12 février

1809 -- Charles Darwin (1809-1882) lives, Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The Origin of Species, published November 24, 1859, sold out immediately. He saw five more editions in his lifetime. Darwin's voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, recorded in the Journal of Researches, is said to be one of the best books of travel ever written.

1853 -- US: Illinois passes a law that requires any black entering the state & staying more than 10 days to pay a $50 fine. If unable to pay, they would be sold into slavery for a period commensurate with the fine.

1877 -- U.S. railroad workers begin strikes protesting wage cuts. (See 14 July).

1894 -- France: A week after the execution of Auguste Valliant, Paris anarchist Emile Henry throws bomb into the bourgeois Cafe Terminus, killing one & injuring 17. Arrested & executed May 21.

1905 -- Spain: Federica Montseny, major figure of Spanish anarchism, lives, in Madrid.

1937 -- Christopher Caudwell (1907-37) dies, killed by the fascists in the valley of Jarama, during his first day of battle. He was last seen firing a machinegun, covering the retreat of his section from a hill about to be taken by the Moors. Caudwell was killed, along with a third of the British Battalion.

1961 -- Kenneth Rexroth's personalist approach to poetry & critique of impersonalism...

1989 -- Five Pakistani Moslem rioters killed protesting Satanic Verses, a book by Salman Rushdie (Some religious leaders have publicly called for his murder).

2003 -- US: Led by poet Sam Hamill, today becomes a day of Poetry Against the War conducted as a reading at the White House gates in addition to over 160 public readings in many different countries & almost all of the 50 states. Since then, over 9,000 poets have joined this grassroots peace movement.