The Peterloo Massacre was England's Tiananmen Square. On August 16th 1819, tens of thousands of cotton spinners and their wives and children gathered in St Peter's Fields in central Manchester to hear the fiery words of a radical orator called Henry Hunt, preaching revolution and equality. With orders to arrest him, a radical militia on horseback and sabres drawn charged into the middle of the crowd. Hundreds were brutally wounded, and 11 men, women and children died.