{"podcast":{"title":"On This Day in Working Class History","slug":"on-this-day-in-working-class-history-6766530","podcast_index_feed_id":6766530,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/6070772/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://workingclasshistory.com/","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/6d8396c2dee8efae4fb6e6f06be1aa9a.jpg","author":"Working Class History","episode_count":868,"summary":"Daily briefings of On This Day people's history anniversaries every day of the year. From the Working Class History team. Help support our work by joining us on patreon and accessing exclusive content and benefits: patreon.com/workingclasshistory","last_synced_at":"2026-06-30T14:17:22.340057+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-this-day-in-working-class-history-6766530"},"episode":{"title":"19 June 1937: Trinidad general strike","slug":"19-june-1937-trinidad-general-strike","published_at":"2026-06-19T04:00:02+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-this-day-in-working-class-history-6766530/19-june-1937-trinidad-general-strike","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-this-day-in-working-class-history-6766530","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19-june-1937-trinidad-general-strike--72310201","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72310201/06_19_1937_trinidad_general_strike.mp3","summary":"On this day, 19 June 1937, after employers failed to agree to oil workers' pay demands, workers at one of Trinidad's oilfields went on strike. British colonial authorities attempted to arrest Uriah Butler, a former oil worker-turned preacher, who was helping to lead the dispute. However, he was defended by a crowd of workers, who killed two policemen – soaking one of them with paraffin and burning them. Butler (pictured) then went into hiding. The strike quickly spread across all oilfields, then to the rest of the economy. A state of emergency was declared and two British warships rushed to the island, arriving on 22 and 23 June, bringing marines and additional police from England and Ireland. Two local military units were also mobilised against the workers, and after numerous arrests and imprisonments the rebellion was quashed. Butler was captured in September and jailed for 2 years for sedition. Learn more in episodes 75-76 of our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e75-76-trinidad-general-strike/ Our work is only possible because of support from you, our listeners on patreon . If you appreciate our work, please join us and access exclusive content and benefits at patreon.com/workingclasshistory . See all of our anniversaries each day, alongside sources and maps on the On This Day section of our Stories app: stories.workingclasshistory.com/date/today Browse all Stories by Date here on the Date index: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/date Check out our Map of historical Stories: https://map.workingclasshistory.com Check out books, posters, clothing and more in our online store, here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com If you enjoy this podcast, make sure to check out our flagship longform podcast, Working Class History","meta_description":"On this day, 19 June 1937, after employers failed to agree to oil workers' pay demands, workers at one of Trinidad's oilfields went on strike. British col…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":108,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/on-this-day-in-working-class-history-6766530/episodes/19-june-1937-trinidad-general-strike/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/on-this-day-in-working-class-history-6766530/19-june-1937-trinidad-general-strike.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}