(Sources: Peace Buttons, War Resisters League, and the Peace Center.)
June 20
1960
Nobel laureate for Chemistry Linus Pauling defied Congress by refusing to name circulators of petitions calling for total halt of nuclear weapons testing. Pauling later won a second Nobel, a Peace Prize for his work championing nuclear disarmament.
Linus Pauling
Muhammad Ali convicted of refusing to be drafted
1982
2,500 were arrested during a two-day blockade of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in California, the principal American nuclear weapons research site.
1995
Shell Oil gave in to international pressure and abandoned its plans to dump the Brent Spar oil-drilling platform in the North Atlantic. The environmental group Greenpeace spearheaded the effort to prevent Shell from sinking the rig, its members boarding and occupying it as a tactic to stop the deep sea disposal.
Shell’s plan would have dumped toxic and radioactive sludge into the ocean just west of the British Isles. A month later, at the Oslo and Paris Commission (OSPARCOM) meeting, 11 out of 13 countries agreed on a moratorium on the dumping of offshore installations, pending agreement on a outright ban.
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Greenpeace climbers on Brent Spar platform |
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read more about Greenpeace and Brent Spar
Shell ships use water cannons against Greenpeace activists on board the rig. |
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 