protests overthrew ROK president Syngman Rhee April 11-26, 1960, known as the April Revolution.  On Rhee (March 26, 1875 July 19, 1965):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngman_Rhee

Enver Hoxha, Albanian partisan during WWII and later first secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania, passed away April 11, 1985.  For more information see:  www.enver-hoxha.net/ ; (in Russian):  www.enverhoxha.ru/ , www.oneparty.co.uk/compass/compass/com13601.html , www.oneparty.co.uk/compass/compass/com13604.html (by son Ilir Hoxha), www.mltranslations.org/Albania/index.htm , marx2mao.com/Other/Index.html#EH , www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/index.htm , ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Enver%20Hodja , michaelharrison.org.uk/everything-you-want-or-need-to-know-about-albania/ , michaelharrison.org.uk/the-great-marxist-leninist-theoreticians/ , [ piattaformacomunista.com/index.php/enver-hoxha-esempio-di-chiarezza-coerenza-e-coraggio-per-i-proletari-rivoluzionari/ ,] and some of his works are available in print from redstarpublishers.org/

There was a coup against elected Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez April 11, 2002 (whom Bernie Sanders called something like "a dead communist dictator"), something the Trump and Biden administrations and leading Democrats tried to repeat against the elected government of Nicolas Maduro.

[April 11th is Barbershop Quartet Day – Days of the Year website.]

British student and International Solidarity Movement volunteer Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier April 11, 2003 in Rafah, Gaza, Palestine. Hurndall was left comatose and died January 13, 2004.  The shooter, Taysir Hayb, a Bedouin Israeli sniper, was sentenced to 8 years in prison and released after 6 and a half.  Earlier Hurndall went to Iraq as part of a campaign to provide volunteer human shields to protect civilian infrastructure from Coalition bombing.  The US government and Human Rights Watch condemned the shields, and the US considered prosecuting American volunteers as war criminals.  Hurndall was born (November 27, 1981 in London, UK:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hurndall

April 12 is Halifax Day, commemorating the Halifax Resolves in 1776, beginning the process of separation from the UK, a date also emblazoned on North Carolina's flag. 

The US Civil War began and ended in April.  The bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor began April 12, 1861.  The Civil War ended with several separate surrenders.  Robert E Lee surrendered his forces at Appomattox, Virginia April 9, 1865.  The largest Confederate surrender occurred at Bennett Place, now in Durham, when Joseph E Johnston surrendered his forces in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida April 26th.  Bennett Place State Historic Site usually holds an Annual Surrender Commemoration in late April:  www.bennettplacehistoricsite.com/special-events/  Besides its historical value, Bennett Place is significant ecologically, since the land has been mostly left alone.  According to Wikipedia, the last Confederate general to surrender was Cherokee leader Stand Watie, June 23rd, but the last surrender was Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah, November 6, 1865 in Liverpool, UK.  It could be argued that the Civil War continued into the Reconstruction period, which ended in 1877. 

V.I. Lenin's older brother Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov was born April 12, 1866 in Nizhny Novgorod.  He was involved with the group Narodnaya Volya and was executed May 20, 1887.  He studied zoology and Lenin is supposed to have said something like a revolutionary can't devote so much time to the study of the annelids (earthworms, etc.).  Aleksandr Ulyanov is the namesake of asteroid 2112 Ulyanov, discovered by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova July 13,1972 while on the Crimean Peninsula.  

Proletarian novelist and critic Mike Gold was born (as Itzok Isaac Granich) in New York City's Lower East Side April 12, 1894 and passed away May 14, 1967 in Terra Linda, California.

Scholar Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall (September 6, 1857 – April 12, 1933); profiled in Smithsonian magazine around 2024 or 2023.

Anthropologist Muriel Eva Verbitsky Hunt was born April 12, 1934 to Russian Jewish parents in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  She wrote The 1977 book The Transformation of the Hummingbird:  Cultural  Roots of a Zinacantecan Epic Poem.  She was a professor at Boston University from 1978 and passed away February 29, 1980:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Verbitsky_Hunt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt died April 12, 1945, placing Vice President Harry Truman in power.

Supposed to be the first Abkhazian female pilot, and a veteran of WWII, Meri Hafizovna Avidzba was born January 24, 1917 and passed away April 12, 1986. 

