This week in history

March 16

1827: The Monitor on Sydney indicts Governor Darling on 24 counts.

1968: US marines slaughter 347 Vietnamese villagers in the My Lai massacre.

March 17

1948: Police beat strikers and hospitalise Communist MP Fred Patterson in the St Patrick's Day Massacre.

March 18

1871: The Paris Commune is founded.

March 20

1943: Female munitions workers vote to strike if they aren't immediately awarded wage parity with men.

March 21

1917: Frank Hardy, novelist, communist and campaigner for Aboriginal rights, is born.

1960: 69 people are killed and 180 wounded by police in the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa.

March 22

1823: Three convicts escape to a stolen boat in Moreton Bay where they settle with local Aborigines.

From Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005.

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From GLW issue 619