Dec. 6. 1918: US Dept. of War (now known as the Dept. of "Defense") abolishes the practice of manacling defiant prisoners to the walls of their cells in solitary confinement, used to torture conscientious objectors in US prisons during World War I. 1933: US ban on James Joyce's "Ulysses" lifted.

Dec. 7. 1682: "Great Law" abolishes war in colony of Pennsylvania. Except, of course, against Indians. 1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu, Hawaii, with devastating results, despite an official warning by US officials, on November 27, that an attack might be imminent due to the harsh US embargo being enforced against Imperial Japan. 1970: Rube Goldberg dies, New York City. Not entirely clear how his coffin was lowered into the ground.

Dec. 9. 1981: Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner is shot to death in the early morning hours; black Philadelphia journalist and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal is arrested and charged with the murder. 1992: US Marines wade ashore in Somalia at 2 AM local time (on live evening network television in the US) in the allegedly humanitarian "Operation Restore Hope." US forces would retreat in disarray and disgrace within the year.

Dec. 10. 1805: Birth of abolitionist, proto-feminist, indigenous rights agitator William Lloyd Garrison.

Dec. 11. 1986: UN agency UNICEF, promoting child education, established. The program becomes a center of US refusal to pay UN dues, with the US claiming that UNICEF programs were socialist and anti-American.

Dec. 12. 1991: First web site in the US goes up, in a system called SLAC used by high-energy physicists.

Dec. 13. 1937: Nanjing, the capitol of China, falls to Japanese forces. Over the next eight weeks, in what would become known as the "Rape of Nanjing," the Japanese army butchers an estimated 150,000 male "war prisoners," murders an additional 50,000 male civilians, and brutally rapes at least 20,000 women of all ages, many of whom are mutilated or killed in the process.

Dec. 15. 1969: Anarchist railway worker Giuseppe Pinelli "accidentally" defenestrated to his death from the 4th floor of police station in Milan, Italy, where he had been held following an attack four days previous against the Bank of Agriculture. Pinelli's police murder was the subject of Nobel Prize-winner

Dario Fo's play, "Accidental Death of an Anarchist." 1969 Mormon Church reaffirms its Biblically ordained exclusion of blacks from the ministry.

Dec. 16. 1773: In a blatant violation of property rights, demonstrators dump imported British goods into Boston Harbor. Later becomes known as "Boston Tea Party." 1968: Spain revokes order expelling Jews from country imposed by Queen Isabella in 1492.

Dec. 17. 1944: Japanese-Americans released from detention camps. US Army announces end of excluding Japanese-Americans from West Coast. 1998: British/US airstrikes renewed against Iraq.

Dec. 18. 1920: First public radio broadcast in US.

Dec. 19. 1675: Colonial forces escalate King Phillip's War by burning 300 old men, women, and children alive in their village, and later attack the Narragansetts in the Great Swamp, killing over 1,000 Indians.