Solidarity strike at Gdansk
August 14, 1980
An electrician named Lech Walesa climbed over the fence of the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk and joined a strike. Within weeks Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc, had ten million members. The communist authorities would impose martial law in 1981. Walesa would be president of a free Poland by 1990.
In context
Also in 1980 (6 other events on record)
- Iran-Iraq War begins · Middle East · War
- Mount St. Helens erupts · North America · Disaster
- Gwangju uprising · East Asia · Politics
- John Lennon shot · North America · Culture
- Four American nuns killed in El Salvador · North America · Religion
- Rubik's Cube and Pac-Man launch · Europe · Culture
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Politics
Era
Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.