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Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA)

is founded on this day in London in 1824. The London SPCA became the Royal SPCA in 1840 by a charter granted by Queen Victoria, who was an animal rights advocate. The awakening of conscience that the formation of the SPCA reflects had taken place for over a century, spurred by stories and engravings like this one by William Hogarth, “The Second Stage of Cruelty: Coachman Beating a Fallen Horse,” which was published in 1751.

Tiananmen Square protests crushed On this day in 1989, China’s democracy movement is crushed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square as the Chinese government orders the army to open fire. About 400 to 800 civilians died in a protest marked by amazing acts of bravery, including that of this one anonymous man who stopped a column of tanks.
China’s democracy movement had been encouraged by the government’s increasing tolerance of environmental debate at the time, especially the book Yangtze! Yangtze! by Dai Qing, which questioned the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, published in February of 1989. This tolerance of environmental debate also took place in Russia during the 1980s following the Chernobyl disaster but was also eventually crushed by the dictatorial government there.

Greenpeace On this day in 1972, the “Dont Make a Wave” committee of Vancouver, formed to protest US nuclear testing in Alaska, becomes Greenpeace. Among its thousands of dramatic protests, Greenpeace activists have infiltrated nuclear test sites, shielded whales from harpoons, protected fur seals from clubs and blocked ocean-going barges from dumping radioactive waste.

These dramatic tactics were inspired by a confrontational, non-violent philosophy rooted in the Quaker concept of bearing witness and also in the nonviolent interventions of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. The organization’s strict adherence to non-violence has led some groups who long for a more muscular activism to break away from Greenpeace. (Photo is courtesy of Rex Weyler).

General Federation of Women’s Clubs founded in a convention April 23-25 in New York City in 1890. The effort was led by Jane Croly, a newspaper reporter and founder of Sorosis. Some 63 clubs were part of the original federation. Many of the environmental improvements of the Progressive Era in the US — sanitation, clean drinking water, less air pollution, protection of scenic areas and laws forcing slum landlords to clean up neighborhoods — were championed by the GFFC.

Lester Brown American environmental advocate is born this day in 1934.

Ralph Nader author and activist was born this day 1934.

Asbestos Strike Canadian asbestos miners walk off the job on this day in 1949 after their demands for dust control and modest pay raises are refused by mine owners. The four-month strike was brutally put down but at a great political cost to the then-conservative Canadian government.

Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and global advocate for non-violent change, was born on this day in 1918.

Chico Mendez founder of the Brazilian “tapero” movement and a major figure in world environmental history was born this day in 1944. (He is pictured here with his wife Illsamar in 1988). Mendez organized a union of rubber tappers and insisted that the Amazon could be saved and yet also be economically useful. He once said: “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.” Mendez was assassinated December 22, 1988 by a group of ranchers whose vision for Amazonian development did not include preservation of the forests. The assassins were convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Although Mendez was only one of 19 activists assassinated in Brazil that year, his death made international headlines.

Luddites first reported First reports of Luddite loom-breaking appear in the London Times this day in 1811. The Luddites were unemployed weavers being thrown out of work by steam powered looms. Because they were starving, they began breaking the looms. But reports focused on destruction and violence, not the conditions that created the problems in the first place. The Times said: “The rioters at Nottingham are said to act under a sort of regular commanders, the chief of whom is always styled General Ludd; and his orders are strictly obeyed; and any person that gives information against any of them subjects himself to the vengeance of the whole…”