On the morning of July 31, 1975, James Riddle Hoffa, one of the most
influential American labor leaders of the 20th century, was officially
reported missing after he failed to return home the previous night. 

Though he is popularly believed to have been the victim of a Mafia hit,
conclusive evidence was never found and Hoffa’s fate remains a mystery.

SANDY KOZEL

In one of the first sit-down strikes in the United States, autoworkers occupied
the General Motors Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint, Michigan. The autoworkers were striking to win recognition of the United Auto Workers
(UAW) as the only bargaining agent for GM’s workers; they also wanted to
make the company stop sending work to non-union plants and to establish
a fair minimum wage scale, a grievance system and a set of procedures that
would help protect assembly-line workers from injury. In all, the strike lasted
44 days.

General Motors’ workers celebrate the end of the historic Flint Sit-
Down Strike in 1937. As a result, 100,000 workers gained the right
to union representation.

SANDY KOZEL

ED DANAHUE

Approximately 600 people died when fire broke out at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, IL. on this day in 1903. The theater was billed
as being fire proof, much the same way the Titanic was said to be 
unsinkable. The fire one of the most horrific events in Chicago’s
history.

Drawing depicts the scene inside the lobby when fire broke out in the
Iroquois Theater.

On this day in 1936, the United Auto Workers union staged its first
sit-down strike, at the Fisher Body Plant in Flint, MI. The Flint Sit–
Down Strike is known as the most important strike in American
history because it changed the United Automobile Workers (UAW)

The UAW was founded as part of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly
from 1936 to the 1950s.