Hüseyin Dogru Journalist / red. media founder

Happy birthday to Emiliano Zapata, born today in 1879 in Anenecuilco, Morelos. A pivotal figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, he led an armed peasant revolt at the head of the "Liberation Army of the South," fighting to put land and power in the hands of the peasants: "We fight for the land and not for illusions that give us nothing to eat […] With or without elections, the people are chewing the cud of bitterness." Zapata was assassinated in 1919, lured into an ambush by government troops. His legacy lives on in the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which rose up in Chiapas in 1994 and still fights for land reform and justice.

On this day 20 years ago, an Israeli airstrike killed 28 civilians in southern Lebanon. Sixteen of them were children. The strike hit the same village, Qana, that Israel had bombed a decade earlier in 1996, killing 106 civilians sheltering in a UN compound. Israel claimed the building was a legitimate military target and refused to apologize. Human Rights Watch found no military equipment in or near the house.

On 28 July 1915 the US invaded Haiti starting a brutal 19-year occupation of the country. Conducted for selfish economic reasons and racist motives, the US waged two brutal wars against the native population, murdering thousands. American corporations were unable to accept Haitian independence while racist elements in US society including slave owners had never forgiven Haitians for launching the first successful Black rebellion against slavery. France had already forced the freed slaves to pay reparations to their former slaveowners, a ransom Haiti was still repaying when the Marines arrived. Even when US troops left in 1934 Washington retained influence over Haiti's finances until 1947.