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On Feb 15th, 2003, the biggest protest march in the history of humankind took place.

The New York Times said: “ there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”

The Observer described the march like this: “Half a mile away, round the corner in Piccadilly, the ground shook. An ocean, a perfect storm of people. Banners, a bobbing cherry-blossom of banners, covered every inch back to the Circus – and for miles beyond, south to the river, north to Euston. It will be remembered for the bleak bitterness of the day and the colourful warmth of feeling in the extraordinary crowds.”

There were nuns. Toddlers. Women barristers. The Eton George Orwell Society. Archaeologists Against War. Walthamstow Catholic Church, the Swaffham Women’s Choir and Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War (And a Home Win against Bristol would be Nice). They won 2-0, by the way. One group of SWP stalwarts were joined, for the first march in any of their histories, by their mothers. There were country folk and lecturers, dentists and poulterers, a hairdresser from Cardiff and a poet from Cheltenham.”
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On Feb 15th, in a coordinated day of protests across the world against the imminent invasion of Iraq, millions of people protested in nearly 800 cities around the world. According to BBC News, between 6 and 10 MILLION people took part in protests in up to 60 countries on every continent, over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from 8 million to 30 million. Protesters from Tasmania to Iceland marched against war in Iraq, and even at the McMurdo base in Antarctica, 
50-55 scientists staged a half-hour rally.

According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between the 3 January and 12 April 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 anti-war protests, the demonstrations on 15 February 2003 being the largest and most prolific.

The protest in Rome involved around 3 million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history.

One writer said: “February 15th was the first time in the movement’s history that so many countries joined forces to strive for one international action day. An unprecedented degree of global cooperation has become possible, and in pulling off the near-simultaneous manifestations of popular opposition to an Iraq attack, the informally organized planetary antiwar community has achieved a major feat. This may, indeed, be a turning point in human history.”