April 12th is the UN International Human Space Flight Day/Cosmonautics Day/Yuri's Night in honor of the first human space flight and orbit of the Earth, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in the Vostok 1 spacecraft, in 1961.  Apparently the first orbital flight by a space shuttle happened to be on this day in 1981.  US Astronauts Day is supposed to be every year on the last Friday in January (the 31st in 2025).  www.un.org/en/observances/human-spaceflight-day

2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate and now Trump-appointed DNI Tulsi Gabbard was born April 12, 1981 in the US Pacific Ocean colony of American Samoa.  Her father, apparently socially conservative, was born in American Samoa and was of Samoan and European ethnicity (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard and www.tulsi2020.com/about/tulsi-gabbard-childhood-early-years ).  [In with the warmongers:  www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-president-of-peace-just-bombed ]

Impeached North Carolina governor William Holden was pardoned by the State Senate April 12, 2011.

[Spring Record Store Day was April 12th in 2025:  recordstoreday.com and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_Store_Day ]

American bourgeois-democratic revolutionary and later US president, Thomas Jefferson, was born April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia.


The Battle of Morrisville was April 13-15, 1865 in western Wake County and was apparently the last official battle between Johnston and Sherman's armies in North Carolina. 


Georg Lukács, a Marxist philosopher and literary critic and Minister of Culture in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, was born April 13, 1885 in Budapest.  Many of his works are online, in English, at:  www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/index.htm  


Tanzanian socialist Julius Kambarage Nyerere was born April 13, 1922 in what was then Tanganyika (Tanganyika and Zanzibar united April 26, 1964 to create Tanzania).  A biography and two of his works are online at:   www.marxists.org/subject/africa/nyerere/index.htm

Professor of English Andrew John von Hendy was born April 13, 1932 in Elmira, New York and taught at Bowdoin College and then at Boston College from 1963 to 2005.  He graduated from Niagara University in 1954 and was in the US Army sometime later, afterward attending Cornell.  He is the author of The Modern Construction of Myth (2002).  He passed away June 6, 2018 in Chestnut Hill, MA.   College obituaries.bowdoin.edu/instructor-english-andrew-von-hendy/ and www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/andrew-von-hendy-obituary?id=1716765 (incudes a photo) and www.google.com/search?q=andrew+von+hendy

The town of Friesoythe in northwest Germany was burned and demolished by the Canadian Army April 13-14, 1945 in retaliation for the killing of a Canadian officer and other soldiers.  It was a regular engagement with the German military, but a rumor claimed that the officer had been shot in the back by a civilian.  At first the burning was spontaneous, but the destruction was then ordered by Major-General Christopher Vokes.  Earlier in April he had ordered a similar reprisal in Sögel.  There were apparently many attacks on civilians and other violations by the Allies in Europe, but this is rarely brought up, apart from opportunities to tar the Soviets, and there is even less talk of alleged crimes committed by the US military in Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, the Middle East, Yugoslavia, etc.  – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razing_of_Friesoythe and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friesoythe

Author Michael Craig Ruppert (February 3, 1951 – April 13, 2014, allegedly by suicide):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruppert 

The US, UK, and France attacked Syria April 13, 2018, claiming that it was retaliation for the alleged use of chemical weapons, though the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia use white phosphorus and tear gas as chemical weapons, overlooked chemical weapons use during the Iran-Iraq War, and the US and European imperialists have long wanted to regain control of Syria, part of the Ottoman Empire and then a French colony, and one of the last countries that offered resistance to Israeli aggression.        

The last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle and one of the last individuals in captivity died around April 13, 2019.  These large, very aquatic Southeast Asian turtles are being harmed by hunting, habitat loss due to dams, etc., and pollution, though there is a chance that the species could survive.  There are species of softshell turtle, though much smaller, in the southern US, including one in North Carolina.

[April 13th is Scrabble Day – Days of the Year website.]

[The US National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC is March 20th-April 13th in 2025:  nationalcherryblossomfestival.org ]

[Many people were reported to have witnessed numerous objects interpreted as staging a battle above Nuremberg, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire, on April 14, 1561, starting after 4am.  Something similar was reported over Basel, Switzerland July 27-28 and August 7, 1566 and starting at 2pm on April 8, 1665 over the Baltic Sea and the city of Stralsund, in Swedish Pomerania (now in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in the very northeastern corner of Germany, near Poland ).  Phenomena ranging from naturalistic to what might be called UFOs, ghosts, and monsters are said to have appeared in the years before the Spanish conquistadors reached what is now Mexico, in the early 1500's.  See:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1566_celestial_phenomenon_over_Basel , www.smb.museum/en/exhibitions/detail/a-ufo-in-1665/ , and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1665_celestial_phenomenon_over_Stralsund ]

[April 14, 1614 the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas – This Country Was Ours:  A Documentary History of the American Indian, by Virgil J Vogel, 1974.]

