October

October 1, 1851

In the "Jerry Rescue," citizens of Syracuse, New York broke into the city’s police station and freed William Henry (called Jerry), a runaway slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Law. The federal law required "good citizens" to assist in the return of runaway slaves. A group of black and white men created a chaotic diversion and managed to free Jerry but he was later re-arrested. At his second hearing, a group of men, their skin color disguised with burnt cork, forcibly overpowered the guards with clubs and axes and freed Jerry a second time; he was secretly taken to Canada.

read more 

Jerry Rescue monument

Syracuse, New York

October 1, 1964

Hundreds of students surrounded the police car holding Weinberg for 32 hours, making speeches from atop the car, and ultimately negotiating Weinberg’s release.
University Chancellor Clark Kerr had been under pressure from the Board of Regents to ban expression of views considered communist, but the students, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, questioned the restrictions.

                          read more

October 1, 1984

General Dynamics built the fourteen Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarines there, each of which are armed with 24 Trident II nuclear-tipped missiles (3.8 megatons each) launched from underwater with a range of 4000 nautical miles (4600 miles; 7400 kilometers).
Plowshares participants, individually or in groups, actually or symbolically damage parts of the United States first-strike nuclear arsenal or conventional weaponry, and take public responsibility for their actions.

October 2, 1869

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader whose philosophy of nonviolence would influence movements around the world, was born. He came to prominence as the leader of nonviolent resistance to British colonial rule in India.

learn more about Gandhi

October 2, 1961

October 2, 1967

Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, the first African-American on the nation's highest court. He was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson who had previously chosen him as Solicitor General. Marshall had been the lead attorney in the Brown v. Board of Education decision which led to the end of legal segregation in the nation’s schools.

read more about Thurgood Marshall

With the admission of Iraq into the League of Nations, Great Britain terminated its control over the Arab nation, making Iraq independent after 17 years of British rule and centuries of Sunni Ottoman rule. It had taken 11 years from a plebiscite creating a constitutional monarchy (King Feisel) until the new country achieved complete independence. Iraq had been created in the wake of World War I by combining three provinces, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, into one political entity under British mandate.

Excellent history of Iraq

Britain successfully tested its first atomic bomb, dubbed Hurricane, at the Monte Bello Islands, off the northwest coast of Australia.

read more

"Hurricane"

Woody Guthrie

1912-1967

Folksinger/songwriter Woody Guthrie died in New York City at the age of 55. He had spent the last decade of his life in the hospital, suffering from Huntington's chorea. Woody called his songs "people's songs," filled with stinging honesty, humor and wit, exhibiting Woody's fervent belief in social, political, and spiritual justice.

read more about Woody

October 3, 1981

Irish nationalists at the Maze Prison near Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended seven months of hunger strikes that had claimed 10 lives. The first to die was Bobby Sands, the imprisoned Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader who initiated the protest on March 1--the fifth anniversary of the British policy of "criminalisation" of Irish political prisoners.

Prior to 1976, Irish political prisoners were incarcerated under "Special Category Status," which granted them a number of privileges that other inmates did not enjoy. Despite Sands' election (while an inmate) as MP from Fermanagh and South Tyrone after the first month of his hunger strike, and his death from starvation a month later, the government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would not give in, and nine more Irish republicans perished before the strike was called off. The dead included Kieran Doherty, who had been elected to parliament in the Irish Republic during the strike. In the aftermath, the British government quietly conceded to some of the strikers' demands, such as the rights to wear civilian clothing, to associate with each other, to receive mail and visits, and not to be penalized for refusing prison work.

October 4, 1887

Louisiana sugarcane workers, working with the racially integrated Knights of Labor, went on strike. The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of "prominent citizens," shot and killed 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike leaders.

read more

October 4, 1997

October 5th

Raoul Wallenberg Day, honoring the Swedish diplomat who saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews from deportation and probable death in concentration camps during WWII.

