Today, May Day 2026, as India's 25 crore workers echo their 22 April Bharat Bandh against the diluted Labour Codes, we reclaim the Chicago Martyrs — eight great heroes whose 1886 stand for an eight-hour working day reshaped the world. Framed after Haymarket's chaos, they faced a kangaroo court, yet their sacrifice birthed global labour rights.Fedayi ka khoon hai surkh ruh ka sailaab,Zameen-e-mehnat par ugti hai inqilab ki kahaar(The martyr's blood is the crimson flood of a spirited soul,On labour's soil sprouts the crop of revolution)Let us honour each by name, their lives a defiant hymn against exploitation.August Spies (31), German immigrant and furniture craftsman, wielded words like weapons as Arbeiter-Zeitung editor. A mesmerising orator, he rallied Chicago's German workers, exposing factory barons' greed. At trial, he exposed bias; from the gallows on 11 November 1887, he proclaimed: "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today!" His pamphlets fuelled........

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