June 4, 1989 – The Chinese government ordered its troops to open fire on unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The protest had started on April 16 as about 1,000 students marched to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a pro-reform leader within the Chinese government. Despite government warnings, pro-reform and pro-democracy demonstrations continued for a month drawing ever-larger crowds of young people, eventually totaling over a million persons. On May 13, three thousand students began an eight-day hunger strike. The government imposed martial law on May 20 and brought in troops. On June 2, in their first clash with the People’s Army, demonstrators turned back an advance of unarmed troops. However, in the pre-dawn hours of June 4, the People’s Army, using tanks, machine-guns, clubs and tear gas, opened fire on the unarmed protesters. Armored personnel carriers then rolled into the square crushing students still sleeping in their tents. The Chinese government later claimed only 300 died in the attack. U.S. estimates put the toll at over 3,000. Following the massacre, over 1,600 demonstrators were rounded up and jailed, with 27 being executed.

Written By:Catherine Boeckmann, Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Summer Solstice Quiz

See how much you know about the summer solstice with these 10 questions!

1. How often do solstices happen?
2. Where does the word solstice come from (hint: Latin words)?
3. Does the solstice occur at the same time or at different times across the world?
4. Is the June solstice always on June 21?
5. Is the June solstice the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere?
6. On the solstice, is Earth the closest or farthest from the Sun?
7. Does the earliest sunrise happen on the summer solstice?
8. Is it the longest day of the year everywhere on Earth?
9. On the summer solstice, the Sun reaches its northernmost position in the sky. What is this called? (Hint: Tropic of ?).
10. Why isn’t the summer solstice the hottest day of the year?

Bob Berman will fill you in on things to know about the June solstice below (or skip and scroll to the bottom for the quiz answers)!

Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students gather at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their discontent with China’s authoritative communist government. The next day, an official memorial service for Hu Yaobang was held in Tiananmen’s Great Hall of the People, and student representatives carried a petition to the steps of the Great Hall, demanding to meet with Premier Li Peng. The Chinese government refused such a meeting, leading to a general boycott of Chinese universities across the country and widespread calls for democratic reforms.

Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, students from more than 40 universities began a march to Tiananmen on April 27. The students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants, and by mid-May more than a million people filled the square, the site of communist leader’s Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. On May 20, the government formally declared martial law in Beijing, and troops and tanks were called in to disperse the dissidents. However, large numbers of students and citizens blocked the army’s advance, and by May 23 government forces had pulled back to the outskirts of Beijing.

On June 3, with negotiations to end the protests stalled and calls for democratic reforms escalating, the troops received orders from the Chinese government to reclaim Tiananmen at all costs. By the end of the next day, Chinese troops had forcibly cleared Tiananmen Square and Beijing’s streets, killing hundreds of demonstrators and arresting thousands of protesters and other suspected dissidents. In the weeks after the government crackdown, an unknown number of dissidents were executed, and communist hard-liners took firm control of the country.

The international community was outraged at the incident, and economic sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries sent China’s economy into decline. However, by late 1990, international trade had resumed, thanks in part to China’s release of several hundred imprisoned dissidents.

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Chinese students begin protests at Tiananmen Square
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HISTORY

On June 4, 1989, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. Turmoil ensued, as tens of thousands of the young students tried to escape the rampaging Chinese forces. Other protesters fought back, stoning the attacking troops and overturning and setting fire to military vehicles. Reporters and Western diplomats on the scene estimated that at least 300, and perhaps thousands, of the protesters had been killed and as many as 10,000 were arrested.

The savagery of the Chinese government’s attack shocked both its allies and Cold War enemies. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared that he was saddened by the events in China. He said he hoped that the government would adopt his own domestic reform program and begin to democratize the Chinese political system.

history.com

Zoot Suit Riots

‘Zoot suits’ were oversize, high-wasted and wide-legged suits associated with Latino, African-American, Italian-American and Filipino-American communities in the United States during the 1940s. In Los Angeles, simmering tensions between white residents and the Latino community burst into the open in 1943 after an argument between a group of servicemen and Latino youths devolved into a fight on June 3.

Many servicemen and city residents targeted Latinos wearing zoot suits because, in the midst of World War II rationing, they felt the clothing was unpatriotic due to the amount of fabric required to make the suits. The race riot spread throughout the city, with hundreds of attacks against youths over the following days.

The imbalance of the police response is evident in the fact that no soldiers were ever arrested for their part in the riots, but many Latinos were charged. Local press lauded the attacks as cleaning up ‘hoodlums’, and the city council banned zoot suits in LA city limits. Many later activists such as Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez noted the riots as inspiration to get into political activism.

Source:

Photographer: John T. Burns
Date taken: June 7, 1943
Location taken: Los Angeles, California, USA

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Native Americans During Mathematics Class, Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer, 1901. Johnston (Frances Benjamin) Collection. Prints & Photographs Division

On June 2, 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. The right to vote, however, was governed by state law; until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. In a WPA interview from the 1930s, Henry Mitchell describes the attitude toward Native Americans in Maine, one of the last states to comply with the Indian Citizenship Act:

One of the Indians went over to Old Town once to see some official in the city hall about voting. I don’t know just what position that official had over there, but he said to the Indian, ‘We don’t want you people over here. You have your own elections over on the island, and if you want to vote, go over there.’

Just why the Indians shouldn’t vote is something I can’t understand.

“The Life of Henry Mitchell.” Robert Grady, interviewer; Old Town, Maine, ca. 1938-1939. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Manuscript Division

Previously, the Dawes Severalty Act (1887) had shaped U.S. policy towards Native Americans. In accordance with its terms, and hoping to turn Indians into farmers, the federal government redistributed tribal lands to heads of families in 160-acre allotments. Unclaimed or “surplus” land was sold, and the proceeds used to establish Indian schools where Native-American children learned reading, writing, and the domestic and social systems of white America. By 1932, the sale of both unclaimed land and allotted acreage resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the 138 million acres that Native Americans had held prior to the Dawes Act.

In addition to the extension of voting rights to Native Americans, the Secretary of the Interior commissioned the Institute for Government Research to assess the impact of the Dawes Act. Completed in 1928, the Meriam ReportExternal described how government policy oppressed Native Americans and destroyed their culture and society.

The poverty and exploitation resulting from the paternalistic Dawes Act spurred passage of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. This legislation promoted Native-American autonomy by prohibiting allotment of tribal lands, returning some surplus land, and urging tribes to engage in active self-government. Rather than imposing the legislation on Native Americans, individual tribes were allowed to accept or reject the Indian Reorganization Act. From 1934 to 1953, the U.S. government invested in the development of infrastructure, health care, and education, and the quality of life on Indian lands improved. With the aid of federal courts and the government, over two million acres of land were returned to various tribes.

Resource:    loc.gov

gotta be honest, this has always offended my sensibilities