Ten Of The Wildest Riots Of All Time

10. The Halifax Riot

Halifax, Canada, 1945

During World War II, Halifax was used as a key port for Canadian operations, and while the population of the city effectively doubled the available services and space remained the same. Tension had been high between soldiers and the populace over overpriced merchandise and refusal of service to soldiers. On the other side of the equation the locals strained to find food and resources that weren’t being commandeered by the military.

After the surrender of Germany the rear admiral Leonard W. Murray thought his sailors deserved some R&R. Going against advice by other officers he allowed 9000 troops to go ashore and enjoy the night. The troops attracted more revelers and soon downtown Halifax was packed with 12,000 partiers without much place to go. To pass the evening, and without any more Nazis to fight, they started to smash up their own country. Shop windows were smashed and looted, cars and trolley were set ablaze, and liquor stores were emptied and their contents quickly metabolized. The Rear admiral, not paying much attention, assumed that the reports in the papers he read that morning were overblown, and he allowed another 9000 troops to go ashore for the next night. Genius! The result, not surprisingly: more rioting and looting.

The Rear Admiral eventually saw his error and he, along with the mayor, drove through town with a loudspeaker ordering everyone home. Despite the scale of the destruction only 3 people died, and those were likely done in by alcohol poisoning, not terribly surprising considering sixty-five thousand quarts of liquor, 8,000 cases of beer and 1,500 cases of wine had been looted from local stores.

9. The Rice Riots

Japan, 1918

After World War I rice prices in Japan began to climb and workers across the nation were making little money in an economic slump. The problem escalated when the government bought up huge rice stores to ship to troops overseas. Because of this the price of basic food-stuffs rose even higher.

The economic tension sparked riots starting in July that continued until September and involved more than 2 million people. While there were no violent casualties, there were over 600 riots and protests, featuring 25,000 arrests and 6,000 convictions. Rice merchants were often the target of looters since they were seen as driving up prices and taking advantage of the public. After three months of civil unrest Prime Minister Terauchi stepped down in penance for his administrations failure to keep order. Peace was eventually returned when rice stores were replenished by increased imports to Japan.

8. The Plague Riot

Moscow, Russia, 1771

Bubonic plague had started appearing in Moscow a year earlier and by September of 1771 an epidemic had the city paralyzed. Officials forced quarantines, closed public baths, and confiscated or destroyed citizen’s property without compensation in an effort to stop the disease from spreading. With the city shut down people were left poor and hungry.

When the Archbishop of Moscow ordered a crowd not to gather around a statue of the Virgin Mary, mobs of angry citizens stormed the Kremlin. They barged in and destroyed the Archbishop’s residences and his wine cellars, and the bishop only narrowly escaped to the nearby Donskoy Monastery. The next day rioters stormed the Donskoy Monastery and killed the hiding Archbishop. Afterwards, rioters began opening up quarantined zones of the city and looting. Eventually the rioters moved onto the Kremlin, but the military was waiting and the crowd quickly dispersed when the soldiers opened fire.

On the third day of rioting another thousand citizens gathered at the gates of the Kremlin demanding the release of prisoners who were captured the day before, but the military quickly dispersed and captured the protesters. Only four prisoners were eventually executed, while the plague itself killed over 200,000 before it subsided with the onset of winter.

7. The Vaccine Revolt

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1904

In an effort to eradicate smallpox in the city the government passed the Mandatory Vaccination Law which gave medical personnel and police the right to enter and citizen’s home and administer smallpox vaccinations by force if necessary. This law came after a year of trying to modernize the infrastructure of the city, which had displaced many poor citizens from their homes when they were torn down for newer, more expensive, modern structures to be built.

Citizens, angry at their homes being invades or destroyed, and fueled by rumors about the dangers and depravity of the vaccine (it was rumored women had to undress to be vaccinated), rioted for 6 days in November. They looted shops, started fires, built barricades, attacked government employees and military forces with rocks and debris, and destroyed trains and tracks.

In response, the government suspended their vaccination efforts and focused on containing the rioters. By the end, thirty were dead and several hundred imprisoned. After peace had been restored the Vaccination Law went back into effect, and smallpox was eventually wiped out in Rio de Janeiro.

6. The Watts Riot

Los Angeles, USA, 1965

Tensions in LA began to rise with the arrest of Marquette Frye, an African-American, by Lee Minikus, a white officer of the California Highway patrol. Accused of driving while intoxicated, Marquette (and his brother and mother) were eventually arrested. This was the tipping point for already strained racial relations and it kicked off 6 days of deadly riots, largely in the Watts neighborhood of southern LA.

After the arrests rioters started prowling the neighborhood, harassing police officers and breaking windows. Meetings held with community leaders the next day failed to ease tensions, and rioting crowds increased their violence. Many of the targets were white shop owners, businesses, and police officers, who had been perceived as taking advantage of the non-white residents of the area. By the fourth day of unrest, fires had been set all over the city and over 100 fire brigades were trying to quell the blazes. By midnight on the fourth day, over 13,000 national guardsmen were in the city.

On the fifth day rioters had been largely dispersed or arrested. During the riots over 1000 building had been burned, looted, damaged, or destroyed, and 400 arrests had been made. Over 1000 people were injured with 34 dead.

