Hey there, it's Kathy.

I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to History of the 90s

early and ad-free on Amazon music included with Prime.

Just before dawn on the morning of November 30, 1999,

thousands of protesters locked arms and marched into downtown Seattle.

The protesters fanned out and blocked roads as they surrounded a convention center

where a conference organized by the World Trade Organization was set to take place over the next four days.

They dragged newspaper boxes,

garbage cans, and dumpsters into intersections and prevented delegates from holding their scheduled talks on global trade. Most of the demonstrators were peaceful, but among their ranks

was a small core of protesters dressed in black clothes and

ski masks, waiting for the right moment to unleash violence and mayhem.

I'm Kathy Kinsora, and this is History of the 90s, a podcast about a decade that changed the world.

On this episode, we revisit one of the largest

acts of mass civil disobedience in U.S. history, which marked the unofficial start of the

anti-globalization movement. This is the Battle in Seattle.

It's hard to imagine a time when the impact of globalization wasn't a widely discussed topic.

But it really wasn't a mainstream concern until the end of the 1990s.

That's when labor groups, environmentalists, human rights activists, and a broad coalition of other concerned citizens,

began sounding off more loudly about the dangers of free trade.

Beginning in the 1980s, there was a growing push for free trade among nations by removing tariffs and regulations that block the international exchange of goods.

The argument in favor of globalization from many economists and governments goes like this.

When nations have free trade, the wealth of the prosperous nations can help lift developing

...