Links Dem to Ancient Egypt

The first recorded labor strike in history took place in Year 29 of Pharaoh Ramesses III’s reign (c. 1158–1155 BC; often cited around 1152 or 1157 BC) at the workers’ village of Deir el-Medina (ancient name Set Maat, “Place of Truth”) on the west bank of the Nile near Thebes (modern Luxor).

The Workers and the Village

Deir el-Medina housed a specialized community of skilled artisans—stonemasons, painters, sculptors, and other craftsmen—who built and decorated the royal tombs in the nearby Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. They were not slaves but state employees, paid primarily in grain rations (emmer wheat and barley), along with fish, vegetables, oil, clothing, and other supplies. The village had its own administrative system, including scribes, foremen, and a local court for internal disputes. At its peak it contained roughly 40–120 households.

What Happened

Delays in grain deliveries—caused by the heavy costs of Ramesses III’s wars, poor harvests, administrative breakdowns, and possible corruption—left the workers unpaid for weeks. Records show complaints had been building; in one case the scribe Amennakht noted that 20 days had already passed without rations.

In Year 29 the workers stopped work. Contemporary accounts (chiefly the Turin Strike Papyrus, Cat. 1880, written in hieratic script) describe them passing the five guard posts of the necropolis while shouting “We are hungry!” They staged sit-ins at symbolic sites, including the unfinished mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu and the temple of Thutmose III. There were multiple stoppages over a period of months, both by day and by night (some with torches). Officials negotiated; partial grain payments were released from temple stores, and the workers returned temporarily, but the problems recurred.

The episode is widely regarded as the earliest well-documented collective labor action because we have direct contemporary records naming the workforce, the grievance (delayed rations), the actions taken, and the authorities’ responses.

Significant Figures

• Ramesses III (r. c. 1186–1155 BC): Second pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty and often called the last great New Kingdom ruler. He successfully repelled major invasions by the Sea Peoples (Year 8) and Libyans, and he built the great temple complex at Medinet Habu. His reign, however, was marked by growing economic strain. He was later assassinated in the “Harem Conspiracy” (a plot involving one of his wives, Tiye, and their son Pentaweret to place Pentaweret on the throne instead of the designated heir). CT scans of his mummy in 2012 confirmed a deep, fatal cut to the throat.
• Amennakht (Amennakhte): The scribe who recorded the strike events in the Turin Strike Papyrus and earlier complaints. He acted as a key intermediary between the workers and higher officials.
• Foremen and crew leaders (names such as Nekhenmut and Khonsu appear in related records) who organized or represented the two main work gangs.
• The vizier and local temple administrators who eventually authorized the release of grain.

Context Before the Strike

Deir el-Medina was established earlier in the New Kingdom (around the time of Amenhotep I and Thutmose I) to house the tomb builders in a controlled, relatively secure settlement. Egypt under the 18th and early 19th Dynasties (Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Ramesses II) had been at the height of its imperial power. Ramesses III himself began his reign with notable military victories that preserved Egyptian independence at a time when many other eastern Mediterranean societies collapsed under the Sea Peoples’ migrations. Those campaigns, however, were expensive and contributed to the fiscal pressures that later affected the ration system.

Aftermath

The strikes secured temporary payments and demonstrated that the highly skilled tomb workers understood their leverage. Systemic supply problems continued, however. Within a few years Ramesses III was assassinated (c. Year 32), and he was succeeded by Ramesses IV. The later 20th Dynasty saw further economic and political decline, increased tomb robbery (sometimes by the workers themselves), and growing insecurity. By around 1069 BC, as central authority weakened, the Deir el-Medina community was largely abandoned; residents relocated for safety (including to the Medinet Habu temple area). The Valley of the Kings ceased to be the primary royal necropolis, and Egypt entered the more fragmented Third Intermediate Period.

