Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, Augustth, 1921.

Tensions are ratcheting up in Logan County, West Virginia in the southwest part of the state,

not too far from Kentucky in the Appalachian Mountains.

This is coal country. and what was simmering and

brewing and about to explode was a massive labor dispute between coal miners and coal companies

and eventually intervention from the US government.

In the coming days, the strikes and protests would evolve into violence and bloodshed,

the largest labor uprising in United States history, some 10 to 15,000 striking minors and ultimately as I said intervention from federal

troops.

Now there's a lot to be said about what would come to be known as the Battle of Blair Mountain

but it is worth pointing out that one reason we are doing this

episode is because over the last couple of months we've done episodes on the Tulsa Massacre and also in

1921 and the move bombing in Philadelphia in the 80s.

And in both of those, we remarked and talked a little bit

about how government-aligned forces or people backed by the government

had dropped bombs on American citizens, and we kind of marveled at that and wondered

has this ever happened at other points in American history and we got a ton of emails from

folks saying that yes it had during the battle of Blair Mountain

President Harding threatened to send in Army bombers and a number of homemade bombs

were dropped on protesters from airplanes. So thank you listeners for suggesting this. This is a

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