He did this through bargaining with Nazi officials, establishing safehouses, distributing false passports, disguising Jews in Nazi uniforms and setting up checkpoints to avert deportations. He had attended the University of Michigan.

October 5, 1966

the Fermi plant

October 5, 1979

2,000 activists demonstrated against development of uranium mines in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This followed the Department of the Interior releasing its final environmental impact statement, endorsing the North Central Power Study's plans to turn the Black Hills into a "national sacrifice area." The plan was to devote nearly 200,000 acres to mineral extraction and energy production with up to 25 nuclear power plants.

Uranium Mining in the Black Hills

October 5, 1986

A captured Eugene Hasenfus

The cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal began to unravel when Eugene Hasenfus was captured by government troops in Nicaragua after the plane in which he was flying was shot down; three others on the plane died in the crash. Under questioning, Hasenfus confessed that he had been shipping military supplies into Nicaragua for use by the Contras, an anti-Sandinista force that had been created and supported by the United States, in violation of congressional action stopping the funding, and run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Iran-Contra background

October 6, 1683

Thirteen Mennonite families from the Geman town of Krefeld arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Concord. Having endured religious warfare in Europe, the Mennonites were pacifists who opposed all forms of violence.

modern Mennonite peace activism:

October 6, 1979

Over 1,000 were arrested at Seabrook, New Hampshire, the construction site of a nuclear power plant, for an occupation organized by the Clamshell Alliance.

Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant protest - late 1970s

October 7, 1955

Working on Howl in San Francisco, circa June, 1956.

"Howl and Other Poems" was printed in England, but its second edition was seized by Customs officials as it entered the country. City Lights, a San Francisco bookstore, published the book itself to avoid customs problems, and storeowner (and poet) Lawrence Ferlinghetti was arrested and tried for obscenity, but defended by the ACLU. Following testimony from nine literary experts on the merits of the book, Ferlinghetti was found not guilty.

read more about Allen Ginsberg     

Autographed City Lights Edition

October 7, 1998

Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside Laramie, Wyoming; he died five days later. The death of Matthew Shepard awakened the world to the persecution that homosexuals have endured for centuries.

read more

Matthew Shepard

October 8, 1945

President Harry S Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.

October 8, 1982

Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa, 1982

The Polish Parliament overwhelmingly approved a law banning Solidarnos´c´ (Solidarity), the independent trade union that had captured the imagination and allegiance of nearly 10 million Poles.

The law abolished all existing labor organizations, including Solidarity, whose 15 months of existence brought hope to people in Poland and around the world but drew the anger of the Soviet and other Eastern-bloc (Warsaw Pact) governments. The parliament created a new set of unions with severely restricted rights.

October 9, 1919

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation was founded in Bilthoven, the Netherlands.

Its members have since been active in promoting programs and activities for reconciliation, peace-building, active nonviolence, and conflict resolution. 

more about FOR

October 9, 1990

The U.S. began making reparations payments to survivors and families of Japanese-Americans taken from their homes put into internment (or concentration) camps during World War II.

The payments were a result of Civil Liberties Act of 1988 signed by President Reagan. Popularly known as the Japanese American Redress Bill, this act acknowledged that "a grave injustice was done" and mandated Congress to pay each victim of internment $20,000 in reparations. The first nine redress payments were made at a Washington, D.C. ceremony. One-hundred-seven-year-old Rev. Mamoru Eto of Los Angeles was the first to receive his check.

A chronology of internment during WWII:

Note: In the entire course of the war, 10 people were convicted of spying for Japan, all of whom were Caucasian.

October 9, 1991

It sought to avoid "a new form of colonial competition" as in the Antarctic Treaty, and the possible damage that self-seeking exploitation might cause.
Discussions on banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit had begun among the major powers ten years earlier.

read more

Linus Pauling

The Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty took effect between The U.S. and the Soviet Union. In 1957, Nobel Prize-winner (Chemistry) Linus Pauling drafted the Scientists' Bomb-Test Appeal with two colleagues, Barry Commoner and Ted Condon, eventually gaining the support of 11,000 scientists from 49 countries for an end to the testing of nuclear weapons. These included Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, and Albert Schweitzer.
Pauling then took the resolution to Dag Hammarskjöld, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, and sent copies to both President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev. The final treaty had many similarities to Pauling’s draft. It went into effect the same day as the announcement of Pauling’s second Nobel Prize, this time for Peace.

