Mar. 16. 1827: First Black newspaper in U.S., Freedom's Journal, published in New York City by John B. Russwurm. 1965: Montgomery, Alabama police attack civil rights marchers. 1968: Hundreds of Vietnamese civilians massacred by U.S. troops at My Lai, Vietnam. 1988: Massacre of Kurds with mustard and nerve gases, Halabja, Iraq. 1998: In response to reported Serbian massacres in Drenica, in the ethnically Albanian province of Kosovo, 12,000 women, carrying loaves of bread, attempt to march 50 km to Drenica from the capital of Prishtina. They are turned back by police.

Mar. 17. 1775: Richard Henderson, a North Carolina judge, buys a vast tract of Cherokee land for the Transylvania Land Co.; purchase is later declared invalid but land cession is not reversed. 1974: 3,000 Ethiopian women workers march for equal pay and better labor conditions.

Mar. 18. 1871: 1,000 women successfully blockade cannons in what becomes the "Paris Commune," Paris, France. 1962: Algerian Civil War ends in independence from France. 1963: U.S. Supreme Court rules that states must provide free legal counsel for indigents. 1969: U.S. begins secret bombing of neutral Cambodia, escalating war in Southeast Asia. 1972: A congressional study announces that the income gap in the U.S. between the richest 20% and the poorest 20% has doubled in the past twenty years (since 1952).

Mar. 19. 1965: 49 arrested in New York City for protesting Chase Manhattan Bank loans to South Africa. 1978: 50,000 march in Amsterdam to protest U.S. deployment of the neutron bomb in Europe. 1997: After heated public opposition, Seattle School Board reluctantly votes to rescind a new policy soliciting corporate advertising in schools.

Mar. 20. 1815: Switzerland declares permanent neutrality in all wars. 1863: Pres. Lincoln makes proclamation offering lands of the Cowlitz (near Longview) for sale, even through the tribe had never signed a treaty relinquishing them. 1983: 150,000 (1% of country's population) join in anti-nuclear rallies across Australia.

Mar. 21. 1960: South African police kill 89 protesters in Sharpeville and other towns during protests of apartheid pass laws. 1965: Civil rights marchers from Selma arrive in Montgomery, Alabama. 1971: Following a high-speed chase, a Seattle police officer shoots and kills black suspect Leslie Allen Black. An inquest later finds the shooting "unjustified." 1995: The state of Mississippi ratifies the thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, outlawing slavery. 1995: On the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, newly democratic South Africa establishes March 21 as Human Rights Day.

Mar. 22. 1958: Women demonstrate against pass laws, South Africa. 1971: The Equal Rights Amendment is passed by the Senate and sent to the states for ratification. 1989: The Exxon Valdez destroys thousands of square miles of pristine wildlife habitat in the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Exxon Corp. spends the next several years avoiding lawsuits and obstructing cleanup efforts.