On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That was the day that is known in Great Britain as the Battle of Saltley Gate.

30,000 Birmingham engineers had walked out in solidarity with a strike by the National Union of Mineworkers.

The miners were taking a stand against austerity pay.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1854. That was the day that novelist George Lippard died in Philadelphia. Lippard was friends with Edgar Allen Poe. He is most well-known for his novel about Philadelphia titled Quaker City. The book is considered to be one of the first American muckraking novels.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1974. That was the day that a three-man American astronaut crew returned to earth from eighty-four-day mission at the Sky Lab. They were the first crew to spend so long in low-earth orbit up to that time.

On this day in Labor History the year was 2008. That evening at 7:15 p.m., an explosion rocked the city of Wentworth, just outside of Savannah, Georgia. An explosion had gone off at Imperial Sugar. Highly combustible sugar dust had ignited.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1919. That day began the week-long general strike in Seattle, Washington. As World War I drew to a close many workers in the city were frustrated by two years without pay increases due to the war. 35,000 workers in the shipyards walked off of the job.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1913. That was the day that Ida Breiman was killed while she stood up for the rights of working people in Rochester, New York. Ida was born in Russia to a Jewish family.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1825. That was the day the Ohio legislature authorized the Canal Act. The act called for the construction of two canals.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1971. That was a day of tragedy for the workers at the Thiokol Chemical Corporation plant in southeastern Georgia. An explosion killed twenty-seven workers, and injured dozens more.