October 10, 1986

Elliott Abrams

Presidents George W. Bush &

George H.W. Bush

October 10, 2002

The House voted 296-133 to pass the “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq,” giving President George W. Bush broad authority to use military force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, with or without U.N. support.

October 11, 1987

Nearly one million people flooded Washington, D.C., demanding civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans, now celebrated each year as National Coming Out Day.

October 12, 1492

Natives of islands off the Atlantic shore of North America came upon Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who was searching for a water route to India for Spanish Queen Isabella.

October 12, 1958

A Reform Jewish Temple in Atlanta (the city’s oldest) was firebombed with fifty sticks of dynamite in retaliation for Jewish support of local black civil rights activists. The Temple’s Rabbi Jacob Rothschild was outspoken in his support of civil rights and integration, and was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr. before it was fashionable or even noteworthy.

read more

October 12, 1967

British zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book, “The Naked Ape,” a frank study of human behavior from a zoologist's perspective. Morris had earlier studied the artistic abilities of apes and was appointed Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo.

read more

October 12, 1967

"A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" appeared in The Nation and the New York Review of Books. 20,000 signed it, including academics, clergymen, writers.

It urged “that every free man has a legal right and a moral duty to exert every effort to end this war [Vietnam], to avoid collusion with it, and to encourage others to do the same.”
This document became the main basis for the federal government's criminal prosecution (encouraging draft evasion) of five of the signers: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, Michael Ferber, and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin.

read the Call

October 12, 1970

read more about My Lai                             

Lt. Calley

                             (link/viewer caution advised:)

October 12, 1977

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The question: Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke's application for admission to its medical school?

Listen to the oral argument:

October 13, 1934

The American Federation of Labor (AFL) voted to boycott all German-made products as a protest against Nazi antagonism to organized labor within Germany.

October 14, 1967

Folksinger Joan Baez was arrested during the blockade of a military induction center in Oakland, California. 

October 14, 1979

The first national gay and lesbian march for civil rights in Washington, D.C., drew over 100,000 demanding an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people.

a photo gallery of the march:

October 14, 1981

Dock workers in Darwin, Australia, began a seven-day strike, refusing to load uranium on board "Pacific Sky" for eventual use by the U.S. military. After a week, the ship was forced to leave without its cargo.

October 15, 1965

These demonstrations drew 100,000 people in 40 cities across the country. In New York City, David Miller, a young Catholic pacifist, became the first U.S. war
protester to burn his draft card in direct violation of a recently passed federal law forbidding such acts. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation later arrested him; he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
Two years later, on October 16, 1967, 1158 young men turned in their draft cards in eighteen U.S. cities.

Memoirs of a Draft-Card Burner

October 15, 1966

Read the Panthers’ Ten Point Platform and Program:

<First 6 members - Top Left to Right: Elbert "Big Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton, Sherman Forte, Chairman, Bobby Seale. Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton.

Bobby Seale(L) and Huey Newton(R)>

October 15, 1969

2 million took part in protest against the continuing war in Vietnam. The National Moratorium was an effort by David Hawk and Sam Brown, two anti-war activists, to forge a broad-based movement against the war.
The organization initially focused its effort on 300 college campuses, but the idea soon grew and spread beyond the colleges and universities. Hawk and Brown were assisted by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which was instrumental in organizing the nationally coordinated antiwar demonstration.

read more

Reissued

The original Vietnam Moratoium Peace Dove button

October 16, 1859

John Brown

They had hoped to set off a slave revolt, throughout the south, with the weapons they planned to seize. Virtually all his compatriots were killed or captured by Gen. Robert E. Lee’s troops; he was wounded and arrested, and hanged for treason within two months.

read more

The Tragic Prelude (John Brown)

mural by John Steuart Curry (1937-1942)

October 16, 1934

Dick Sheppard, who volunteered and joined the Army as a chaplain in World War I, started the Peace Pledge Union in England. In a letter published in The Guardian, Sheppard, a popular priest in the Church of England, invited those who would be willing to join a public demonstration against war to send him a postcard.

read more

In a few weeks there were 30,000 replies. Members of the Peace Pledge Union vowed to “renounce war and never again to support another.”

