8. The Tragic Week
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Spain
The Terrible Week, which took place between July 25th and August 2nd, 1909, was either a tragic week or a triumphant revolution, depending on who you ask. It was a disaster from the wealthy’s point of view.
Poor laborers led by a coalition of union leaders and anarchists revolted in Barcelona and other towns in Catalonia. They set fire to hundreds of structures, most of which belonged to the church. And all they wanted was a small draft to fight a tiny colonial war in Morocco—surely it couldn’t be that bad, right?
The impoverished were not convinced. They rioted after the Spanish imposed a draft, which males could avoid by paying a 6,000 reales fee. Even though they had been told they would never be recruited again, soldiers who had already fought in past conflicts were included in the conscription.
The poor went to enormous rallies, which quickly turned riotous for this reason, plus a whole lot of hate toward elites and the church. The army was eventually called in and began firing on the people.
Over 100 demonstrators had died by the time the Tragic Week ended. Following the protests, the Spanish government retaliated violently, detaining tens of thousands of people.
If you liked this article, you might also be interested in: Devastating Political Assassinations That Changed History.
5 thoughts on “8 Most Horrific Massacres In World History”
I don’t believe either the limited scale Russia-Ukraine conflict or a brutal police action in the US could possibly top the Armenian massacre by the Turks!! What about the Hutu massacre by Tutus in Rwanda? The Uighur persecutions by the CCP many of our politicans love taking money from? The rape camps and concentration camps the mostly Muslim Bosnians experienced?
The Rape of Nanking? Those two of the named actions on your list do not belong in the top five hundred of world’s worst massacres!
Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, the Crusades, the European wars from Julius Caesar to WWII, the African tribal conflicts, these ALL contained within their parameters incidents of great violence perpetrated on the innocent! I am not even including the actual wars and what atrocities occurred when the soldiers were fighting each other.
I’m no historian so these are just some of worse atrocities that came to my mind as I went through this list.
BEFORE I READ THE ARTICLE, I WAS SO SURE THAT YOU WOULD HAVE OMITTED THE CARNAGE METED OUT TO NEGROES DURING AMERICAN SLAVERY – AND INDEED I WAS CORRECT –
THE THOUSANDS OF DEAD BODIES THROWN OVERBOARD DURING THE MIDDLE PASSAGE, THE DAILY AND WEEKLY HANGINGS , THE COUNTLESS YOKINGS WHERE SLAVES WERE PLACED IN VATS AND BOILED TO DEATH ON EACH PLANTATION- I AM SURE YOUR RESPONSE WOULD BE – IT NEVER HAPPENED IN THIS WORLD – OR “IT WAS NOT POLITICAL ” YES IT WAS !!
WHAT ABOUT THE CARNAGE OF THE HUTUS AND TUTUS AND – IDI AMIN IN UGANDA ? I FORGOT – AFRICA AND AFRICANS ARE NOT PART OF THIS WORLD …
Just anted to add. I guess it is easy to omit the slaughter of thousands of Native Americans and the lynching of black Americans post 1860. Ever heard of thee Trail of Tears and the Tulsa Massacre.
The U.S. ranks #1.
How could you leave out the Cambodian massacre of thousands of people under the dictator Pol Pot?
Can’t believe you left out the Rape of Nanking in 1937, where Japanese invaders committed unspeakable atrocities on a grand scale, killing millions of Chinese innocents, including just-born and unborn babies, and required family members to have sex with each other as the women were systematically raped and killed. I’d have it in the top three to say the least along with Stalin’s and Hitler’s pogroms.