17 décembre

1862 -- Urbain Gohier (Urbain Dégoulet) lives (1862-1951), Versailles. French writer, journalist, lampoonist, antimilitarist, burning supporter of Dreyfus, & writer for the anarchist "Libertaire". Author of L'armée contre la nation (1898), Les prétoriens et la Congrégation & A bas la caserne, etc. Sank gradually into anti-semitism & patriotism, becoming a collaborationist during WWII.

1878 A meeting is held at L.L. Zamenhof's home to celebrate the creation of Esperanto.

1883 -- France: Hoche Meurant lives (1883-1950). Anarcho-syndicalist, antimilitarist.

1885 -- Alphonse Barbe lives. French anarchist & antimilitarist. Barbe met Sébastien Faure who introduced him to anarchism.

1890 -- France: Pierre Lentengre (aka Pierre Lentente) lives (1890-1982) Paris. Militant & founder of a Parisian anarchist group. Administrator of "La voix libertaire" (1928-1939) & active in "The Friends of Sebastien Faure".

1910 -- Jean Maitron lives. French libertarian historian. Wrote numerous works, including Histoire du mouvement anarchiste en France (1880-1914).

1910 -- Ricardo Flores Magón Regeneración

1936 -- USSR: In Moscow, Pravda announces that in Catalonia (Spain), the "cleaning" out of Trotskyites & the anarcho-syndicalists has already started. Stalin's agents will carry out these purges:

1937 -- Spain: Snow storm in Teruel. A veritable blizzard cut communications between headquarters & advancing troops. Planes are grounded & trucks stranded on the icy roads, but the Republican infantry is moving forward, lightly wounded men rising from the snow to rejoin the advancing march. Soldiers in the freed outskirts are embraced & celebrated by the population. (General Franco, after recapturing the city in February 23, orders the killing of the remaining civil population for their support of the Republican soldiers!)

1944 -- Abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky dies.

1977 -- Elvis Costello & the Attractions appear on NBC-TV "Saturday Night Live" in place of the Sex Pistols, who can't get a visa to enter the country. Producer Lorne Michaels refuses to allow Costello to perform "Radio, Radio" (because of the song's criticism of the broadcasting industry), but a few measures into "Less than Zero," Costello halts his group & goes into "Radio, Radio." He will never be invited back.

1997 -- Chechnya: Five Poles, including members from the Polish Anarchist Federation (FA) kidnapped, while delivering medicine, food & other supplies from a Polish-Chechen friendship society. Their van was found 40 kilometers west of Grozny with its two front tires shot out. They were attacked by a gang of 15. Two Chechen bodyguards (friends of one of the hostages) shot two of the attackers.