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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. We hope it makes previous

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Speaker 1: episodes for this date easier to find in the feed.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to this Day in History Class from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com and from the desk of Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore

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Speaker 1: the past one day at a time with a quick

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Speaker 1: look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson, and it's November.

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Speaker 1: One of history's very many Bloody Sundays took place on

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Speaker 1: this day in seven. There are a lot of events

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Speaker 1: that have been named Bloody Sunday, and this one took

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Speaker 1: place in Trafalgar Square in London. In the late nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: Trafalgar Square had become a common gathering place for protesters

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Speaker 1: in London, in particular the working poor. We're protesting against

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Speaker 1: exploitation and financial hardship. These protesters were often supported by

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Speaker 1: middle class socialists, and then over the summer of eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty seven, the square had also become home to a

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Speaker 1: large number of unemployed people, many of them with nowhere

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Speaker 1: else to go. Some slept in the square and washed

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Speaker 1: themselves in its fountains, and newspapers were drawing a lot

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Speaker 1: of attention to this situation. Authorities regarded this sort of

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Speaker 1: encampment in the square as an embarrassment, and starting on

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Speaker 1: October seventeenth of that year, police regularly tried to clear

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Speaker 1: all the people out, but little was done to address

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Speaker 1: the circumstances that had led to these people being there

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Speaker 1: in the first place. So many of these evictions from

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Speaker 1: the square became violent, but the people, having nowhere else

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Speaker 1: to go, and having become such a focal point for protests,

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Speaker 1: people would gather there again. As attention grew to the cycle,

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Speaker 1: the protest grew also, and a lot was going on

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Speaker 1: in these protests and demonstrations. There were a lot of

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Speaker 1: different people involved who had their own goals and objectives.

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Speaker 1: There were socialists and anarchists and trade unionists and some

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Speaker 1: of the more specific political ideas that were brought up

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Speaker 1: in these demonstrations included Irish home rule in England's treatment

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Speaker 1: of Ireland, in addition to all the other things we've

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Speaker 1: already been talking about. So on November eight seven, a

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Speaker 1: notice was posted to ban meetings and Trafalgar Square. It

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Speaker 1: was issued by Charles Warren, who was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

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Speaker 1: It said, in part, until further information, no public meetings

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Speaker 1: will be allowed to assemble in Trafalgar Square, nor will

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Speaker 1: speeches be allowed to be delivered therein, and well disposed

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Speaker 1: persons are hereby cautioned and requested to abstain from joining

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Speaker 1: or attending any meeting or assemblage. This notification also made

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Speaker 1: it clear that precautions were going to be taken to

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Speaker 1: prevent such assemblies and that disturbances would be suppressed. That

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Speaker 1: was the actual word that was used, suppressed. So now

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Speaker 1: in addition to the poor people and the socialists, the

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Speaker 1: trade unionists and all of these other people, there were

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Speaker 1: now also radicals who thought the key issue at play

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Speaker 1: here was the freedom of speech. In defiance of this ban,

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Speaker 1: a plan was formed to march on Trafalgar Square and protest,

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Speaker 1: and the plan also included speeches and a demonstration that

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Speaker 1: was planned once they arrived that was to happen on

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Speaker 1: November thirteenth of seven, But what happened instead was that

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Speaker 1: the police charged the protesters. There were fifteen hundred police,

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Speaker 1: including mounted officers, and there were hundreds of volunteers there

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Speaker 1: as special constables. The military was there too, including infantry

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Speaker 1: and cavalry, and most of these people were armed with

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Speaker 1: police truncheons, although the military units also had things like bayonets.

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Speaker 1: A few protesters were killed in this most sources say

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Speaker 1: either two or three, and at least two hundred were

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Speaker 1: injured in violence that went on all day. There were

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Speaker 1: also many arrests of the leaders of the demonstrations. Some

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Speaker 1: of the police in the military were injured as well,

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Speaker 1: but there were far far more injuries among the protesters.

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Speaker 1: A big part of the response to this event was

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Speaker 1: outrage against the police brutality that had happened, and the

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Speaker 1: people who were killed reviewed as martyrs. The authorities, though,

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Speaker 1: felt that the use of force had been appropriate, and

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Speaker 1: some of the more conservative papers framed this as a

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Speaker 1: much needed clean up of lawless agitators. A week later,

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Speaker 1: on November twenty, at a subsequent protest, a man named

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Speaker 1: Alfred Lynnell fell and was scrampled by a horse and killed.

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Speaker 1: His death was similarly condemned in the same way that

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Speaker 1: the police brutality had been. The idea was that an

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Speaker 1: exploitative and inhumane system had caused this innocent man's death.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Christopher Osciotis for his research work on today's podcast,

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Speaker 1: and to KCP groom at Jailer Mays for all their

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Speaker 1: audio work on the show. You can subscribe to the

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Speaker 1: Stay in History Class on Apple podcast, Google podcast, and

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Speaker 1: wherever else you get your podcasts, and you can tune

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Speaker 1: in tomorrow for a media milestone. H