On this day, 21 June 1919, “Bloody Saturday” occurred during Canada’s best-known general strike – the Winnipeg general strike. 30,000 strikers assembled for a demonstration, the Winnipeg Mayor read the Riot Act to scare the strikers, and the police on horseback charged into the crowd, beating them with clubs and firing weapons. The violent attack resulted in the death of two strikers Mike Sokowolski (shot in the heart) and Mike Schezerbanowicz (shot in the legs, later dying of gangrene), 35 to 45 people injured, and numerous arrests. Four Eastern European immigrants were rounded up at this time (of whom two were deported). The day ended with Winnipeg virtually under military occupation. Later the police shut down the strikers’ paper, the Western Labour News, and arrested the editors for commentating on the “Bloody Saturday” events.
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