Blair Peach died on 24 April 1979 after an anti-racism demonstration in Southall, London, England. Peach, a New Zealand teacher and activist born in 1946, had taken part in an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a National Front election meeting in Southall Town Hall. An investigation by Commander John Cass of the Metropolitan Police Service concluded that Peach had been fatally hit on the head by an officer of the service's Special Patrol Group, and that other officers had obstructed the investigation. Excerpts from a leaked copy of the report were published in early 1980. In 1988 the Metropolitan Police paid £75,000 compensation to Peach's family. The full report was not released to the public until 2009, after a newspaper vendor died from being struck from behind by a member of the Territorial Support Group, the Special Patrol Group's successor organisation. An award in Peach's honour was set up by the National Union of Teachers, and a school in Southall is named after him.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Blair_Peach

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1916:

Irish republicans led by Patrick Pearse began the Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland, and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising

1990:

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard STS-31 by Space Shuttle Discovery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

1993:

The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring forty-four others, and causing damage that cost £350 million to repair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

slings and arrows: 1. Hardships or adverse circumstances. 2. Harsh criticism or personal attacks. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slings_and_arrows

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Poetry is more than fantasy and is committed to the obligation of trying to say something, however obliquely, about the human condition. Therefore, a poem dealing with history is no more at liberty to violate what the writer takes to be the spirit of his history than it is at liberty to violate what he takes to be the nature of the human heart. What he takes those things to be is, of course, his ultimate gamble.   --Robert Penn Warren https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Penn_Warren