On June 5, 1904, thousands rioted in St. Louis, Missouri north of the 1904 World's Fair after a bullfight was canceled by court order. The St. Louis bullfight riot injured a handful of people and burned down the Norris Amusement Company arena, disrupting the World's Fair for one day.
Promoter Richard Norris advertised bullfights on June 5, 1904, capitalizing the spirit of the World's Fair. He built an eponymous 16,000-seat arena, and contracted Spanish bullfighter Manuel Cervera Prieto and 35 others. [1] Norris sold more than 8,000 $1 tickets. [1]
Bullfighting was illegal in the United States and the state of Missouri. [2] The St. Louis Humane Society pleaded with governor Alexander Monroe Dockery to "avert this flagrant outrage upon the civilization of the State of Missouri and of the United States." [3] Religious organizations including the Congregational State Association of Missouri joined them. Under pressure one day before the fight, Dockery ordered St. Louis County's prosecuting attorney to arrest all violators of the state's anti-bullfighting law. [4]
The World's Fair was closed on the Sunday of the fight. The fair's Wild West opened with horsemanship followed by lacrosse but the crowd became restless. [1]
The announcer's introduction of Cervera was interrupted by a deputy sheriff arriving and declaring the fight prohibited. The police and organizers were negotiating in the office, but deprived of refunds, the crowd threw rocks through the windows. [5]
During the fracas, a man on the office porch demanded a refund and was injured by a rock. Others inside were injured by broken glass. Police with drawn pistols deterred rioters but were too few to keep the mob from the arena grandstand. [6] Once in the arena, rioters released three bulls. The bulls' emaciation and nonaggression suggested no fight was planned. Rioters ignited straw in the bullpen, and flames leapt to the grandstand made of pine and tar paper. [6]
Despite police and firefighters responding from the nearby World's Fairgrounds, the arena burned to the ground. Several rioters were arrested for arson. [6] Two days later, Cervera was killed by fellow bullfighter Carleton Bass over remuneration. The bullfighters subsequently asserted that Norris never planned a bullfight. [7]
In the broader context of racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as:
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds totaling $15 million were used to finance the event. More than 60 countries and 43 of the then-45 American states maintained exhibition spaces at the fair, which was attended by nearly 19.7 million people.
A bullfighter is a performer in the activity of bullfighting. Torero or toureiro, both from Latin taurarius, are the Spanish and Portuguese words for bullfighter, and describe all the performers in the activity of bullfighting as practised in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Peru, France, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and other countries influenced by Portuguese and Spanish culture. The main performer and leader of the entourage in a bullfight, and who finally kills the bull, is addressed as maestro (master), or with the formal title matador de toros. The other bullfighters in the entourage are called subalternos and their suits are embroidered in silver as opposed to the matador's gold. They include the picadores, rejoneadores, and banderilleros.
The Philadelphia nativist riots were a series of riots that took place on May 6—8 and July 6—7, 1844, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and the adjacent districts of Kensington and Southwark. The riots were a result of rising anti-Catholic sentiment at the growing population of Irish Catholic immigrants. The government brought in over a thousand militia—they confronted the nativist mobs and killed or wounded hundreds of anti-Catholic rioters.
The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, known simply as Las Ventas, is the largest bullfighting ring in Spain, located in the Guindalera quarter of the Salamanca district of Madrid. It was inaugurated on June 17, 1931. Its seating capacity of 23,798, makes it the third-largest bullfighting run in the world, after bullrings in Mexico and Venezuela. After the federal ban of bulfighting in Plaza México, Las Ventas is the second largest bullring in the world still in operation for its original intention.
The St. Louis Arsenal is a large complex of federal military weapons and ammunition storage buildings operated by the United States Air Force in St. Louis, Missouri. During the American Civil War, the St. Louis arsenal's contents were transferred to Illinois by Union Captain Nathaniel Lyon, an act that helped fuel tension between secessionists and those citizens loyal to the Federal government.
Francis Olympic Field is a stadium at Washington University in St. Louis that was used as the main venue for the 1904 Summer Olympics. It is currently used by the university's track and field, cross country, football, and soccer teams. It is located in St. Louis County, Missouri on the far western edge of the university's Danforth Campus. Built in time for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the stadium once had a 19,000-person seating capacity, but stadium renovations in 1984 reduced the capacity to 3,300 people. It is one of the oldest sports venues west of the Mississippi River that is still in use. Francis Olympic Field now uses artificial turf that can be configured for both soccer and football.
The 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka followed the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalistic Tamil United Liberation Front won a plurality of minority Sri Lankan Tamil votes. In the elections, the party stood for secession. An official government estimate put the death toll at 125, whereas other sources estimate that around 300 Tamils were killed by Sinhalese mobs. Human rights groups, such as the UTHR-J, accused the newly elected UNP-led government of orchestrating the violence.
The Campo Pequeno Bullring is the current Praça de Touros of the city of Lisbon, in Portugal. It is located in Avenida da República, in Lisbon.
El Fandi is statistically one of the most skilled matadors in the world. Currently, he is ranked number one among all bullfighters in Spain.
The Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre is an outdoor concert venue in Maryland Heights, Missouri, near St. Louis.
Spanish-style bullfighting is a type of bullfighting that is practiced in several Spanish-speaking countries: Spain, Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, as well as in parts of southern France and Portugal. In Colombia it has been outlawed but is being phased out with a full ban coming in effect in 2027. This style of bullfighting involves a physical contest with humans attempting to publicly subdue, immobilize, or kill a bull. The most common bull used is the Spanish Fighting Bull, a type of cattle native to the Iberian Peninsula. This style of bullfighting is seen to be both a sport and performance art. The red colour of the cape is a matter of tradition – bulls are color blind. They attack moving objects; the brightly-colored cape is used to mask blood stains.
Portuguese-style bullfighting differs in many aspects from Spanish-style bullfighting, most notably in the fact that the bull is not killed in front of an audience in the arena. The cavaleiros and the forcados are unique to the Portuguese variety of bullfighting, as well as the participation of horsewomen (cavaleiras) in the routines.
St. Louis Exposition and Music Hall was an indoor exposition hall, music hall and arena in St. Louis, Missouri from 1883 to 1907.
There have been a few conspicuous instances of crime in the American city of Akron, Ohio. A rioting mob in 1900 destroyed several public buildings in their attempts to gain access to the suspect in a child sex attack. In the early 20th century a Black Hand gang led by Rosario Borgio ran an extortion racket; attempts by the police to suppress these activities led to the killing of several policemen and the execution of Borgio. Race riots broke out in 1968 when police were confronted by the inhabitants of the Wooster Avenue area.
Bullfighting is a physical contest that involves a bullfighter attempting to subdue, immobilize, or kill a bull, usually according to a set of rules, guidelines, or cultural expectations.
The lynching of Francis McIntosh was the killing of a free Black man, a boatman, by a white mob after he was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 28, 1836. He had fatally stabbed one policeman and injured a second.
Ernest Carleton Bass, best-known as Carleton Bass, born 1876 in Ireland, was a notorious bullfighter in the United States who billed himself in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the "first North American bullfighter." In reality, he was an Irish immigrant who never became an American citizen, and his anemic bullfighting skill led to him being booed from bullfighting rings in Mexico. Though he had learned some swordfighting and bullfighting skills in Spain before he emigrated to the United States, he was a poor fighter. In 1903, he suffered an attack of nerves before a fight in Mexico and failed to fight. In 1904, he was a key figure in the St. Louis bullfight riot, which led to the destruction of a 14,000-seat arena by fire. Three days after the riot, he shot and killed fellow matador Manuel Cervera Prieto after the other man attacked Bass with a knife over a dispute regarding the bullfight canceled by the riot. A subsequent coroner's inquest found Bass acted in self-defense and should not be charged with murder. Following his acquittal, Bass went on to star in several bloodless bullfights. These involved enraging the bull, causing it to charge and miss, but not spearing it or cutting it with a sword.
The Johnson–Jeffries riots refer to the dozens of race riots that occurred throughout the United States after African-American boxer Jack Johnson defeated white boxer James J. Jeffries in a boxing match termed the "Fight of the Century". Johnson became the first black World Heavyweight champion in 1908 which made him unpopular with the predominantly white American boxing audiences. Jeffries, a former heavyweight champion came out of retirement to fight Johnson and was nicknamed the "Great White Hope". After Johnson defeated Jeffries on July 4, 1910, many white people felt humiliated and began attacking black people who were celebrating Johnson's victory.