[Christiaan Huygens was born April 14, 1629 in The Hague, in what was then known as the Dutch Republic.]

[Many of the tribes that had fought with the English colonists in North Carolina's Tuscarora War decided soon afterward to ally against the colonists themselves and launched the Yamasee War, centered in South Carolina, the night of April 14-15, 1715 (the 15th was Good Friday).  The war lasted into 1717 or longer and is supposed to have been one of the bloodiest in US history.  See:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamasee_War and www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/yamassee-war/ ]  

A great dust storm April 14, 1935:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sunday_(storm)  [Mentioned in portside.org/2025-04-07/week-peoples-history-april-9-15-2025 ?]

]The Civil War Battle of New Hope Creek, a skirmish or [Federal] raid in the Leigh Farm Park and Farrington Road area, now divided by I-40, along the Durham-Orange county line, was April 14, 1865.  There has been a lot of residential building along Farrington in that area in recent years.  The Battle of Morrisville, southeast of what is now Durham, was April 13-15th.[  

[Abraham Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865.] 

[Gerhard Schürer (April 14, 1921 – December 22, 2010).] 

[The great April 14, 1935 dust storm:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sunday_(storm) ]

The Lao People's Democratic Party, at the time called the Lao People's Party, was founded at a congress March 22-April 14, 1955 in Vientiane, Laos. 

[According to the 2023 Old Farmer's Almanac, a 0.66-pound meteorite hit a medical office in Lorton, Virginia January 18, 2010; the location in Fairfax County had a Nike Ajax anti-aircraft missile site 1955-73; also:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorton,_Virginia 2/8/1945, 4/14/1955 Fort Meade en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-3_Nike_Ajax  The polluted Burlington, NC Tar Heel Missile Plant site at 204 North Graham-Hopedale Road – 2/9/2024 (?) HRA email – 2/8  ncnewsline.com/briefs/us-army-to-begin-excavating-up-to-300-tons-of-contaminated-soil-at-former-missile-plant-in-burlington/ and burlingtonnc.gov/WesternElectric ; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Electric , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Zeus ?]

[Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is supposed to have been born April 14, 1965, in Kuwait City or in Balochistan, in West Pakistan:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed ]

The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) ( www.cpbml.org.uk ) was founded April 14, 1968 according to michaelharrison.org.uk/2022/02/communist-party-of-britain-marxist-leninist/

[April 14, 1994 two USAF F-15 fighters shot down two US Army Black Hawk helicopters in northern Iraq, killing all 26 American, British, French, Kurdish, and Turkish military and civilian passengers on board.]

[START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) went into effect April 14, 2000.]

[Black Day, April 14th, is a day for single people in the ROK.]

[4/14:  www.who.int/campaigns/world-chagas-disease-day ]

[The guided missile cruiser Moskva (Moscow), flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and name ship of the Slava/Project 1164 Atlant (Atlas) class, was lost April 14, 2022.  The mainstream media parrots the claim that it was sunk by two Ukrainian anti-ship missiles and plays this up as the largest warship sunk in combat since WWII, but the similar-sized Argentine ship General Belgrano was sunk May 2, 1982 during the undeclared Falklands War (see further below). 

[April 14th is Gardening Day – the Days of the Year website.]

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452[, in the Republic of Florence, now capital of Italy's Tuscany] – May 2, 1519):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci 

[World Art Day is April 15th, coinciding with Leonardo da Vinci's birth.]

Leonhard Euler (April 15, 1707 in Basel, Swiss Confederacy– September 18, 1783 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler

[The Civil War Battle of Picacho Pass was April 15, 1862 in south-central Arizona near Tucson.  Today's southern Arizona was claimed as US New Mexico Territory/Confederate Arizona Territory, (apparently the first official appearance of "Arizona").  The very south part, below the Gila and Rio Grande rivers, had been bought from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase, effective June 8, 1854.] 

[Korean national liberation fighter, revolutionary, and statesman Kim Il-Sung was born April 15, 1912, in Mangyungbong (Namni) or Chilgol, both locations now in expanding Pyongyang.  He passed away July 8, 1994.  Some of his works are online at:   www.marxists.org/archive/kim-il-sung/index.htm  www.naenara.com.kp/main/index/en/politics?arg_val=leader3 , and michaelharrison.org.uk/the-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/ (this link also has works by Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-Un, and many other publications from DPR Korea.  I think UNC's Davis Library has Kim Il-Sung's collected works in English and other books, and they might be available at other university libraries in the Triangle.]

