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Coordinated strikes and demonstrations are held nationwide, to demand an eight-hour workday for industrial workers.
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McCormick Reaper Works factory strike and unarmed strikers clash with police. Several strikers are killed in the process.
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A meeting is held near Haymarket Square, so police arrive to disperse the assembly. A bomb is thrown at the police and the police open fire. Anarchists fight back. People on both sides were killed. The bomb thrower is unknown to this day.
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The grand jury indicts 31, charged with being accessories to the murder of policeman Mathias J. Degan. Eight are chosen to stand trial: Albert Parsons, August Spies, Oscar Neebe, Louis Lingg, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden.
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Schwab, Spies and Parsons are prosecuted not as perpetrators but as responsible for instigating the violence. A guilty verdict and death sentence are seemingly inevitable.
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The jury convicts the defendants and sentences Neebe to fifteen years in the penitentiary and the others to death by hanging.
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The convicted deliver speeches to the court before death sentence.
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The last of the convicted deliver their speeches to the court before th final sentence.
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Legal counsel for the convicted appeal the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.
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Illinois Supreme Court upholds rulings and verdict, denying the appeal.
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The U.S. Supreme Court denies an appeal, despite an international campaign for clemency.
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On November 11, 1887, Samuel Fielden, Adolph Fischer, August Spies, and Albert Parson were executed.
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The funeral procession for the men was carried out in Chicago, being winessed by thousands.
