Oct. 9. 1906: Birth of Leopold Senghor, poet and co-founder of the Negritude movement in African art and literature, Senegal. Spent two years in Nazi concentrations camps where he wrote some of his best poetry. Inducted in the Academie Francaise in 1984, the first black member.

Oct. 10. 1933: 18,000 cotton workers go on strike in Pixley, California. Four are killed before a pay-hike is finally won.

Oct. 11. 1987: Over 750,000 gays, lesbians and bisexuals descend upon Washington, DC for a march to demand civil rights. Now celebrated each year as National Coming Out Day.

Oct. 12. 1911: Society of American Indians formed in Columbus, Ohio, beginning of Pan-Indianism.

Oct. 13. 2001: An estimated 50,000 rally in London, 50,000 in Berlin, 25,000 in Stuttgart, and additional demonstrations take place in over 100 other cities in 19 countries to protest the US attack of Afghanistan.

Oct. 14. 1981: Dock workers in Darwin, Australia, begin seven-day strike, refusing to load uranium on board "Pacific Sky" for eventual use by US military. After a week, the ship is forced to leave without its cargo.

Oct. 15. 1990: Abandoned barrels of military psychotomimetic drugs (a biological weapon) contaminates Denver's water supply.

Oct. 16. 1916: Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic, New York City. 1996: Activists in Penang, Malaysia, stage an anti-corporate demonstration in front of McDonald's Restaurant.

Oct. 17. 1941: A German submarine torpedoes the US destroyer Kearney 350 miles southwest of Iceland; kills 11 crew members, seriously wounding 2. The Kearney, the first destroyer attacked by a German submarine, sustains heavy damage but manages to stay afloat. (Note that this was several weeks before Pearl Harbor).

Oct. 18. 1968: John Lennon and Yoko Ono busted for marijuana possession in Ringo's apartment; basis of US Immigration's attempts to deny Lennon citizenship. 1991: Massive public opposition known as the "Nevada Movement"--after the grassroots protests at the Nevada Test Site which inspired it--forces permanent closure of the primary Soviet nuclear test site, Semipalatinsk, in Central Asia.

Oct. 19. 1720: Birth of John Woolman, Quaker anti-slavery activist. 1868: Birth of Bertha Landes, first woman elected mayor of a major US city (Seattle).

Oct. 20. 1984: Pres. Reagan vetoes bill to improve Federal health care for American Indian reservations. 1990: Rallies against mobilization for the Gulf War in 22 US cities.

Oct. 21. 1421: Annihilation of Adamites, a militant sect trying to establish God's kingdom on earth, where the chosen would never work and love would be free, in Bohemia. Called their church Paradise; condemned marriage and stripped naked while engaged in common worship. 1983: In first public action of the new Seattle Nonviolent Action Group (SNAG), 12 people blockade Boeing Cruise Missile plant in Kent all day. None are arrested.

Oct. 22. 1934: Pretty Boy Floyd killed. A folk hero to the people of Oklahoma who saw him as a "Sagebrush Robin Hood," stealing from rich banks to help the poor eat by buying them groceries and tearing up their mortgages during the robberies. 1951: Five thousand US soldiers exposed to radiation by above-ground nuclear weapons test, Nevada.