Mar. 16. 1937: Bolivia confiscates Standard Oil Co.'s holdings. 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. 1871: Official founding of the Paris Commune, lasting 71 days. 1966: Beginning of a three week march by Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association, from Delano to Sacramento, CA, arriving on Easter Sunday.

Mar. 18. 1871: One thousand women successfully blockade cannons in what becomes the "Paris Commune," Paris, France. The Commune was the first real experiment in worker self-management, occurring with the sympathetic cooperation of the petty bourgeoisie. 1963: US Supreme Court rules that states must provide free legal counsel for indigents.

Mar. 19. 1965: Forty-nine arrested in New York City for protesting Chase Manhattan Bank loans to South Africa. 1968: Presidential advisors advise getting out of Vietnam War.

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. 1997: Three hundred family farmers protest factory-style hog farms at a National Pork Producers Council meeting. Urbandale, Iowa.

Mar. 21. 1960: Sharpeville Massacre: South African police kill 89 protesters in Sharpeville and other towns during protests of apartheid pass laws. In Sharpeville itself, 69 were killed and 176 wounded when police opened fire on an unarmed crowd, 63 of them shot in the back. Overall, 13,000 were jailed. 1995: South Africa: On the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, newly elected democratic government establishes today as Human Rights Day.

Mar. 22. 1972: Thirteen member National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommends legalization of marijuana. 1980: Thirty thousand march in Washington, DC against reintroduction of draft registration.

Mar. 23. 1871: France: Communes proclaimed in Lyon and Marseilles. 1984: Government of US-installed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet declares state of emergency and arrests 600 leftists.

Mar. 24. 1919: Birth of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet/painter/beat/publisher and founder of San Francisco's influential City Lights bookstore. Yonkers, New York. Among other accomplishments, Ferlinghetti was the first to publish Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl," an act immediately resulting in his arrest (and eventual acquittal) on obscenity charges.

Mar. 25. 1939: Birth of Toni Cade Bambara, New York. African American writer, civil rights activist, and teacher. 1990: El Salvador: A new city, Segundo Montes, is started by campesinos who lived for nine years as exiles in Honduras.

Mar. 26. 1871: Insurrectionary movement in Creusot, France, in sympathy with Saint Etienne and Paris Commune, is proclaimed. 1892: Death of gay US poet laureate Walt Whitman. "To states everywhere, resist much; obey little."

Mar. 27. 1951: Iran: Mossadeq nationalizes Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. 1986: US Senate approves 100 million for Nicaraguan contras while slashing welfare programs.

Mar. 28. 193: Anticipating the American democratic process, Didius Julianus, highest bidder in Praetorian auction, becomes Emperor of Rome. 1976: FBI discloses it burglarized the Socialist Party at least 92 times between 1960 and 1966.

Mar. 29. 1626: First American forestry legislation enacted, Plymouth Colony. 1987: Vietnam Veterans For Peace march from Jinotega reaches Wicuili, Nicaragua.