With June being the month of Pride, it's a time to celebrate identity and equality, but how did Pride come about?
For centuries, homosexuality was a crime in most countries. In the 1500s in England, homosexuality was declared illegal. It was punishable by death. In some countries, it is still considered a crime.
By the 1800s people came together and tried to fight to change the law and succeeded in making some progress in some parts of the world. In 1967, England passed a law which gave homosexuals some rights, although little changes were made elsewhere.
This all began to change after 28th June 1969. The date marks the day that New York City's Stonewall Inn, a 'Gay bar' was raided by the police. Employees and customers were harassed and arrested by the police for their sexualities. This sparked a week-long riot which involved hundreds of people. This became known as The Stonewall Riots - a tipping point for equality.
The riots led many people to fight for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ communities and over the course of the next few decades, the communities began to become more and more accepted and new laws were enforced to protect them from discrimination.
On the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, in 1970, hundreds of demonstrators marched past the Stonewall Inn. Today, this is considered to be the first ever Gay Pride march. Now many places across the world hold Pride events to remember the Stonewall Riots and it's become an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ identities, with marches attracting several hundred thousand to more than a million celebrants each year.