By: History.com Editors

1919

Opposition leaders are murdered in failed coup in Berlin

History.com Editors

Published: November 16, 2009

Last Updated: January 24, 2025

A coup launched in Berlin by a group of radical socialist revolutionaries is brutally suppressed by right-wing paramilitary units from January 10 to January 15, 1919; the group’s leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, are murdered.

Germany’s long, ultimately losing struggle on the battlefield—culminating in the signing of the armistice in November 1918—and dismal conditions on the home front, including severe food shortages, caused many German socialists to turn away from the Social Democratic Party, which had supported the war effort in 1914 in the hopes that reform would follow a German victory. Although still the largest party in the Reichstag government, the Social Democrats saw their membership fall from over a million in 1914 to a quarter of that number in 1917.

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By that time, a minority had broken off from the party and formed their own, the Independent Socialist Party. Luxemburg and Liebknecht led the Spartacists, the Marxist, revolutionary core group of the new party, which held firmly to the belief that German participation in a war was only justified in the case of a purely defensive conflict. In 1916, Luxemburg—under the nom de guerre Junius—had published a treatise in which she denied that the Great War was defensive for Germany, claiming instead that it was driven by imperialist, capitalist interests. Social democracy had failed the German working class, Luxemburg claimed, and the only solution was international class revolution, such as that envisioned by Vladimir Lenin and begun by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917.

On January 6, 1919, just weeks before the peace conference that would determine Germany’s future opened in Paris, the Spartacists gathered in Berlin to begin a revolution. Luxemburg urged her followers not to attempt a coup before they mustered sufficient popular support, but she was unable to restrain them. The rebels launched their attacks on January 10. In the conflict that ensued, both Luxemburg and Liebknecht were captured and killed. Her body, thrown into a canal, was not retrieved until five months later.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 15th

1559

Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England

Two months after the death of her half-sister, Queen Mary I of England, Elizabeth Tudor, the 25-year-old daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, is crowned Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey in London.

1777

Vermont declares independence from colony of New York

Having recognized the need for their territory to assert its independence from both Britain and New York and remove themselves from the war they were waging against each other, a convention of future Vermonters assembles in Westminster and declares independence from the crown of Great Britain and the colony of New York on January 15, 1777. The convention’s delegates included Vermont’s future governor, Thomas Chittenden, and Ira Allen, who would become known as the “father” of the University of Vermont.

1831

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is finished

On January 15, 1831, Victor Hugo finishes writing Notre Dame de Paris, also known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Distracted by other projects, Hugo had continually postponed his deadlines for delivering the book to his publishers, but once he sat down to write it, he completed the novel in only four months.

1870

First appearance of the Democratic Party donkey

On January 15, 1870, the first recorded use of a donkey to represent the Democratic Party appears in Harper’s Weekly. Drawn by political illustrator Thomas Nast, the cartoon is entitled “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion.” The jackass (donkey) is tagged “Copperhead Papers,” referring to the Democrat-dominated newspapers of the South, and the dead lion represents the late Edwin McMasters Stanton, President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war during the final three years of the Civil War. In the background is an eagle perched on a rock, representing the postwar federal domination in the South, and in the far background is the U.S. Capitol.

1919

Boston shocked by deadly molasses flood

Fiery hot molasses floods the streets of Boston on January 15, 1919, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. The molasses burst from a huge tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol Company building in the heart of the city.

1929

Martin Luther King Jr. born

On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist minister. King received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 helped organize the first major protest of the African American civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King and his followers persisted, and the movement gained momentum.

Martin Luther King Jr.

1951

The “Witch of Buchenwald” is sentenced to prison

Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany. Ilse Koch was nicknamed the “Witch of Buchenwald” for her extraordinary sadism.

1967

Packers beat Chiefs in first Super Bowl

On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)’s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

1968

The Jeannette Rankin Brigade: 5,000 women march against Vietnam War

On January 15, 1968, an 87-year-old Jeannette Rankin leads 5,000 women—nicknamed the "Jeannette Rankin Brigade"—in a march in Washington, D.C. against the Vietnam War. The march is a capstone of Rankin's long career as a suffragist, pacifist and the first woman elected to U.S. Congress.

1972

“American Pie” hits #1 on the pop charts

On January 15, 1972, “American Pie,”, an epic poem in musical form that has long been etched in the American popular consciousness, hits #1 on the Billboard charts.

1981

“Hill Street Blues” begins run

On January 15, 1981, Hill Street Blues, television’s landmark cops-and-robbers drama, debuts on NBC. When the series first appeared, the police show had largely been given up for dead. Critics savaged stodgy and moralistic melodramas, and scoffed at lighter fare like Starsky and Hutch. Created by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll, Hill Street Blues invigorated television, paving the way for more realistic and gritty fare.

1990

Soviets send troops into Azerbaijan

In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict.

2001

Wikipedia launches

Less than a year after the unsuccessful launch of Nupedia—an online free encyclopedia—its successor, Wikipedia, goes live on January 15, 2001. As of January 2024, Wikipedia has more some 6.8 million articles in more than 300 languages.

2009

Pilot Sully Sullenberger performs “Miracle on the Hudson”

On January 15, 2009, a potential disaster turns into a heroic display of skill and composure when Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III safely lands the plane he was piloting on New York City’s Hudson River after a bird strike caused its engines to fail. David Paterson, governor of New York at the time, dubbed the incident the “miracle on the Hudson.”

Rescue crews secure a US Airways flight 1549 floating in the water after it crashed into the Hudson River on January 15, 2009 in New York City. All the passengers survived in what became known as the "Miracle on the Hudson." The Airbus 320 craft crashed shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport.

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Citation Information

Article title
Opposition leaders are murdered in failed coup in Berlin
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 23, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 24, 2025
Original Published Date
November 16, 2009

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