In short, the event is remarkable because it is the first time in recorded history that we see organized workers collectively withhold their labor, document their grievances in their own words, and force the state to respond—while still operating within the religious and political framework of New Kingdom Egypt.

= November 14th

Here is a list of significant historical events recorded on November 14 from antiquity through 1800:

Ancient & Early Medieval

• c. 1152 BC — The first recorded labor strike in history occurs in Egypt. Artisans working on the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings under Pharaoh Ramses III stop work to protest delayed wages.
• 332 BC — Alexander the Great is recognized/crowned as pharaoh of Egypt at Memphis. This marks the end of Persian rule in Egypt and the beginning of the Hellenistic (Ptolemaic) period.
• 565 AD — Byzantine Emperor Justinian I dies. His nephew Justin II succeeds him as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (coronation and public announcement occur around this date).
• 684 — The 14th Council of Toledo opens in Visigothic Hispania (modern Spain).

Medieval & Early Modern

• 1380 — Charles VI of France is crowned king at the age of 12.
• 1493 — Christopher Columbus lands on an island in the Lesser Antilles during his second voyage and names it Santa Cruz (Saint Croix).
• 1501 — Arthur, Prince of Wales (eldest son of Henry VII), marries Catherine of Aragon at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Both are 15 years old. Arthur dies the following year, leading to Catherine’s later marriage to his brother Henry VIII.
• 1524 — Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro begins his first major expedition toward South America (operating in the region of present-day Colombia).
• 1532 — According to the chronicler Edward Hall, King Henry VIII of England secretly marries Anne Boleyn on St. Erkenwald’s Day shortly after their return from Calais. (Their public/official marriage took place on 25 January 1533; the earlier ceremony is disputed but widely noted by historians.)

17th–18th Centuries

• 1666 — English diarist Samuel Pepys records the first known written account of a blood transfusion experiment (performed between dogs).
• 1680 — German astronomer Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680 (also called Kirch’s Comet or Newton’s Comet). It is the first comet discovered using a telescope.
• 1715 — The Battle of Preston ends with the unconditional surrender of Jacobite forces to government troops under General Charles Wills. This effectively ends the Jacobite rising of 1715 in England (the last battle fought on English soil until the 20th century).
• 1716 — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the German philosopher, mathematician, and co-inventor of calculus, dies in Hanover.
• 1770 — Scottish explorer James Bruce reaches the spring he believes to be the source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia (at Gish Abay).
• 1776 — The St. James’s Chronicle in London reports that Benjamin Franklin has joined the American rebellion, confirming his leadership role in the fight for independence.
• 1792 — British explorer Captain George Vancouver becomes the first Englishman to enter San Francisco Bay.

These events are drawn from reliable historical compilations (including Wikipedia’s selected anniversaries, OnThisDay, and specialized sources on the Tudors, Byzantium, and exploration). Exact dates for the earliest events can be approximate or traditional, as is common with ancient records.

Lady Jane Grey executed at 17

Before the trials: the succession crisis of 1553

Edward VI (reigned 1547–1553), Henry VIII’s only legitimate son, was a committed Protestant. As he lay dying in the spring and summer of 1553 (probably of tuberculosis), he and his leading councillor, John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, sought to prevent the succession of Edward’s Catholic half-sister Mary. Edward drew up “My Devise for the Succession,” which excluded both Mary and Elizabeth on grounds of their earlier illegitimacy under Henry VIII’s succession legislation and named as heir his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey (great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary Tudor, Queen of France).

Northumberland strengthened the plan by arranging Jane’s marriage (25 May 1553) to his fourth son, Guildford Dudley. Edward died on 6 July 1553. Jane was informed she was queen, reluctantly accepted, and was proclaimed on 10 July when she entered the Tower of London. Mary, already in East Anglia, proclaimed herself queen, gathered armed support, and advanced. Northumberland led a force against her but found little backing. On 19 July the Privy Council switched sides, proclaimed Mary, and Jane’s nine-day reign ended. Northumberland was arrested, tried at Westminster Hall in mid-August, and executed on 22 August 1553. Many others involved were initially treated more leniently; Jane’s father, Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, was pardoned for the time being.

