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On this day, 21 April 2007, 150 garment workers, mostly women, occupied the Mansoura-España textile factory in Egypt against job losses and unpaid wages. Management tried various tricks to break the occupation, even threatening to fabricate prostitution charges against the women workers for sleeping away from home under the same roof as men who were not their husbands. But the workers held out against both bosses and their union, occupying their factory for two months before winning concessions on both job losses and unpaid wages.

On this day, 21 April 1856, stonemasons in Melbourne, Australia, went on strike demanding a maximum 8-hour working day – down from 10 hours per day Monday-Friday with 8 hours on Saturday. They marched from their construction site, the Old Quadrangle building at Melbourne University, brandishing a banner demanding “8 hours work, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest”. The workers were extremely well organised, and were soon successful in achieving their goal, with no loss of pay, for workers engaged in public works in the city. They celebrated on Monday 12 May, the Whit Monday holiday, with a parade of nearly 700 people from 19 trades. In 1903, workers in Ballarat, Victoria, erected an 8 hour day monument, commemorating the movement.

On this day, 20 April 1853, the formerly enslaved woman-turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman began working on the Underground Railroad, which smuggled enslaved people to freedom. She personally rescued some 70 people, and assisted many more.

On this day, 20 April 1914, the Ludlow massacre took place when US troops opened fire with machine guns on a camp of striking miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado.

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