Oct. 12. 1992: Rallies, protests, and arrests throughout the Western Hemisphere mark the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the European invasion of the Americas and genocide of its native peoples.

Oct. 13. 1925: Birth of radical comedian and social rebel Lenny Bruce. "If you can't say FUCK you can't say FUCK THE GOVERNMENT." 1987: About 800 arrested in Washington, DC in "Out and Outraged" action blockading the US Supreme Court on the first anniversary of Bowers v. Hardwick, a Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws.

Oct. 14. 1964: Martin L. King, Jr. is announced as the 1964 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights activities. King is the second African-American to receive the prize. 1979: First national gay and lesbian march for civil rights in Washington, DC, draws over 100,000 marchers.

Oct. 15. 1969: An estimated two million or more in US participate in first national moratorium against Vietnam War. Later, a declassified Kissinger file reveals that these protests discouraged a plan by Nixon to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

Oct. 16. 1916: Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic, New York City. 1995: Million Man March brings hundreds of thousands of African American men to Washington, DC.

Oct. 17. 1920: John Reed, radical journalist, dies in Moscow of typhus at age 32 after being refused re-entry to US; buried in the Kremlin wall. Chronicled Mexican and Soviet revolutions. 1988: About 600 arrested at Pentagon in a blockade protesting US war in Central America.

Oct. 18. 1648: First labor organization in American colonies authorized in Massahusetts Bay Colony. 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. 1850: Mountain climber Annie Peck plants a "vote for women" sign atop the summit of 21,083-foot Coropuna, Peru.

Oct. 20. 1944: Beginning of Guatemalan revolution against US-backed dictator Pres. Ubico.

Oct. 21. 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. 1963: More than 200,000 students boycott schools in Chicago to protest de facto segregation.

Oct. 23. 1734: Birth of French writer, early communist theorist Restif de la Brettone. Chronicler of the Street during the French Revolution, inventor of the term "communism."

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.

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.