May 23. 1832: Jamaican national hero Samuel Sharpe hung. Instigator of the 1831 Slave Rebellion which began on the Kensington Estate in Saint James and was largely instrumental in bringing about the abolition of Jamaican slavery.

May 24. 1856: Powatomie Massacre. Abolitionist John Brown, whose "truth goes marching on," led six men, four of them his sons, in the brutal murder and mutilation of five pro-slavery Kansans. 1943: March against anti-Semitism leads to stop in Jewish deportations, Bulgaria.

May 25. 1774: Black slaves in North America petition British government for freedom. 1776: Continental Congress resolves "highly expedient to engage Indians in service of the United Colonies," and authorizes recruiting 2,000 paid auxiliaries. Program was a dismal failure, as virtually every tribe refused to fight for the colonists.

May 26. 1920: IWW Marine Transport Workers strike, Philadelphia. 1991: 20,000 in Arab-Jewish peace rally, Tel Aviv, Israel.

May 27 . 1978: About 20,000 rally in New York City to protest nuclear weapons, marking the beginning of a resurgence in anti-nuclear weapon activism that would culminate in the Freeze campaign of the early '80s.

May 28. 861: Paris is again burned by the Vikings. A fine tradition. 1871: Paris Commune crushed by French soldiers; 25,000 massacred.

May 29. 1830: Birth of French Commune leader Louise Michel. Vroncourt, France. 1854: Lydia Flood Jackson, civil rights activist, starts first school for black children in Sacramento, CA.

May 30. 1741: Thirteen black men are burned at the stake, and 17 black men, 2 white men and 2 white women are hanged, for their roles in planning a slave revolt in New York City. 1901: Russian writer Maxim Gorky, arrested on charges of printing revolutionary literature, is released from prison after Count Leo Tolstoy intercedes on his behalf. Gorky will serve a similar role by interceding on the behalf of many writers victimized by Stalin's regime.

May 31. 1912: Birth of renowned war-mongering pork-barrel U.S. Senator from state of Boeing, Henry Jackson. 1982: Vancouver Island, Canada: "ecoterrorists," including Gerry Hannah, bass player for the punk-rock group Subhumans, blow up BC hydro power substation.

June 1. 1932: Gay rights organizer Henry Gerber publishes an article in Modern Thinker magazine attacking the view that homosexuality is a neurosis.

June 2. 1971: U.S. Brigadier General John Donaldson charged with murder and assault in connection with an incident involving eight South Vietnamese civilians.

June 3. 1391: Sir Simon de Burley charges a man with being a serf, in Gravesend; this touches off Wat Tyler's Rebellion the next day. 1968: In one of the more lucid artistic statements of the 1960s, Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol.

June 4. 1985: U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Alabama's "moment of silence" law.

June 5. 753: St. Boniface slain by Druids for chopping down sacred tree. 1991: Lesbian priest Elizabeth Carl ordained in Episcopal Church.