In the late 1960s, the Stonewall Inn, just located 53 Christopher Street was the most popular gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village.

In the early hours of Saturday, the 28th of June 1969, The Stonewall was subjected to a raid by the New York Police Department's public morals squad, followed quickly became the emblematic event in the modern history of gay and lesbian movement. And it transformed this somewhat shabby pub into the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement.

The reason is that as the police began to clear the bars patrons one by one and arrest many of them, a noisy crowd assembled outside made up to large degree of people who had previously been drinking in the pub before the raid. And really quite quickly, the scene became pretty explosive. Led by a street Queens trans woman, and others, the LGBT community fought back. Big beer cans and bottles were thrown at the windows. A rain of coins descended on the police. The police haven't been expecting this reaction it came as a huge shock to them.

At one point they were forced to retreat inside the bar in order to take to take refuge. They called in reinforcements from the tactical patrol force, which was a crack right control unit. And about half past three in the morning, some two hours after the raid had begun. Calm was eventually restored. 13 people were arrested were arrested. A number of people had been injured, including members of the NYPD.

This riot received a good deal of media coverage which, as is often the case helped to simply bring out the crowds the following day. And by the early evening, there was something like a sort of a carnival or block party taking place outside the damaged Stonewall Inn. There were shouts of gay power. There were songs being being sung including one called We Are the girls from Stonewall.

The Beat poet and homosexual Alan Ginsberg. He lived in Greenwich Village, went along to see what was going on. And He later recalled how quote, the guys there were so beautiful. They've lost that wounded look.

Stonewall has become a defining event in gay history a kind of a year zero. The marks the birth of the gay liberation movement.