#OtD 15 Oct 1940 Charlie Chaplin's first talkie The Great Dictator debuted in New York (while the US was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany). The antifascist film ends with this impassioned speech to the audience opposing all forms of oppression https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8730/the-great-dictator-debuts?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
#OTD in 1962.

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of DDT, a pesticide used by soldiers during WW2. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting the industry's marketing claims unquestioningly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

#books #environment #nature

American mathematician Dorothy Vaughan was born #OTD in 1910.

She was the first respected Black female manager at NASA, thus creating a long-lasting legacy for diversity in mathematics & science for West Area Computers. As one of the first female coders in the field who knew how to code FORTRAN, she was able to instruct other Black women on the coding language & paved a wave of female programmers to integrate their work into NASA’s systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan

#mathematics#womeninSTEM

#OtD 12 Aug 2017 32-year-old anti-racist Heather Heyer was killed and 19 injured in a neo-Nazi terror attack in Charlottesville, VA. Heather was one of many protesting a white supremacist rally when a Nazi drove his car deliberately into the crowd https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8376/heather-heyer-murdered?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon