With Antisemitism on the rise I reprint this from 12/22/16 Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1894 that a Jewish officer in the French army named Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a trial that became one of the most divisive events in European history. Everybody involved in the case knew that Dreyfus had been convicted without any evidence, but nobody spoke out until Émile Zola, the most famous writer in France, published an open letter to the president on the front page of one of the major newspapers in France, detailing all the evidence upon which Dreyfus had been unjustly convicted. The headline for the article was "J'accuse," which means, "I accuse." It's been called the most famous front page in the history of newspapers. A total of 300,000 copies were sold in one day. The article was reprinted in newspapers throughout France and around the world.