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Events/Strike or conflict · 1907

Santa Maria School massacre, Iquique

Strike or conflict, 21 December 1907, Chile.

What happened

Nitrate workers who had struck and gathered in Iquique were fired on by troops on General Silva Renard's order on 21 December 1907.1,2

Why it matters

It is a landmark of the Chilean labour movement.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Leadville: inception recorded

    Leadville has an inception date of 1877 in Wikidata.3

  2. Gold found on the Witwatersrand

    It created the largest gold field known and Johannesburg.4,5

  3. Monongah: inception recorded

    Monongah has an inception date of 1891 in Wikidata.6

  4. Kambalda: inception recorded

    Kambalda has an inception date of 1897 in Wikidata.7

  5. Penpoll builds a Liverpool smelter for Bolivian tin

    The smelter was built solely to treat Bolivian material.8,9

  6. Courrieres mine disaster

    Courrieres mine disaster. Wikidata records 1099 deaths.10

  7. Haber-Bosch process comes online

    The source says the Chilean nitrate monopoly and shrinking reserves in the 1890s pushed European scientists to fix nitrogen from the air.11,12

  8. Rand Rebellion begins

    An uprising on the Witwatersrand began on 28 December 1921 and ran into 1922 (dates from Wikidata).13,14

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Where next

Mines

An example ofHumberstone and Santa Laura saltpetre worksThe nitrate works at Humberstone and Santa Laura are now a World Heritage Site.15

Events

An example ofLudlow MassacreTroops fired on striking workers at Iquique in 1907. Guardsmen attacked the Ludlow colony in 1914.16

Places

Located inIquiqueTroops fired on striking nitrate workers at Iquique on 21 December 1907.1

Sources

  1. Masacre de la Escuela Santa Maria de Iquique Biblioteca Nacional de Chile (Memoria Chilena)
  2. Iquique (item Q14440), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Wikidata item Q286702 (Leadville)
  4. Discovery of the Gold in 1884 South African History Online
  5. Johannesburg (item Q34647), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  6. Wikidata item Q2731020 (Monongah)
  7. Wikidata item Q3192342 (Kambalda)
  8. Hillman J., The Emergence of the Tin Industry in Bolivia Journal of Latin American Studies 16(2) (Cambridge University Press)
  9. Wikidata item Q24826 (Liverpool)
  10. Wikidata item Q1550228 (Courrieres mine disaster)
  11. Dirty Business Science History Institute
  12. Germany (item Q183), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  13. Wikidata item Q3070782 (Rand Rebellion)
  14. Wikidata item Q34647 (Johannesburg)
  15. Wikidata entity Q572895
  16. War in the Coalfields: the Ludlow Massacre and its impact on the eight-hour workday US National Park Service

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.