October 19, 2020 • 10 mins
Members of the military attacked the National Palace in Guatemala on this day in 1944, during the Guatemalan Revolution. / On this day in 1909, French nuclear chemist and discoverer of francium Marguerite Perey was born.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. We're doubling up today with two
events in history, one from me and one from former
host Tracy V. Wilson. On with the show. Welcome to
this day in History Class from how Stuff Works dot
Com and from the desk of Stuff You Missed in
History Class. It's the show where we explore the past
one day at a time with a quick look at
what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:26):
I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's October nineteen. Members of
the military attacked the National Palace in Guatemala on this
day in nineteen forty four during the Guatemalan Revolution. This
revolution had started earlier in nineteen forty four, as students
and young military officers rose up against President Jorge Ubiko.
(00:47):
He had been elected president in nineteen thirty one, and
his early presidency had included a campaign against government corruption,
improvements to public health, an overhaul of Guatemala's infrastructure, and
help being to stabilize the country's economy. But by ninety
four he had gotten rid of all political opposition and
he was governing as a military dictator. His policies had
(01:10):
also increasingly favored elite landowners and corporations, especially the US
based United Fruit Company, which owned a lot of the
arable land in Guatemala, but wasn't actually using most of
that land, meaning it wasn't available for anyone else to
use either. He had also implemented things like Decree eighteen sixteen,
which exempted landowners from prosecution if they used violence to
(01:35):
defend their land, up to and including murdering someone. He
had also abolished a series of forced labor laws, but
then replaced them with vagrancy laws that were very similar,
and these really amounted to indentured servitude, and a lot
of cases the so called vagrants who were being forced
to work were from Guatemala's Maya people's Ubico also developed
(01:59):
close ties with the United States, and the United States
was providing Guatemala with armaments and with favorable tariff terms.
This whole situation, though, was not unique at all to Guatemala.
Other nations in Central America had very similarly unyielding dictators
in control, with similar social and economic effects, similar reliance
on one food crop for most of the economy, similar
(02:22):
connections to the United States and United States based business interests,
and one dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez was overthrown in neighboring
El Salvador in nineteen forty four. This overthrow became an
inspiration for a similar campaign against Ubiko and Guatemala, not
(02:43):
just inspiring the students and other young people to rise up,
but also inspiring in Ubiko a fear that the same
thing might happen to him, so he cracked down on
civil liberties. He put people who were loyal to him
in charge of the university. He basically tried to do
what he could to ensure his own power. This had
(03:03):
the opposite effect of what he wanted. A series of
protests followed, with students at San Carlos University petitioning for
changes to the university teaching staff and other reforms. Lawyers
were petitioning for biased judges to be removed from the bench,
teachers were demonstrating for pay increases, and all these initial
demonstrations were non violent. They included things like boycotts and strikes.
(03:25):
The Guatemalan government responded to all this by deploying tanks
and troops and using tear gas on the demonstrators, placing
the capital under martial law. But the demonstrations spread, even
as the government was placing participants under surveillance and deporting
foreign supporters of the movement. Finally, at the end of June,
tens of thousands of demonstrators were gathered at the capitol
(03:48):
and Obiko's support was really eroding. He resigned on July one,
nine and placed the government under the control of a
military triumvirate, although he allegedly remained in charge. The National
Assembly elected one of the triumvirate, General Frederico ponce Vitis, president.
He promised that a free election was going to follow,
(04:09):
but by October it was obvious that it just was
not going to happen, and Guatemala was sliding farther and
farther away from democracy. The protests continued. Students and teachers
called for a general strike on October six Students and
members of the military began taking control of the capital.