[The RMS Titanic sank April 15, 1912.]

[Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 15, 1894 – September 11, 1971):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev ]

[Revisionist Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was also born April 15, 1894 in Kalinovka, in southwest Russia (now in Kursk Oblast, very close to what is now Ukraine).  Among other things he expanded the territory of the Ukrainian SSR.  He has a Marxist Internet Archive page at:  www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/index.htm ]

[Ronald Reagan bombed Libya April 15, 1986, killing many military personnel and civilians, reportedly including an infant child of Qaddafi.  Libya shot down an F-111, killing the two person crew.  In 2011 Obama and Hillary Clinton used so-called humanitarian interventionism as a pretext to achieve the long-term US and European imperialist goal of neutralizing Libya.  A few years earlier Libya had given up its weapons of mass destruction programs, a lesson to DPR Korea and now Iran about trusting pledges made by the American imperialist government, and John Bolton made a point of highlighting this, undermining US-DPRK negotiations, one of the few seemingly beneficial foreign policy initiatives by the first Trump administration, though leading Congressional Democrats seemed to prefer when Trump talked about starting a major war, and now the US has a proxy war with Russia raging in Ukraine. ]

[Pol Pot or Saloth Sâr (May 19, 1925 – April 15, 1998):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot ]

[Vittorio Arrigoni (February 4, 1975 Besana in Brianza, Italy – April 15, 2011 killed by al-Qaida in Gaza?):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Arrigoni ]

[USPS employee Douglas Hughes flew an ultralight gyrocopter from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to the west lawn of the US Capitol April 15, 2015, in a non-violent protest against Congress' corruption and dysfunction.] 

[US income taxes are due by Tuesday, April 15th, except for a huricane-related extension in North Carolina, tax resistance over "defense" spending, etc.:  www.irs.gov/newsroom/2024-tax-filing-season-starts-as-irs-begins-accepting-tax-returns-today-taxpayer-help-expands-this-year-with-more-in-person-hours-better-service-improved-tools  I read an argument that supposedly there isn't actually any law requiring most people to pay income tax?]  

[4/15/2024:  ccrjustice.org/abu-ghraib-trial ]

[April 15th is Anime Day; lots in the next calendar? – the Days of the Year website.]

[I thought that the average last frost date in the Triangle is in mid-April.  In my lifetime there has been significant snow accumulation in early to mid-March in Durham, though snow is probably most likely in January.  Sometimes there is significant snow in December, disrupting university finals.  A record of 0" in 2023-24?  Our USDA hardiness has changed with climate change or other factors.  I think I found one or more new sources of cempazúchitl/cempasúchil/cempoalxochitl/cempoalxóchitl marigold (Tagetes erecta) seeds, etc., but I haven't ben growing much

Durham is typically frost-free by mid-April, something like the 16th, and tax day is around then.  There is a saying about planting corn when the unfurling new oak leaves are the size of some animal's ears, but I'm not sure if this works.  I have an old planting schedule from an agriculture department, possibly no longer accurate, because of climate change moving the frost dates and improved cultivars.]

[Karl Theodor Robert Luther, (April 16, 1822 in Świdnica, Poland – February 15, 1900 Düsseldorf, Germany).]

[German revolutionary Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann, leader of the Communist Party of Germany during the Weimar period, was born April 16, 1886 in Hamburg, and was shot in Buchenwald August 18, 1944 after years of solitary confinement.  The Nazis claimed that he was killed by Allied bombing.  Many groups were named for him, such as the Thälmann Brigade of German volunteers fighting in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republic, and there are songs such as "The Thaelmann-Column" and "Marsch der Thaelmann-Pioniere" and "Thalmannlied."  There were possibly questionable translations of some of his works at:  aredinohio.wordpress.com/ernst-thalmann-library/  ]

[Lenin returned to Russia, from Switzerland, at Petrograd's Finland Station  April 16, 1917:   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Theses ]  [April 17, 1917, etc.:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Theses ]

K'naan or Keinan Abdi Warsame (Keynaan Cabdi Warsame, Kaynān ʿAbdi Warsama) was born April 16, 1978 in Mogadishu, Somalia:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27naan

[Basque ETA – July 31, 1959 – April 16/May 2 in 2018.]

