Mar. 10. 1986: Protesters block unloading of South African ship in San Francisco to protest apartheid.

Mar. 11. 1988: Beginning of 10 days of direct actions at Nevada Test Site which result in over 2,200 arrests, the largest number of arrests at a political protest outside Washington, DC in US history.

Mar. 12. 295 AD: Maximilian beheaded for refusing military service due to his Christian beliefs. Thevesta, North Africa.

Mar. 13. 1979: Grenada Revolution. Eric Gairy regime overthrown by the New Jewel Movement.

Mar. 14. 1977: Legendary civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer dies in Ruleville, MS at age 69. Hamer led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the state's all-white delegation to the 1964 National Democratic Convention. She also concentrated on African American self-reliance, including the Freedom Farm Cooperative, which fed 1,500 people.

Mar. 15. 1993: United Nations "Truth Commission" concludes that most of the human rights abuses in El Salvador during its civil war had been committed by the US-backed Salvadoran government.

Mar. 16. 2003: Over 5,000 coordinated candlelight vigils take place, in more than 125 countries, in a last-ditch protest against a US invasion of Iraq.

Mar. 17. 1996: Thirty thousand march in Villahermosa, Mexico, in support of a campaign to blockade state-owned oil wells that had displaced thousands of poor people.

Mar. 18. 1970: Trying to reclaim music from the (quote) "filthy, capitalist" record companies, a radical Madison newspaper called Kaleidoscope releases a bootleg album. Features Beatles cuts excluded from the album "Get Back" and Bob Dylan's "Isle of Wight" concert. Sells for three dollars, and all profits go to a local activist bail fund. The cover features a photo of John Sinclair, who founded the White Panthers and was doing 10 years for handing two joints to an undercover agent. Think what they could have done with the Internet.

Mar. 19. 1968: Presidential advisors advise getting out of Vietnam War. 1970: Three thousand people shut down military induction center. 116 arrested. Syracuse NY.

Mar. 20. 43 BC: Birth of Ovid (43 BC-17 AD), Sulmona, in the Abruzzi. Banished from Rome, ostensibly for writing "The Art of Love," a guide to lovemaking. 2003: United States and UK, in defiance of the United Nations and global opinion, launch an unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

Mar. 21. 1960: Sharpeville Massacre: South African police kill 89 protesters in Sharpeville and other towns during protests of apartheid pass laws. Overall, 13,000 were jailed. 1995: South Africa: On the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, newly elected democratic government establishes this day as Human Rights Day.

Mar. 22. 1958: Women demonstrate against pass laws, South Africa. 1972: Thirteen member National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommends legalization of marijuana.

Mar. 23. 1842: Congressman Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio censured by the House of Representatives for introducing resolutions opposing slavery and the coastal slave trade. The "Gag Rule," first adopted by a South-dominated Congress in 1836 and renewed at the beginning of each session thereafter, pledged every member not to mention the slavery issue on the floor of the House.