On October eighteenth, there was an attack on the National
(04:29):
Palace by members of the military. As I said at
the top of the show. On October nineteen, violence spread
through the capital. The presidential guard rebelled, and the general
finally surrendered on the twentie This didn't put a total
end to the violence or the unrest, but new elections
did follow in December, and they were one of the
(04:51):
freest elections that Guatemala had seen in decades. A new
constitution was drafted in nineteen This constitutional rule last and
for just less than a decade before President Jacobo Arban's
was elected in nineteen fifty one, and he had been
part of the revolution. He instituted a lot of land reforms,
(05:11):
including redistributed a lot of that unused land that United
Fruit Company had been buying up. The United States didn't
like that. The United States was also threatened by the
fact that he legalized the Communist Party in Guatemala, so
so the CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected government of
Guatemala in ninety four. Thanks to Eves Jeff Cope for
(05:33):
her research work on today's podcast and Tara Harrison for
her audio work on this show. You can subscribe to
This Day in History Class at Apple Podcasts, Google podcast
and wherever you get your podcasts, and you can tune
in tomorrow for a political purge. Hi, everyone, welcome to
(05:56):
the show. I'm Eve and you're listening to This Day
in His Three Class, a show that uncovers a little
bit more about history every day. The day was October nineteenth,
nineteen o nine. French nuclear chemist and physicist Marguerite Parae
(06:16):
was born in Vila Mambla, France, a suburb northeast of Paris.
Parae is known for discovering franci um element of the
periodic table and being the first woman elected to the
French Academy of Sciences. Parae was born into a middle
class Protestant family. As a child, she took an interest
(06:37):
in science and wanted to study medicine, but her father
died in nineteen fourteen, leaving her mom to take care
of her and her four siblings. Her mother gave piano lessons,
but the family still faced financial hardship and Marguerite could
not go to a university. She did, however, attend La
(06:58):
Cote d'An signment techniqu Feminine, a school for female technicians.
Her education there qualified her to become a chemistry technician,
and after she completed her studies, she became a lab
assistant at the Radium Institute in Paris, where physicist and
Nobel Prize winner Marie Curry was director. Currie acted as
(07:19):
a mentor to Parae. Radio activity was the focus of
Paray's work. Her job was to purify actinium, a radioactive
element that was discovered in eighteen by chemist Andre de Bien.
Paraye was skilled when it came to preparing radioactive sources,
and she eventually became Curie's personal assistant. After cry died
(07:41):
in nineteen thirty four, Andre debian became the director of
the institute, and Parae continued researching the properties of actinium.
She also studied the spectrum of the radioactive elements barium
and strontium. By this time, Paray's work in radio chemistry
was well recognized others in her field, but the discovery
(08:02):
she's best remembered for what happened in nineteen eight Scientists
were trying to find element eighty seven on the periodic table,
one of just a few elements that they thought were
missing from the periodic table. In her research, Paray realized
that the actinium she had purified was emitting unexpected radiation.
(08:23):
After a series of tests, she came to the conclusion
that she had discovered a new element, one that was
predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table. It was element eighty
seven with an atomic weight of two three. She initially
called the element actin um k, but it was later
renamed francium after her home country. Jean Perrin announced the
(08:46):
discovery to the French Academy of Sciences in early January
nineteen thirty nine. Parae began working on the chemical and
nuclear properties of francium and studying artificial radioactivity. She got
a grant to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, and
in nineteen forty six she got her doctorate of physics.
Paray went on to work at Francis National Center for
(09:08):
Scientific Research, and she studied the biological effects of francium
at the University of Strasbourg, where she was made head
of the Department of Nuclear Chemistry in nineteen forty nine.
By the late nineteen fifties, a nuclear chemistry lab she
directed at Strasbourg had become a part of a larger
nuclear research facility. In nineteen sixty two, she was elected
(09:31):
as the first female corresponding member of the French Academy
of Sciences. She remained head of her lab in Strasbourg
until her death. In her last years, she continued to
receive awards and the press recognized her as a notable scientist. Unfortunately,
her story was also a cautionary tale about safety measures
(09:52):
that are necessary when working with radiation. Paray was diagnosed
with cancer in the nineteen sixties. At your years of
dealing with that diagnosis, which was a result of her
prolonged exposure to radiation, she died in France in May
of nineteen I'm each Deepcote and hopefully you know a
little more about history today than you did yesterday. Feel
(10:16):
free to share your thoughts or your innermost feelings with
us and with other listeners on social media at t
d i h C podcast. If emails your thing, send
us a note at this Day at i heeart media
dot com. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We'll see
you again tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
(10:44):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. We're doubling up today with two
events in history, one from me and one from former
host Tracy V. Wilson. On with the show. Welcome to
this day in History Class from how Stuff Works dot
Com and from the desk of Stuff You Missed in
History Class. It's the show where we explore the past
one day at a time with a quick look at
what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:26):
I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's October nineteen. Members of
the military attacked the National Palace in Guatemala on this
day in nineteen forty four during the Guatemalan Revolution. This
revolution had started earlier in nineteen forty four, as students
and young military officers rose up against President Jorge Ubiko.
