Dec. 8. 1988: Twelve Plowshares activists arrested for hammering on US nuclear cruise missile bunkers. Woensdrecht, The Netherlands.

Dec. 9. 1961: Committee of 100, including Bertrand Russell, hold demonstrations at various US air and nuclear bases in Britain. 1994: Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders resigns after her masturbation comments are criticized by jerk-offs.

Dec. 10. 1901: The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The awards were devised by Alfred Nobel, who regretted the damage he had done mankind through his inventions of dynamite and other explosives. 1931: Jane Addams, founder of Hull House and leader of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, wins Nobel Peace Prize.

Dec. 11. 1911: Mexico: Yaquis in Sonora, influenced by the anarchist Ricardo Flores Magin ("Tierra y Libertad"), reclaim stolen communal lands. Their war with government lasts, officially, until 1929. 1971: Third retrial of Black Panther head, Huey Newton, ends in mistrial.

Dec. 12. 1973: Women members of United Steelworkers of America (Local 1066) protest sex discrimination, Gary, Indiana. 1983: Takoma Park, Maryland becomes first US city to announce refusal to do business with nuclear weapon manufacturers.

Dec. 13. 1981: Poland: Dictatorship of the proletariat declares "state of war" against the workers. Martial law declared, Solidarinosc suppressed. (Solidarity Day.) 1994: European Parliament votes 202-24 for a resolution urging Pres. Clinton to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

Dec. 14. 1992: Three hundred thousand Polish coal workers strike against "Solidarity" government.

Dec. 15. 1930: Albert Einstein urges militant pacifism and an international war resistance fund. 1970: Poland: Youths and workers torch the Gdansk Communist Party HQ and quietly watch it burn.

Dec. 16. 1901: Birth of Margaret Mead, radical anthropologist. 1918: Germany: First National Congress of Workers and Soldiers Councils held in Reichstag in Berlin, votes in favor of parliamentary democracy.

Dec. 17. 1966: Against US wishes, UN General Assembly approves an international treaty banning nuclear weapons in space. 1991: First Palestinian-Israeli peace talks begin in Madrid, Spain.

Dec. 18. 1830: Trial of Swing Rioters, peasants and workers who fought for minimum wage. 1992: Two activists arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for disrupting city council meeting to demand a civilian review board for charges of police racism and brutality.

Dec. 19. 1915: Birth of Edith Piaff. French singer who entertained POWs while refusing to sing for Nazis during WWII. 1994: Zapatista rebels in Southeastern Mexico slip through army siege and briefly occupy 38 towns in Chiapas state, crippling Wall Street investments in Mexican bond market.

Dec. 20. 2001: Argentinian president Fernando de la Rua resigns and flees the presidential compound in a helicopter as hundreds of thousands of protesters fill the streets of Buenos Aires and other Argentinian cities in response to IMF-imposed financial policies and the resulting economic crisis.

Dec. 21. 1892: Birth of Rebecca West, London. Writer, feminist, critic, and companion for 10 years of author and socialist H.G. Wells. "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute."