Radical History Blog

– 'The Greatest' – died today in 2016. He suffered septic shock while hospitalised in Scottsdale, Arizona. But he could have died 49 years earlier somewhere in Vietnam.

It was 1965 in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. had been set up there for a few years working as a journalist. It was a long way from her birthplace in St Louis (Missouri), but she enjoyed life in Africa.

"To the Memory of Private Biggs and Private Piggen. Executed like their Leveller Colleagues at Burford by Forces Loyal to Cromwell." - Plaque at Gloucester Green, Oxford I spent three years of my life studying in Oxford.

You can say what you want about the French, but when it comes to civil insurrection they are without equal. , , , and – 50 years ago – 1968.

After months of shoehorning dubiously relevant references into every email I can, I get to write you one about the man himself – today is his 200th Birthday, after all!

When you think of demonstrations, you probably imagine . Perhaps an accurate image historically - but the scene was a little different in 1971 Washington DC.

102 years ago today, while the Great War was burning the world down, a few hundred Irish men and women struck out for independence after 800 years of English rule.

"Do not go gentle into that good night; Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The Welsh poet, , wrote those words in 1951. A few years earlier, on 19th April 1943, Jewish Poles in the Warsaw Ghetto lived them.

170 years ago today, on Kennington Common in Lambeth, South London (now known as Kennington Park), 25,000 '' met to make their demands for democratic reforms including universal suffrage.

On 6th April 1320, thirty-nine Scottish nobles signed the – a letter to Pope John XXII calling him to support Scotland's claim to sovereignty against King Edward II of England. If you've seen Mel Gibson's Braveheart, you know the story.