Haymarket Riot

Episode in US labour history in Chicago's Haymarket Square 4 May 1886. A bomb was thrown at police dispersing a workers' demonstration organized to protest at police brutality against strikers at the nearby International Harvester plant. Seven police officers were killed and many people were wounded. Eight anarchists (mostly German-speaking) were convicted for the bombing, despite lack of evidence, and four of them were executed. Of the others, one committed suicide and the other three were pardoned 1893 because the trial had been unjust. The affair was a serious setback for the labour movement, associating it in the public mind with anarchism.