(00:47):
He had been elected president in nineteen thirty one, and
his early presidency had included a campaign against government corruption,
improvements to public health, an overhaul of Guatemala's infrastructure, and
help being to stabilize the country's economy. But by ninety
four he had gotten rid of all political opposition and
he was governing as a military dictator. His policies had
(01:10):
also increasingly favored elite landowners and corporations, especially the US
based United Fruit Company, which owned a lot of the
arable land in Guatemala, but wasn't actually using most of
that land, meaning it wasn't available for anyone else to
use either. He had also implemented things like Decree eighteen sixteen,
which exempted landowners from prosecution if they used violence to
(01:35):
defend their land, up to and including murdering someone. He
had also abolished a series of forced labor laws, but
then replaced them with vagrancy laws that were very similar,
and these really amounted to indentured servitude, and a lot
of cases the so called vagrants who were being forced
to work were from Guatemala's Maya people's Ubico also developed
(01:59):
close ties with the United States, and the United States
was providing Guatemala with armaments and with favorable tariff terms.
This whole situation, though, was not unique at all to Guatemala.
Other nations in Central America had very similarly unyielding dictators
in control, with similar social and economic effects, similar reliance
on one food crop for most of the economy, similar
(02:22):
connections to the United States and United States based business interests,
and one dictator Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez was overthrown in neighboring
El Salvador in nineteen forty four. This overthrow became an
inspiration for a similar campaign against Ubiko and Guatemala, not
(02:43):
just inspiring the students and other young people to rise up,
but also inspiring in Ubiko a fear that the same
thing might happen to him, so he cracked down on
civil liberties. He put people who were loyal to him
in charge of the university. He basically tried to do
what he could to ensure his own power. This had
(03:03):
the opposite effect of what he wanted. A series of
protests followed, with students at San Carlos University petitioning for
changes to the university teaching staff and other reforms. Lawyers
were petitioning for biased judges to be removed from the bench,
teachers were demonstrating for pay increases, and all these initial
demonstrations were non violent. They included things like boycotts and strikes.
(03:25):
The Guatemalan government responded to all this by deploying tanks
and troops and using tear gas on the demonstrators, placing
the capital under martial law. But the demonstrations spread, even
as the government was placing participants under surveillance and deporting
foreign supporters of the movement. Finally, at the end of June,
tens of thousands of demonstrators were gathered at the capitol
(03:48):
and Obiko's support was really eroding. He resigned on July one,
nine and placed the government under the control of a
military triumvirate, although he allegedly remained in charge. The National
Assembly elected one of the triumvirate, General Frederico ponce Vitis, president.
He promised that a free election was going to follow,
(04:09):
but by October it was obvious that it just was
not going to happen, and Guatemala was sliding farther and
farther away from democracy. The protests continued. Students and teachers
called for a general strike on October six Students and
members of the military began taking control of the capital.
