Oct. 23. 1951: NAACP pickets the Stork Club in support of Josephine Baker, who was refused admission a week earlier. After a city-convened special committee calls Baker's charges unfounded, Thurgood Marshall calls the findings a "complete and shameless whitewash of the long-established and well-known discriminatory policies of the Stork Club."

Oct. 24. 1940: The 40-hour work week goes into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Decades of labor agitation and a considerable number of lives made this magnificent federal gesture possible, but FDR got the credit. 1975: Iceland: Tens of thousands of women hold a General Strike.

Oct. 25. 1960: Martin Luther King, Jr. jailed in Decatur, Georgia. Held over on old traffic ticket charges, denied bail and sentenced to four months hard labor. 1981: 150,000 in anti-nuclear protest, London.

Oct. 26. 1880: Birth of Manuel Quintin Lame, leader of Indian revolt against forced labor and land seizures in Colombia.

Oct. 27. 1917: Birth of Oliver Tambo, leader of African National Congress. 1968: 120,000 march against Vietnam War. London, England.

Oct. 28. 1921: Argentina: In response to an employers' and government offensive, workers revolt, the anarchist flag of red and black flies. Isolated, the groups are encircled and destroyed by the army. Over 1500 workers die, including all the leaders of the revolt.

Oct. 29. 1918: Germany: Sailors mutiny, take over naval base, garrison, and city of Kiehl; Soldiers, Sailors, and Workers' Councils elected. 1979: "Up Against The Wall Street Journal" direct actions disrupt New York Stock Exchange and financial district on 50th Anniversary of the stock market crash of 1929. Over 1,000 arrested.

Oct. 30. 1948: Twenty die and 6,000 made ill by smog in Donora, Pennsylvania. 1983: Five hundred thousand Dutch in anti-missile rally, the Hague.

Oct. 31. 1950: Earl Lloyd is the first African-American to play in National Basketball Association (NBA) game when he plays with the Washington Capitols. 1978: Thirty thousand Iranian oil workers strike against repressive rule of the US-installed Shah and for democracy, civil and human rights.

Nov. 1. 1797: First African Free School established in New York. 1961: Fifty thousand women join in protests across the US against resumption of atmospheric nuclear tests, leading to founding of Women Strike for Peace.

Nov. 2. 1811: Weavers and knitters smash job-displacing new machines at Sutton and Ashfield, England, as part of the "Luddite" rebellion.

Nov. 3. 1911: Socialist candidate Harriman receives most votes in Los Angeles mayoral primary--4,000 more than incumbent George Alexander. 1978: Canada: Congress of the Socialist International held in Vancouver, BC. First socialist congress held outside Western Europe since 1876.

Nov. 4. 1933: Three thousand farmers demonstrate in Neilsville, Wisconsin. The action frees jailed leaders of a milk strike. Desperate farmers attempted to raise ruinously low milk prices set by large dairy plants. Their preferred tactic was halting milk production. To break the strike, Governor Albert Schmedeman called out the National Guard. 1946: Birth of radical queer photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Nov. 5. 1978: Voters agree to leave nuclear reactor unfuelled, Zwentendorf, Austria.