On April 26, LaQuita Henry walked into the main administration building at The Ohio State University like she had done on the same day, and nearly the same time, 50 years earlier. The circumstances, though, could not have been more different.

“I believe we were actually there a little bit before 10 a.m. It was right before noon that the administration building was taken over because there was so much resistance to what was being stated and what we were trying to negotiate – a change on campus,” Henry said.

Henry was one of the leaders of the Black Student Union at Ohio State who staged a protest inside what is now Bricker Hall to bring issues of educational inequality, racial disparities and police misconduct to the attention of university leadership in 1968. The flashpoint for the protest came after four black female students were kicked off a bus and allegedly harassed by campus police. Once the protest began, students pushed for more diversity in academic leadership, courses and the student body.

Fifty years later, the Ohio State Alumni Association and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) hosted a series of events last weekend to honor those students.

Henry joined several of her former classmates on a bus tour of the Columbus campus to get a sense of how much the university has changed. They were also the guests at receptions hosted by the alumni association, ODI and the African American and African Studies Community Extension Center, and they were guests of President Michael V. Drake.

John Sidney Evans was the spokesman for the Black Student Union at the time of the protests. He, like 33 of his peers, was expelled and criminally charged for the takeover of the administration building.

All had to fight to clear their names and reverse their expulsions. Evans said they also had to fight for their place in history.

1478 – Pazzi conspirators attacked Lorenzo and killed Giuliano de’Medici.

1514 – Copernicus made his first observations of Saturn.

1607 – The British established an American colony at Cape Henry, Virginia. It was the first permanent English establishment in the Western Hemisphere.

1819 – The first Odd Fellows lodge in the U.S. was established in Baltimore, MD.

1865 – Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Sherman during the American Civil War.

1865 – John Wilkes Booth was killed by the U.S. Federal Cavalry.

1906 – In Hawaii, motion pictures were shown for the first time.

1921 – Weather broadcasts were heard for the first time on radio in St. Louis, MO.

1929 – First non-stop flight from England to India was completed.

1931 – New York Yankee Lou Gehrig hit a home run but was called out for passing a runner.

1931 – NBC premiered “Lum and Abner.” It was on the air for 24 years.

1937 – German planes attacked Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War for the Spanish nationalist government. This raid is considered one of the first to be attacks on a civilian population by a modern air force.

1937 – “LIFE” magazine was printed without the word “LIFE” on the cover.

1937 – “Lorenzo Jones” premiered on NBC radio.

1941 – An organ was played at a baseball stadium for the first time in Chicago, IL.

1945 – Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France’s Vichy government during World War II, was arrested.

1952 – Patty Berg set a new record for major women’s golf competition when she shot a 64 over 18 holes in a tournament in Richmond, CA.

1954 – Grace Kelly was on the cover of “LIFE” magazine.

1964 – The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

1964 – The Boston Celtics won their sixth consecutive NBA title. They won two more before the streak came to an end.

1968 – Students seized the administration building at Ohio State University.

1982 – The British announced that Argentina had surrendered on South Georgia.

1983 – Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 1,200 for first time.

1985 – In Argentina, a fire at a mental hospital killed 79 people and injured 247.

1986 – The world’s worst nuclear disaster to date occurred at Chernobyl, in Kiev. Thirty-one people died in the incident and thousands more were exposed to radioactive material.

1998 – Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he’d compiled on atrocities during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war was made public.

2000 – Charles Wang and Sanjay Kumar purchased the NHL‘s New York Islanders.

2002 – In Erfurt, Germany, an expelled student killed 17 people at his former school. The student then killed himself.

on-this-day.com

Human history proves we’re interconnected. DNA proves we’re mixed. Migration proves we’ve always lived together. Yet the global system still behaves like the old hierarchies are real.

People often think neo‑colonialism is about:

• skin color
• identity
• culture

But structurally, it’s about:

• who controls capital
• who controls resources
• who controls trade rules
• who controls debt
• who controls global institutions

Even if everyone suddenly acknowledged mixed ancestry, the power relationships would still be in place.

That’s why the system continues.

That’s the absurdity of neo‑colonialism in the 21st century.

It’s not that people don’t know better. It’s that the structures haven’t caught up to the truth.