On October eighteenth, there was an attack on the National
(04:29):
Palace by members of the military. As I said at
the top of the show. On October nineteen, violence spread
through the capital. The presidential guard rebelled, and the general
finally surrendered on the twentie This didn't put a total
end to the violence or the unrest, but new elections
did follow in December, and they were one of the
(04:51):
freest elections that Guatemala had seen in decades. A new
constitution was drafted in nineteen This constitutional rule last and
for just less than a decade before President Jacobo Arban's
was elected in nineteen fifty one, and he had been
part of the revolution. He instituted a lot of land reforms,
(05:11):
including redistributed a lot of that unused land that United
Fruit Company had been buying up. The United States didn't
like that. The United States was also threatened by the
fact that he legalized the Communist Party in Guatemala, so
so the CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected government of
Guatemala in ninety four. Thanks to Eves Jeff Cope for
(05:33):
her research work on today's podcast and Tara Harrison for
her audio work on this show. You can subscribe to
This Day in History Class at Apple Podcasts, Google podcast
and wherever you get your podcasts, and you can tune
in tomorrow for a political purge. Hi, everyone, welcome to
(05:56):
the show. I'm Eve and you're listening to This Day
in His Three Class, a show that uncovers a little
bit more about history every day. The day was October nineteenth,
nineteen o nine. French nuclear chemist and physicist Marguerite Parae
(06:16):
was born in Vila Mambla, France, a suburb northeast of Paris.
Parae is known for discovering franci um element of the
periodic table and being the first woman elected to the
French Academy of Sciences. Parae was born into a middle
class Protestant family. As a child, she took an interest
(06:37):
in science and wanted to study medicine, but her father
died in nineteen fourteen, leaving her mom to take care
of her and her four siblings. Her mother gave piano lessons,
but the family still faced financial hardship and Marguerite could
not go to a university. She did, however, attend La
(06:58):
Cote d'An signment techniqu Feminine, a school for female technicians.
Her education there qualified her to become a chemistry technician,
and after she completed her studies, she became a lab
assistant at the Radium Institute in Paris, where physicist and
Nobel Prize winner Marie Curry was director. Currie acted as
(07:19):
a mentor to Parae. Radio activity was the focus of
Paray's work. Her job was to purify actinium, a radioactive
element that was discovered in eighteen by chemist Andre de Bien.
Paraye was skilled when it came to preparing radioactive sources,
and she eventually became Curie's personal assistant. After cry died
(07:41):
in nineteen thirty four, Andre debian became the director of
the institute, and Parae continued researching the properties of actinium.
She also studied the spectrum of the radioactive elements barium
and strontium. By this time, Paray's work in radio chemistry
was well recognized others in her field, but the discovery
(08:02):
she's best remembered for what happened in nineteen eight Scientists
were trying to find element eighty seven on the periodic table,
one of just a few elements that they thought were
missing from the periodic table. In her research, Paray realized
that the actinium she had purified was emitting unexpected radiation.
(08:23):
After a series of tests, she came to the conclusion
that she had discovered a new element, one that was
predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table. It was element eighty
seven with an atomic weight of two three. She initially
called the element actin um k, but it was later
renamed francium after her home country. Jean Perrin announced the
(08:46):
discovery to the French Academy of Sciences in early January
nineteen thirty nine. Parae began working on the chemical and
nuclear properties of francium and studying artificial radioactivity. She got
a grant to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, and
in nineteen forty six she got her doctorate of physics.
Paray went on to work at Francis National Center for
(09:08):
Scientific Research, and she studied the biological effects of francium
at the University of Strasbourg, where she was made head
of the Department of Nuclear Chemistry in nineteen forty nine.
By the late nineteen fifties, a nuclear chemistry lab she
directed at Strasbourg had become a part of a larger
nuclear research facility. In nineteen sixty two, she was elected
(09:31):
as the first female corresponding member of the French Academy
of Sciences. She remained head of her lab in Strasbourg
until her death. In her last years, she continued to
receive awards and the press recognized her as a notable scientist. Unfortunately,
her story was also a cautionary tale about safety measures
(09:52):
that are necessary when working with radiation. Paray was diagnosed
with cancer in the nineteen sixties. At your years of
dealing with that diagnosis, which was a result of her
prolonged exposure to radiation, she died in France in May
of nineteen I'm each Deepcote and hopefully you know a
little more about history today than you did yesterday. Feel
(10:16):
free to share your thoughts or your innermost feelings with
us and with other listeners on social media at t
d i h C podcast. If emails your thing, send
us a note at this Day at i heeart media
dot com. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We'll see
you again tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
(10:44):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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