The trials of 13 November 1553

Mary’s government still needed to deal with the principal remaining participants. On the morning of 13 November, five prisoners were taken on foot from the Tower to the Guildhall in the City of London under escort, with an axe carried ahead of them (blade turned away, the traditional sign that they had not yet been condemned). Those tried by a special commission chaired by Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, were:

• Lady Jane Grey (styled in the proceedings as Jane Dudley, wife of Guildford)
• Lord Guildford Dudley (her husband)
• Ambrose Dudley and Henry Dudley (Guildford’s brothers)
• Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

Charges centred on high treason: Jane’s assumption of the royal title and authority, the taking and holding of the Tower, proclamations in her name, and the levying or preparation of forces against Mary. Documents Jane had signed as “Jane the Quene” were produced as evidence. Cranmer was charged both for supporting the proclamation of Jane and for related actions (including involvement in the attempt to seize Mary). All five ultimately pleaded guilty and were sentenced to death. Jane’s sentence was the standard treason penalty of being burned or beheaded “as the Queen pleases.” Contemporary diarist Henry Machyn recorded the event and Jane’s appearance in black clothing, carrying prayer books.

The trial was a foregone conclusion under the circumstances; the defendants had openly participated in the attempt to set Jane on the throne.

After the trials: Wyatt’s Rebellion and the executions

Mary was initially inclined to spare Jane. The decisive change came with Wyatt’s Rebellion (January–February 1554), an armed rising primarily against Mary’s planned marriage to Philip of Spain. Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, joined the rebels. Although Jane and Guildford had been imprisoned in the Tower since July 1553 and played no part in the rising, Mary and her advisers concluded that a living Protestant claimant was too dangerous as a potential figurehead. On 12 February 1554 Guildford Dudley was beheaded on Tower Hill; Jane was beheaded on Tower Green the same day. Contemporary accounts describe Jane’s composure on the scaffold: she acknowledged the unlawfulness of the “fact” against Mary while denying she had sought the crown, then asked for help locating the block after she was blindfolded. Her father was executed later that month.

Cranmer’s case was different. He had been condemned for treason in November 1553, but Mary’s government pursued him primarily for heresy. In 1555 he was tried in Oxford (University Church of St Mary the Virgin) on charges including denial of papal authority and of transubstantiation. He was degraded from his offices, made several recantations under pressure, and was nevertheless burned at the stake in Oxford on 21 March 1556 (one of the Oxford Martyrs, alongside Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley). On the day of his execution he repudiated his recantations, thrust the hand that had signed them into the flames first, and died affirming Protestant positions. Mary had particular animus toward him because he had annulled her mother’s marriage to Henry VIII.

Significant figures in brief

• Edward VI: the dying Protestant king whose devise attempted to alter the succession.
• John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland: the dominant political figure who engineered Jane’s marriage and brief elevation; executed in August 1553.
• Lady Jane Grey: the teenage Protestant claimant, great-granddaughter of Henry VII; nine-day queen; executed February 1554.
• Guildford, Ambrose and Henry Dudley: Northumberland’s sons; Guildford married Jane and shared her fate; the other two were tried alongside them.
• Thomas Cranmer: architect of the English Reformation under Henry VIII and Edward VI; tried for treason in 1553 and burned for heresy in 1556.
• Mary I: the successful Catholic claimant who ordered the trials and later executions; her reign began a short Catholic restoration.
• Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk: Jane’s father; initially pardoned, then executed after joining Wyatt’s Rebellion.

The episode illustrates the extreme instability of the mid-Tudor succession, the interplay of dynastic legitimacy and religious allegiance, and the lethal consequences of failed political plots in that era.

