[Wikipedia] October 3: 1981 Irish hunger strike

[Faraaz Damji]

   The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year
   protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern
   Ireland.  The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the
   British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted
   paramilitary prisoners.  In 1978 the dispute escalated into the dirty
   protest, where prisoners refused to wash and covered the walls of
   their cells with excrement.  1980 saw seven prisoners participate in
   the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days.  The second hunger
   strike took place in 1981, and was a showdown between the prisoners
   and the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.  One hunger striker,
   Bobby Sands, was elected as a Member of Parliament during the strike,
   prompting media interest from around the world.  By the end of the
   strike, ten prisoners had starved themselves to death including Sands,
   and 100,000 people attended his funeral.  The strike radicalised
   nationalist politics, and was the driving force that enabled Sinn Féin
   to become a mainstream political party.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike


_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:

1283:
   Dafydd ap Gruffydd the Prince of Wales, the last native ruler of
   Wales to resist English domination, was executed by drawing and
   quartering.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dafydd_ap_Gruffydd)

1918:
   World War I: Following his armed forces' defeat to the Allied
   Powers, Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria abdicated in favor of his son
   Boris III.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_I_of_Bulgaria)

1929:
   King Alexander I renamed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
   as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and changed its subdivisions from the 33
   oblasts to nine new banovinas.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia)

1990:
   German reunification (reunited country flag pictured): The five
   re-established German states (Bundesländer) of East Germany formally
   joined West Germany.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reunification)

1993:
   Soldiers from Malaysian, Pakistani and U.S. armed forces attempted
   to capture Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in the Battle of
   Mogadishu.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_%281993%29)


_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:

   ruddy: Reddish in color, especially of the face, sky, or fire.
   (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ruddy)


_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:

   I'm an optimist.  In order to be libertarian, you have to be an
   optimist.  You have to have a benign view of human nature, to believe
   that human beings left to their own devices are basically good.  But
   I'm not so sure about human institutions, and I think the real point
   of argument here is whether or not large corporations are human
   institutions or some other entity we need to be thinking about
   curtailing.  Most libertarians are worried about government but not
   worried about business.  I think we need to be worrying about business
   in exactly the same way we are worrying about government.  -- John
   Perry Barlow
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow)