Twenty people, including at least nine firefighters, are killed in Boston?s worst fire. It consumed 65 downtown acres and 776 buildings over 12 hours ? 1872
Some 1,300 building trades workers in eastern Massachusetts participated in a general strike on all military work in the area to protest the use of open-shop (a worksite in which union membership is not required as a condition of employment) builders. The strike held on for a week in the face of threats from the U.S. War Department - 1917
French transport worker and socialist Eugene Pottier dies in Paris at age 71. In 1871 he authored ?L?Internationale,? the anthem to international labor solidarity, the first verse of which begins: "Stand up, damned of the Earth; Stand up, prisoners of starvation" - 1887