= November 13th

These events all took place on 13 November in their respective years. Here’s a concise overview of each:

1002 – St. Brice’s Day Massacre

King Æthelred II (“the Unready”) ordered the killing of Danes living in England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that this was done because the king had been warned of a Danish plot to kill him and seize the kingdom.

Contemporary and near-contemporary sources (including a 1004 charter for St Frideswide’s in Oxford) describe Danes being attacked, with some seeking sanctuary in churches that were then set on fire. Archaeological finds support significant violence: a mass grave of at least 35 young males with weapon injuries and signs of burning was excavated in Oxford (dated roughly 960–1020), and another site at Ridgeway Hill in Dorset yielded remains of men who appear to have been executed, with isotopic evidence suggesting Scandinavian origins.

The order appears to have targeted more recent Danish settlers and mercenaries rather than the long-settled population of the Danelaw. It failed to end the Viking threat; Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark launched major invasions in the following years. Modern historians debate the scale and whether it was a centrally directed action or more localised.

1093 – Battle of Alnwick

Scottish king Malcolm III (Malcolm Canmore) and his son Edward were killed near Alnwick in Northumberland. Malcolm had invaded northern England and was besieging or threatening Alnwick Castle. Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, led a smaller English force that surprised the Scots on 13 November (also St Brice’s Day).

Malcolm and Edward were slain in the fighting (or immediately afterward). The Scottish army, leaderless and hindered by a swollen River Aln after heavy rain, withdrew. Malcolm’s wife, St Margaret of Scotland, died three days later in Edinburgh. Their deaths triggered a succession crisis in Scotland. A later memorial (Malcolm’s Cross) marks the traditional site of the king’s death.

1160 – Marriage of Louis VII and Adela of Champagne

Louis VII of France married Adela (also called Adèle or Alix) of Champagne on 13 November 1160. She was his third wife; his previous wives were Eleanor of Aquitaine (marriage annulled) and Constance of Castile (who had died in childbirth earlier that year). Louis still lacked a male heir.

Adela was the daughter of Theobald II, Count of Champagne (and Blois). The match helped reconcile Louis with a powerful and previously troublesome vassal family. She was crowned the same day. In 1165 she gave birth to the long-awaited son, Philip II Augustus (“Dieudonné”), who later became one of France’s most effective medieval kings. She also had a daughter, Agnes (who became Byzantine empress). Adela later served as regent for her son.

1553 – Treason trials of Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey and others

On 13 November 1553, after the collapse of the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne and the suppression of early resistance to Mary I, a special commission tried several people for high treason at Guildhall in London. Those tried included:

• Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
• Lady Jane Grey (referred to as Jane Dudley)
• Lord Guildford Dudley (Jane’s husband)
• Ambrose Dudley and Henry Dudley

All were found guilty and sentenced to death. Jane’s formal offence was having assumed the royal title and authority; documents she had signed as queen were used as evidence. The executions were not carried out immediately. Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley were beheaded in February 1554 after her father joined Wyatt’s Rebellion. Cranmer was later tried for heresy and burned in Oxford in 1556.

1642 – Battle of Turnham Green

During the First English Civil War, King Charles I’s Royalist army (roughly 12,000–13,000 men) faced a much larger Parliamentarian force (about 24,000, including London Trained Bands under Philip Skippon) at Turnham Green, west of London. The Parliamentarians were commanded by the Earl of Essex.

After the Royalists had taken Brentford the previous day, the two armies confronted each other. There was only limited fighting (light casualties, around 50 killed in total). Outnumbered and low on ammunition, Charles withdrew rather than risk a full engagement so close to London. The standoff effectively ended the Royalist advance on the capital in 1642 and is often described as the defence of London. Charles never again came as close to the city until his trial in 1649.

1775 – Occupation of Montreal

In the American Revolutionary War, Brigadier General Richard Montgomery’s Continental Army occupied Montreal on 13 November 1775 without resistance. Montgomery had already captured Fort St. Jean after a long siege. British Governor Guy Carleton had fled the city (disguised, according to some accounts) toward Quebec.

Articles of capitulation were negotiated with local citizens. Montgomery treated the inhabitants and captured British personnel relatively leniently, which caused some friction with his own troops. He then advanced to Quebec City to join Benedict Arnold’s force. Montgomery was killed leading an assault on Quebec on 31 December 1775; the invasion of Canada ultimately failed.

These six events span Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Capetian, Tudor, English Civil War, and American Revolutionary history, all falling on the same calendar date.

Jean-Sylvain Bailly guillotined moderate

Jean-Sylvain Bailly (15 September 1736 – 12 November 1793) was a leading figure of the early French Revolution who became one of its victims during the radical phase of the Reign of Terror.

Background and rise

Bailly was born in Paris and made his name as an astronomer and mathematician. He calculated an orbit for Halley’s Comet, studied Jupiter’s satellites, and was elected to the Académie des Sciences and the Académie française. He was also a freemason and moved in Enlightenment circles.

When the Estates-General met in 1789, he was elected a deputy for Paris from the Third Estate. He was chosen president of the Third Estate and, on 20 June 1789, led the famous Tennis Court Oath in which the deputies swore not to disperse until they had given France a constitution. After the fall of the Bastille, the electors of Paris chose him as the city’s first mayor (15 July 1789).

Key figures around him

• Marquis de Lafayette – Commander of the National Guard. Bailly and Lafayette worked closely in 1789–1791 to maintain order in Paris. Both were later blamed by radicals for the Champ de Mars events.
• Marie Antoinette – Bailly later refused to testify against her at her trial, which contributed to his downfall.
• Jean-Paul Marat – A persistent enemy. Marat’s newspaper L’Ami du Peuple repeatedly attacked Bailly and helped turn public opinion against him.
• Pierre-Simon Laplace – Fellow scientist and friend. Bailly was on his way to join Laplace at Melun when he was arrested in 1793.
• Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety – Dominant figures by the time of Bailly’s trial and execution, though Bailly was not a personal target of Robespierre in the same way as some other victims.

The turning point: Champ de Mars (17 July 1791)

After Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, republicans organised a petition on the Champ de Mars demanding the king’s deposition. A crowd gathered; National Guard troops under Bailly’s authority (and Lafayette’s command) opened fire, killing dozens. The event destroyed Bailly’s popularity. He was denounced as a traitor to the people and the red flag of martial law he had used became a symbol of repression.

He resigned as mayor in November 1791 and retired from politics.

Arrest, trial, and execution (1793)

In July 1793, during the escalating Terror, Bailly left Nantes for Melun to stay with Laplace. He was recognised, arrested, and brought back to Paris. In October he was called as a witness at Marie Antoinette’s trial and defended her, refusing to give damaging testimony.

On 10 November 1793 he was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, quickly tried, and sentenced to death. The next day (sources vary between 11 and 12 November) he was taken to the Champ de Mars — the exact site of the 1791 massacre — for execution. Revolutionaries insisted on this symbolic location. The guillotine was set up in a ditch so that his blood would not mix with that of the earlier victims. The red flag of martial law was burned in front of him. While waiting in the cold rain he trembled; when a spectator mocked “You tremble, Bailly!”, he replied calmly, “My friend, it is only from the cold.”

He was guillotined amid shouts of “Vive la République!”

Aftermath

Bailly’s execution was part of the broader purge of moderate revolutionaries, former constitutional monarchists, and early leaders of 1789 who were now seen as insufficiently radical. The Terror continued to intensify through the spring of 1794 until the fall of Robespierre in July (Thermidor). After the Terror, Bailly was gradually rehabilitated in historical memory as an honest, if politically naïve, Enlightenment figure who had been destroyed by the revolution he had helped begin.

His scientific reputation survived; his political career is remembered mainly for the Tennis Court Oath, the mayoralty of Paris, and the tragic end on the Champ de Mars.

= November 12th

These are notable events associated with 11–12 November (sources sometimes differ by a day on exact dates for the medieval and early modern ones).

954 – Coronation of the young Lothair

The 13-year-old Lothair (Lothaire; sometimes numbered III or IV), eldest son of Louis IV and Gerberga of Saxony, was crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom at the Abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims. He had succeeded his father on 10 September 954 (after Louis’s death) and was already associated with the throne from 951. Archbishop Artald of Reims performed the coronation. Lothair was the penultimate Carolingian king of West Francia; he reigned until his death in 986 and was buried at the same abbey.

1028 – Zoe becomes empress consort

Zoe Porphyrogenita (“born in the purple”), daughter of Constantine VIII, married the elderly Romanos Argyros (soon Romanos III) around 10 November. The next day Constantine died, and the couple took the throne, making Zoe empress consort. She was one of the few Byzantine women born to a reigning emperor. Her later career was turbulent: Romanos was found dead in his bath in 1034 (with persistent rumours of involvement by Zoe and her lover Michael); she married Michael the same day (he became Michael IV). She later shared power with her sister Theodora and with Constantine IX. Her portrait survives in the famous Hagia Sophia mosaic.

1330 – Battle of Posada

Basarab I, voivode of Wallachia, ambushed and decisively defeated the much larger Hungarian army of King Charles I (Charles Robert of Anjou) in a narrow mountain pass near the Transylvanian–Wallachian border (exact site still debated). The fighting ran roughly 9–12 November. The Hungarians, caught in difficult terrain, suffered heavy losses from arrows, stones, and hand-to-hand fighting; Charles barely escaped by swapping his royal robes for ordinary clothes. The victory secured Wallachia’s practical independence from Hungarian overlordship and is often treated as a foundational moment for the medieval Wallachian state.

1439 – Plymouth incorporated by Parliament

The market town of Sutton (later Plymouth) was incorporated as a borough and formally renamed Plymouth by Act of Parliament (18 Henry VI). It was the first English town incorporated by Parliament rather than by royal charter alone. The act amalgamated the manors of Sutton Prior, Sutton Vautort, and Sutton Ralf into one free borough with a mayor and perpetual community; a confirmatory royal charter followed in 1440. This gave the town greater autonomy from the Priory of Plympton and neighbouring lords.

1555 – Second Statute of Repeal

Under Queen Mary I (and her husband Philip of Spain), Parliament passed the Second Statute of Repeal (1 & 2 Ph. & M. c. 8, also known as the See of Rome Act). It repealed anti-papal legislation dating back to 1529 (the fall of Wolsey) and restored papal authority in England, building on the First Statute of Repeal (1553) that had undone Edward VI’s Protestant reforms. Crucially, it protected the lay owners of former monastic lands from the Dissolution. Royal assent came in January 1555; the relevant Parliament had opened in November 1554. Elizabeth I’s later Acts of Uniformity reversed the restoration of Rome.

1793 – Execution of Jean-Sylvain Bailly

Jean-Sylvain Bailly, astronomer, mathematician, and the first Mayor of Paris (1789–1791), was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. He had presided over the Tennis Court Oath and was a leading early revolutionary moderate. His popularity collapsed after the Champ de Mars massacre (July 1791), when troops under his authority fired on demonstrators. Arrested in 1793, he refused to testify against Marie Antoinette, was tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and executed on the Champ de Mars itself—the symbolic site of the earlier killings. The red flag of martial law was burned in front of him. When a spectator noted that he was trembling, he replied that it was only from the cold.

These span Carolingian succession, Byzantine dynastic politics, the assertion of Wallachian independence, English municipal development, the Marian Catholic restoration, and the radicalisation of the French Revolution.