I had a chat with AI

1590 – The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu.

1644 – The Ming Chongzhen emperor committed suicide by hanging himself.

1684 – A patent was granted for the thimble.

1707 – At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeated the Anglo-Portugese.

1792 – The guillotine was first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.

1831 – The New York and Harlem Railway was incorporated in New York City.

1846 – The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas‘ southern boundary at the Rio Grande River.

1859 – Work began on the Suez Canal in Egypt.

1860 – The first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington, DC. They remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks while discussing expansion of trade with the United States.

1862 – Union Admiral Farragut occupied New Orleans, LA.

1864 – After facing defeat in the Red River Campaign, Union General Nathaniel Bank returned to Alexandria, LA.

1867 – Tokyo was opened for foreign trade.

1882 – French commander Henri Riviere seized the citadel of Hanoi in Indochina.

1898 – The U.S. declared war on Spain. Spain had declared war on the U.S. the day before.

1901 – New York became the first state to require license plates for cars. The fee was $1.

1915 – During World War I, Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in hopes of attacking the Central Powers from below. The attack was unsuccessful.

1925 – General Paul von Hindenburg took office as president of Germany.

1926 – In Iran, Reza Kahn was crowned Shah and choose the name “Pehlevi.”

1928 – A seeing eye dog was used for the first time.

1938 – “Your Family and Mine,” a radio serial, was first broadcast.

1940 – W2XBS (now WCBS-TV) in New York City presented the first circus on TV.

1945 – U.S. and Soviet forces met at Torgau, Germany on Elbe River.

1945 – Delegates from about 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.

1952 – After a three-day fight against Chinese Communist Forces, the Gloucestershire Regiment was annihilated on “Gloucester Hill,” in Korea.

1953 – U.S. Senator Wayne Morse ended the longest speech in U.S. Senate history. The speech on the Offshore Oil Bill lasted 22 hours and 26 minutes.

1953 – Dr. James D. Watson and Dr. Francis H.C. Crick suggested the double helix structure of DNA.

1954 – The prototype manufacture of the first solar battery was announced by the Bell Laboratories in New York City.

1957 – Operations began at the first experimental sodium nuclear reactor.

1959 – St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping. The water way connects the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

1961 – Robert Noyce was granted a patent for the integrated circuit.

1962 – The U.S. spacecraft, Ranger, crashed on the Moon.

1967 – Colorado Governor John Love signed the first law legalizing abortion in the U.S. The law was limited to therapeutic abortions when agreed to, unanimously, by a panel of three physicians.

1971 – The country of Bangladesh was established.

1974 – Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar was overthrown in a military coup.

1976 – Portugal ratified a constitution. It was first revised on October 30, 1982.

1980 – In Iran, a commando mission to rescue hostages was aborted after mechanical problems disabled three of the eight helicopters involved. During the evacuation, a helicopter and a transport plan collided and exploded. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed. The mission was aimed at freeing American hostages that had been taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. The event took place April 24th Washington, DC, time.

1982 – In accordance with Camp David agreements, Israel completed its Sinai withdrawal.

1983 – Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a letter in which the U.S. schoolgirl expressed fears about nuclear war.

1983 – The Pioneer 10 spacecraft crossed Pluto’s orbit, speeding on its endless voyage through the Milky Way.

1984 – In France, over one million people demonstrated to show they favored the decentralization of education.

1984 – David Anthony Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead of a drug overdose in a hotel room.

1985 – “Big River (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)” opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway in New York City.

1987 – In Washington, DC, 100,000 people protested the U.S. policy in Central America.

1987 – Peter O’Toole opened in “Pygmalion” on Broadway.

1988 – In Israel, John “Ivan the Terrible” Demjanuk was sentenced to death as a Nazi war criminal.

1990 – Sandinista rule ended in Nicaragua.

1990 – The U.S. Hubble Space Telescope was placed into Earth’s orbit. It was released by the space shuttle Discovery.

1992 – Islamic forces in Afghanistan took control of most of the capital of Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government.

1996 – The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel.

2003 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was sentenced to four years in prison for her conviction on fraud and theft charges. She was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft of money from a women’s political league.

2007 – The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 13,000 for the first time.