5. The Los Angeles Riot

Los Angeles, USA, 1992

After the acquittal of four LAPD officers who were on trial for the beating of Rodney King, an African-American man pulled over after a high speed chase, citizens rioted for 6 days in protest. Amateur footage of Rodney’s beating that showed police officers bludgeoning him while he lay on the pavement had been highly publicized during the trial:

The afternoon after the court verdict, protesters began to gather and, after no appeals were offered, began to smash, loot, and burn. The riot was largely televised with the use of helicopters, and Reginald Oliver Denny was one of the notable televised victims. He was pulled from his truck at a stoplight and a brick was thrown at the side of his head, leaving him unconscious and doing permanent damage to his brain. The riots continued the next day as fires were blazing all over the city, and officials warned that anarchy would not be tolerated, but the National Guard was slow to arrive because of being poorly organized and equipped. On the third day of riots, Rodney King made his famous televised plea to the populace, asking: “can we all just get along?”

It wasn’t until the fourth day of the riot that the military arrived and rioters were finally quelled. The next few days saw sporadic outbreaks of violence, but the riot was mostly over. During the violence, 53 people died and 2,000 were injured. It is estimated that 3,600 fires were set, and over 1,100 buildings were destroyed.

4. The St. Scholastica Riot

Oxford, England, 1355

This riot erupted between scholars and townspeople in Oxford on St. Scholastica’s feast day. St. Scholastica, is especially known for asking God to create a storm that would force her brother to stay with her to continue their discussion of sacred texts. Presumably this would make St. Scholastica’s feast day a particularly studious holiday. However, the students of Oxford marked the academic occasion by, in true student form, drinking. Excessively.

During an evening of drinking in the Swindlestock Tavern, two students from Oxford University got into an insult match with the barkeep over wine. This escalated and led to an armed clash between students and locals over the next two days. The fighting was serious enough that 63 students and 30 locals died.

Even though the scholars were beaten in the fight, trials afterward ruled in their favor, and an annual punishment was placed on the city. Every year on February 10th the mayor and councilors had to walk bareheaded through the street and pay the university a fine of one penny for every scholar killed. Even though town officials had been refusing to participate since the mid 1800’s, this wasn’t officially resolved until 1955 when the mayor of Oxford was given an honorary degree.

3. The Copper Riot

Moscow, Russia, 1662

In an attempt to boost their economy the Russian government began producing copper coins and assigning them equal value to silver currency. The effort failed, and copper money was largely devalued by widespread counterfeiting operations, often with official entanglement. The end result was a deepening of the economic slump Moscow was already facing and widespread poverty.

Tensions peaked when a black list of persons accused of being responsible for the economic slump was posted, and, though its authorship was unknown, it associated many prominent aristocrats and merchants with Poland, a nation whose Catholicity was considered sinister. Ten-thousand protesters gathered and marched to Kolomenskoye, the residence of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, and demanded that the ‘traitors’ be turned over to them. The Tsar, being a nice guy, told the people he would investigate and also lower taxes to help the people. The mob was satisfied and started to travel back to Moscow. However, while the first group of protesters had been in Kolomenskoye, another group had been destroying and looting the property of hated merchants in Moscow. The two groups met, renewing the hostility of the first group, and returned in greater number to confront the Tsar and make more demands.

Tsar Alexi, however, now had 10,000 soldiers waiting and ordered a merciless suppression of the crowd. Over a thousand were brutally killed, quelling the mob, and many thousand more were later convicted and exiled or hanged.

2. Direct Action Day

Calcutta, British India, 1946

During the process of transferring power from the British Raj to the Indian government two national parties, The Muslim League and the Indian National Congress, argued over a proposal to divide the land into a Hindu-majority Indian and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. The Indian National Congress rejected the idea. the Muslim League planned protests in response on August 16, which they called Direct Action Day, to voice their desire for a separate Muslim state.

Many of these protests happened across the nation peacefully, but in Calcutta tensions erupted into violence. Over 100,000 protesters gathered to hear speeches and advocate for an independent Muslim state, but many came armed with iron bars and bamboo sticks. After the rallies, the Muslim crowds left and began looting Hindu shops and citizens. The violence escalated when the Hindu populace began retaliatory strike. Gangs of Muslim and Hindu men walked the streets brutally attacking their opposition, and it was the general attitude of both sides that for every one of their comrades killed, ten of the other side should die.

The death toll was high with this vengeful mantra and by the time the riots were finally stopped by military and police forces on the 22nd of August some 10,000 people had been killed and over 100,000 injured.

1. The Nika Riots

Constantinople, Eastern Roman Empire, 532

As sports riots go, the Nika riot in Hippodrome was brutal. The chariot races and their patrons were divided into four factions Blues, Greens, Reds, and Whites, but the only two with real influence were the Blues and the Greens. These color factions, while official for sporting events, were outlets for political and social action. At the time of the riots, Justinian I was the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, and a supported of the Blues.

Tensions started to rise when two men (one Blue and one Green), who were supposed to be hanged for an earlier riot at a chariot race, escaped prison and took sanctuary in a church surround by an angry mob. Justinian, troubled with foreign affairs, decided to sentence the men to imprisonment and hold a chariot race to distract the populace. By the last match of the race, crowds had begun to chant “Nika”, which means conquer, and the Blues and Greens decided that was a good time to storm the palace and get rid of the emperor. They continued their seige so for five days. Justinian considered fleeing the city but his wife Theodora refused. She apparently liked being a ruler, and told her husband that:

“Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress.”

So who could stop this angry mob? As it turns out, a slightly built eunuch and some gold would save the day. The emperor sent Narses, a popular eunuch, to the leader of the Blues, and after reminding them that the King favored them above all other groups Narses placated them with sacks of gold. The Blues left the arena and Justinian promptly sent in soldiers who slaughtered the remaining Greens. After the five days of rioting about 30,000 had died and more than half the city was destroyed by fire.

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