Nov. 17. 1989: Mass demonstration leads to downfall of regime, Wenceslas Square, Prague, Czechoslovakia. 1991: 1,603 African-American women protest Clarence Thomas's appointment to U.S. Supreme Court after Senate confirmation hearings deride testimony of Thomas's long-standing pattern of sexual harassment.

Nov. 18. 1910: Hundreds of suffragists march on House of Commons, London, with reinforcements arriving to replace the "fallen" and arrested. 1936: Union organizing in General Motors plants begins with Atlanta sit-down strike. 1978: Farmers plow site of proposed nuclear power station, Torness, Scotland. 1994: After massive international protest by indigenous and environmental activists, Quebec puts on "indefinite hold" (and later formally cancels) plans to build a massive hydroelectric project on Cree and Inuit land on the eastern shore of James Bay.

Nov. 19. 1915: Singer and IWW labor organizer Joe Hill executed by state of Utah. 1973: Unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision supports Puyallup tribal fishing rights vs. state of Washington.

Nov. 20. 1816: First use of the term "scab," by the Albany (N.Y.) Typographical Society. 1965: 20,000 march against Vietnam War, Berkeley, California. 1969: American Indian Movement activists occupy Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, offering to purchase the island from the federal government for $24 worth of beads. 1995: Native Hawai'ian activist John Marsh is acquitted in Honolulu of tax evasion charges, using the defense that since the U.S. illegally colonized Hawai'i in 1898, the islanders' descendants are not legally subject to U.S. taxation.

Nov. 21. 1945: 200,000 United Auto Workers strike against General Motors. 1993: Congress passes North American Free Trade Agreement. President Clinton signs it immediately so that the treaty can take effect by the new year.

Nov. 22. 1909: New York female garment workers strike in "Uprising of the 20,000." Judge tells arrested picketers: "You are on strike against God." 1967: U.N. adopts Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories. 1972: Circumpolar peoples from Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Sweden meet in Copenhagen to demand self-government and control over Arctic land and resources. 1985: 143 surviving Kickapoo Indians on the Texas/Coahuila (Mexico) border are given U.S. citizenship, ending a 140-year U.S. refusal to allow the Kickapoo to live legally on their land.

Nov. 23. 1170 BC: First recorded strike for better working conditions and pay takes place in Egypt. 1917: U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Louisville (KY) ordinance requiring blacks and whites to live in separate residential areas. 1964: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to strike the phrase "under God," instituted in 1954, from the Pledge of Allegiance. 1968: RCMP arrests 114 during anti-war protests on campus of Simon Fraser University. Burnaby, British Columbia. 1981: Pres. Reagan authorizes the CIA to form paramilitary squads of Nicaraguan exiles to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.