Aug. 14. 1893: The LA Times reports, "White men and women who desire to earn a living have for some time been entering quiet protests against vinyardists and packers employing Chinese in preference to whites." The protests do not remain quiet in the next few years, as economic depression leads to violent anti-Chinese riots by unemployed white workers across California. Chinese workers suffer beatings and shootings, and are herded to railroad stations and loaded on trains. They bitterly refer to the violence and expulsion as the "driving out."

Aug. 15. 1947: After decades of nonviolent activism, India becomes the first major Third World country in the 20th century to win independence from colonial rule. Dozens more countries would follow in the next twenty years.

Aug. 16. 1896: Birth of radical photographer and model Tina Modotti, Udine, Italy. 1914: Three thousand anti-war socialists demonstrate against WWI in Buffalo, NY.

Aug. 17. 1910: When a New York garment factory opens in defiance of a strike, women strikers break through police lines and demolish the factory. They throw sewing machines out the window, smash tables and chairs. By September, the strike leads to an agreement that finally improves working conditions and wages.

Aug. 18. 1963: James Meredith, the first African-American to attend the Univ. of Mississippi, is the first to graduate. His enrollment a year earlier was met with deadly riots, and he subsequently attended class under heavily-armed guard.

Aug. 19. 1971: H.R. Haldeman ordered an FBI investigation of CBS News correspondent Daniel Schorr, who had analyzed a presidential speech "unfavorably." Ironically, Schorr himself would go on to violate basic tenets of ethical journalism by feeding US audiences disinformation regarding the Soviet Union on behalf of the CIA.

Aug. 20. 1904: Miners seize town of Cripple Creek, Colorado, and deport officials.

Aug. 21. 1976: Beginning of two days of occupation of Seabrook nuclear power plant construction site, Seabrook, NH.

Aug. 22. 1978: Sandanista's capture of Nicaraguan National Palace starts revolution.

Aug. 23. 1500: Christopher Columbus, accused of mistreating the natives of Haiti, is arrested and sent back to Spain in chains. 1989: R.D. Laing, radical anti-psychiatrist, dies.

Aug. 24. 1814: British troops burn the Capitol and the White house after US troops, fleeing so fast that only eight of them were killed, left Washington DC virtually undefended. 1958: 6,000 in the sparsely populated Central American colony of British Honduras (now Belize) march for self-government.

Aug. 25. 1945: One million Saigonese demonstrate in support of Ho Chi Min'h. 1985: White House confirms that Ronald Reagan was an FBI informant (with his own secret number) in Hollywood in the late 1940s when heading the Screen Actors Guild.

Aug. 26. 1920: Ratification of 19th Amendment in US, extending right to vote to women. 1971: Six thousand turn out for a National Organization for Women-organized march in New York City for equal rights, with the demand "51 percent of everything."

Aug. 27. 1966: National liberation struggle in Namibia launched by SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organization).