07/06/2026
On the 7th of June 1919, the people of Malta had had enough. The Great War had ended seven months earlier, but the price of bread, the staple of the Maltese diet, had soared, wages had not kept pace, and there was a widespread belief that the island’s grain importers and flour millers were profiteering while ordinary families went hungry. That day, as the Maltese National Assembly met in Valletta to debate the island’s political future, crowds filled the streets. They tore down a Union Jack, ransacked the offices of a pro-British newspaper, and attacked the homes of the merchants they blamed for the price of bread. The colonial authorities called in the troops. In the narrow streets of Valletta; Strada Forni, Strada Teatro, British soldiers opened fire on the crowd. Manwel Attard fell first. Ġużè Bajada was shot near the Theatre, falling on top of the Maltese flag he was carrying. Wenzu Dyer was hit by another shot. The next day, Karmenu Abela was bayoneted in the stomach by a Royal Marine; he died of his wounds on the 16th of June. Four men dead, hundreds injured. Out of that bloodshed came the 1921 Constitution that gave Malta its first real measure of self-government, and, decades later, a national day. This is the story of Sette Giugno.
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