With support from the Clintons, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is making a strong push for Brooklyn to host the 2016 Democratic National Convention. According to reports, city officials have been talking up New York’s “success” in handling past conventions.

Success? Ten years ago, when the Republican National Convention came to town, there was mass, militarized repression. And the lawsuits stemming from that repression have cost the city tens of millions of dollars. Still, the mayor and his supporters are not the only ones who have glossed over what happened. A decade later, the 2004 RNC is largely forgotten, even in activist circles. Most within Occupy paid little attention to it, instead drawing their lineage to Seattle’s 1999 World Trade Organization protests. Yet they did so to their own detriment: The same regime that presided over Zuccotti Park had already shown its hostility to popular protest.

From the moment it was announced in early 2003 that the RNC would be held in New York City, everyone expected a showdown. Activists across the country plotted theatrics, while the New York Police Department prepared to deploy a new range of draconian tactics. That Karl Rove’s 9/11 exploitation show would meet fierce street resistance was never in doubt. And yet, what transpired surprised many.