Steve Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African
Xhosa anti-apartheid activist. Fighting racial segregation and white-
minority rule in South Africa, Biko was at the forefront of the
grassroots Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s.
Frustrated by the domination of white liberals in the anti-apartheid
movement, he became a leading figure in the creation of the South
African Students' Organisation in 1968. An African nationalist and
African socialist, he was influenced by Frantz Fanon and the African-
American Black Power movement. He promoted its slogan "black is
beautiful", believing that black people needed to rid themselves of any
sense of racial inferiority. In 1972, he helped found the Black People's
Convention to spread these ideas among the wider population. Though the
government banned Biko in 1973, he remained politically active. He was
arrested in August 1977 and severely beaten by State security officers,
resulting in his death. One of the earliest icons of the movement
against apartheid, Biko is regarded as a political martyr.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
490 BC:
Greco-Persian Wars: Athenians and their Plataean allies
turned back the first Persian invasion of Greece in the Battle of
Marathon.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon>
1848:
Switzerland became a federal state with the adoption of a new
constitution.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland>
1910:
Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, one of the largest-scale choral
works in the classical concert repertoire, was first performed in
Munich.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Mahler)>
1942:
World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army began the Battle of
Edson's Ridge in an effort to retake Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Edson%27s_Ridge>
1992:
Aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, American Mae Jemison became the
first black woman in space.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Jemison>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
overstuffed:
Filled beyond capacity.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/overstuffed>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they
want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
--H. L. Mencken
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken>