Today marks the anniversary of the historic 21 Gdansk Demands put forward by the Solidarity movement in 1980, which demanded the right to strike and an increase in wages.

Lech Walesa and striking shipyard workers also demanded an end to censorship and the broadcasting of church services.

The 21 August Demands became the August Agreement on the final day of the month which paved the way for the legalisation of the trade union – the first in the eastern European communist bloc – which eventually toppled the communist system in 1989 in Poland.

Following the successful shipyard protest the original boards with the 21 demands written on them were stored at a local hospital where, hidden by staff members of the Gdansk Maritime Museum, they survived martial law enforced by the communists in December 1981 and the remaining period of the crumbling Peoples Republic of Poland.

The boards containing the Gdansk Demands have been placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list among the most important relics containing texts influencing the history of Mankind. 

Other Polish works included on the list are Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium from 1520; manuscripts of Frédéric Chopin's works; the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, often referred to as the Ringelblum Archive, and Warsaw Confederation Act of 1573, one of Europe's first acts of religious tolerance. (ss/pg)