Dec. 21. 1919: Amid a strike for union recognition by 395,000 steelworkers, the "Red Scare" is launched with the deportation of Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and some 250 other radicals to Russia on the S.S. Buford ("The Soviet Ark") from the "Land of the Free."

Dec. 22. 1849: Fyodor Dostoevsky led out for execution, then pardoned at the last moment. 1965: Henry House becomes first US soldier to be court-martialed for protesting against the Vietnam War.

Dec. 23. 1617: First penal colony in North America established in Virginia. 1947: Pres. Truman pardons 1,523 of 15,805 World War II draft resisters.

Dec. 24. 1816: Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812. 1992: President Bush pardons six people in the Iran-Contra case, among them former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger and Robert McFarlane, former national security advisor.

Dec. 25. 1946: First of several years of White House Christmas demonstrations seeking amnesty for conscientious objectors convicted of refusing to fight World War II.

Dec. 26. 1825: Decembrist revolt in Russia. 1917: Pres. Woodrow Wilson orders federal government to seize the railroads for the duration of WW I.

Dec. 27. 1945: World Bank founded.

Dec. 28. 1945: Congress officially recognizes "The Pledge of Allegiance." 1950: Chinese troops cross 38th Parallel into South Korea. 1996: Three arrested at Capitol Hill post office in Seattle for refusing to leave after attempting to mail humanitarian supplies to Iraq in defiance of US-led embargo.

Dec. 29. 1996: Thirty-six years of war end in Guatemala.

Dec. 30. 1941: Nazis require Dutch physicians to join Nazi organization. 1972: Pres. Richard Nixon orders end to North Vietnamese bombing. The campaign was a last attempt to get North Vietnam to submit to the US: eighteen days of "carpet" bombing of homes, hospitals, and civilians of Hanoi and Haiphong through Christmas. For the first time, B-52 pilots refused to fly missions.

Dec. 31. 1901: Worst year in the 20th century for lynching in the US ends with a tally of 130 (105 blacks, 25 whites). 1970: US Congress repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which in 1964 authorized a dramatic increase in US military involvement in Vietnam in response to an attack on US forces that later turned out to have never happened.

Jan. 1. 1804: Haitian slaves, led by Jean Jacques Desalines, declare independence. Haiti becomes first free black nation-state in the world; US refuses to recognize Haiti for the next 70 or so years. 1934: Prohibition (of alcohol) ends in US. 1955: US begins training South Vietnamese army. How well they do.

Jan. 2. 1945: Japanese Americans released from internment camps. 1970: US Supreme Court rules unconstitutional General Lewis Hershey's 1967 directive during the Vietnam War that local draft boards reclassify to 1-A (eligible for active duty) anti-draft demonstrators.

Jan. 3. 1521: Martin Luther excommunicated from Roman Catholic Church. 1993: START II Treaty signed. 2000: Festival celebrating unity, national reconciliation, and peace. Angkor, Cambodia.