On this day, March 11, in 1811

Members of the Luddites, a British labor movement, destroyed machines that were designed to replace them in weaving wool. The Luddites were a group of textile workers who resisted the changes brought about by England's Industrial Revolution, namely the creation of machines that were designed to increase cheap, unskilled labor, and would result in the unemployment of many textile workers. The movement spread so rapidly throughout the next year and was so strong that the government had to call on the British Army to suppress it. Eventually, many Luddite members were tracked down, and either executed or exiled for their militant protesting of capitalist ideology. But their legacy endures – people today who resist the ways technology is changing our world are known as neo-Luddites, carrying the mantle into the 21st century.