[April 16th is Librarian Day – the Days of the Year website.]

[Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790).]

[The land and naval Battle of Plymouth, in coastal Washington County, NC, was April 17-20, 1864 and included the ironclad ram CSS Albemarle.  Apparently there is now a smaller self-powered replica, one of at least two replica ironclads in NC.  Hoke?]

[Durham County in NC was created April 17, 1881? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham_County,_North_Carolina ]

[A mystery airship is supposed to have hit a windmill and crashed in the town of Aurora, Texas, the morning of April 17, 1897, killing the pilot.  Apparently there is another early account of a UFO crashing to earth, from Max, in southwest Nebraska, June 6, 1884:  www.ufocasebook.com/nebraskaroswell.html  Chile?]

[Tsarist soldiers killed or wounded hundreds of striking workers at the Lena River goldfields April 17, 1912.]

[Margot Honecker (born Feist; April 17, 1927 in Halle, now in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany – May 6, 2016 Santiago, Chile):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margot_Honecker

Margot Feist Honecker was born April 17, 1927 in the Halle, Germany.  During her political career she was a leader of the Free German Youth, chair of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization, was elected to the German Democratic Republic's legislature, and served as Minister of National Education.  In 2008 she received an honor from Nicaragua for aiding the Sandinista literacy campaign during the 80's.  She was married to Erich Honecker, a general secretary of the Socialist Unity Party.]  

[British journalist Philip Short was born April 17, 1945 in Bristol:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Short ]

[The first congress of Khmer Issarak national liberation groups is supposed to have been held April 17-19, 1950 in Kompong Som Loeu, Cambodia, founding the United Issarak Front, under Son Ngoc Minh, and with a third of its leadership belonging to the Indochinese Communist Party.]

[A barely disguised US proxy army created by the CIA invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs beginning April 17, 1961 (though acts of war had been committed days earlier), but was routed within a few days.  In Cuba the battle is named after Playa Girón (Girón Beach).  It has been speculated that the defeat was a motive for forces within the US government to assassinate President Kennedy in November 1963.]    

[The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, April 17, 1975.]

[Bat Appreciation Day is supposed to be April 17th and according to the NC Wildlife Resources Commission they have their pups around May 1st.  [I think I've seen one or more bats out flying so far in 2025.]

Space junk anime Planetes (プラネテス ; Πλάνητες or Planētes) aired October 4, 2003 – April 17, 2004:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

[April 17th is High Five Day – the Days of the Year website.]

[April 18th is Animal Crackers Day – the Days of the Year website.]

[April 19th is Husband Appreciation Day – the Days of the Year website.]

[April 20th is Look-alike Day – the Days of the Year website.]

[February 28th to April 19th in 1993:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege ]

[Cuban president and PCC first secretary Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was born April 20, 1960 in Santa Clara, Cuba:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Díaz-Canel ]

[Saddam Hussein (April 28, 1937 – December 30, 2006):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein ]

[Incorporated April 29, 1892:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issaquah,_Washington ]

[May 3rd in 2025; it began May 4, 2002:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Comic_Book_Day ]

[An eruption May 8, 1902 killed around 30,000 people in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, with only three known to have survived:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pelée ]

[A massacre during the Crusader-Mamluk wars, around May 18, 1268; now Antakya, in Hatay province, Turkey:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antioch_(1268) and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baybars ]

[Soldier George Bent or Ho—my-ike, of Cheyenne and white ancestry, (around 1843 – May 19, 1918):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bent ]

[Created May 20, 1882, after the October 7, 1879 Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Alliance_(1882) ]

[Eruptions began May 20, 1883, culminating with the annihilation or sinking of most of Krakatoa island August 27, 1883:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa ]  [Ended October 21st:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa ]

 Friday, May 31, 1889 in southwest central Pennsylvania:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conemaugh_River , and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_Point,_Pennsylvania

[Nâzım Hikmet (January 17, 1902 – June 3, 1963):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nâzım_Hikmet ]

 Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin was born June 6, 1955 in New York City; author of The Life of the Cosmos (1997), etc.:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection

[George Elmer Hyde, "Dean of American Indian Historians," (June 10, 1882 – February 2, 1968):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Hyde ]

[An alleged mysterious mass death of bullfrogs at Frog Pond (formery Follett's Pond) in Windham, Connecticut Colony one night in June or July 1754:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Frogs ]

[Thomas Loren Friedman of the NYT was born July 20, 1953 in Minneapolis, Minnesota:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman ]

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