“Up to now the peace movement has received its main support from women, but it seems high time now that men should throw their weight into the scales against war.”
-Dick Sheppard

October 16, 1964

China detonated its first atomic bomb.

Deng Jiaxian. The father of the chinese bomb.

October 16, 1967

Folksinger Joan Baez was arrested in a peace demonstration as rallies took place across America during “Stop the Draft Week.” 1,158 young men returned their draft cards in eighteen U.S. cities. Baez was among 122 anti-draft protesters arrested at the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland; she was sentenced to 10 days in prison.

read more

Joan Baez the day after the arrest

October 16, 1968

During medal presentations at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, winning sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists while the Star Spangled Banner was played. They were suspended by the U.S. Olympic Committee from the team two days later. Smith later told the media that he raised his right fist in the air to represent black power in America while Carlos's left fist represented unity in black America.

read more

October 16, 1973

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, though accused of war crimes by some for the massive bombing of Laos and Cambodia, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho (who refused the honor) for the cease-fire agreement they had negotiated. This occurred just a month after the bloody military coup, fully supported by the Nixon administration and aided by the CIA, that overturned the democratically elected government of Chile, and installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet as military dictator for the next 17 years.

read more

Henry Kissinger

October 16, 1998

In a human rights and international law breakthrough, British authorities, after receiving an extradition request from Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, placed former Chilean dictator, and senator-for-life, Augusto Pinochet under arrest for "crimes of genocide and terrorism that include murder."

Kissinger(left) and Pinochet(center)

U.S. took control of Puerto Rico. One year after Spain granted Puerto Rican self-rule following their rout in the Spanish-American War, troops raised the U.S. flag over the Caribbean island nation, formalizing American authority over the island's one million inhabitants.

a history of the struggle for Puerto Rican Independence

U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed into law an act of Congress approving $100 million of military and "humanitarian" aid for the Contras, a paramilitary group fighting to undermine the elected Sandanista government in Nicaragua.

read more

October 18, 1648

I. Marc Carlson

The Shoemakers Guild of Boston became the first labor union in the American colonies.

WRL history  

Above: One of the founders, Jessie Wallace Hughan (r), 1942

photo: WRL/Swarthmore Peace Collection

October 19, 1960

Martin Luther King, Jr., and 35 students were jailed after being arrested during a sit-in at the snack bar of Atlanta's Rich's department store where they requested service.

October 19, 1980

J.P. Stevens & Co. was forced to sign its first contract with a union after a 17-year struggle in North Carolina and other southern states. The workers at J.P. Stevens were supported by a widespread boycott by labor, progressive and religious organizations.

read more

October 20, 1947

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) opened public hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. To counter what they claimed were reckless attacks by HUAC, a group of motion picture industry luminaries, led by actor Humphrey Bogart, his wife, Lauren Bacall, John Huston, William Wyler, Gene Kelly and others, established the “Committee for the First Amendment” (CFA).

read more

A folk music album, "Peter, Paul and Mary," hit No. 1 on U.S. record sales charts. The group’s music addressed real issues – war, civil rights, poverty – and became popular across the Unites States. The trio's version of "If I Had A Hammer" was not only a popular single, but also embraced as an anthem of the civil rights movement.

About Peter, Paul and Mary

October 20, 1967

The biggest demonstration yet in Oakland, California, against American involvement in the Vietnamese War took place. An estimated 5000-10,000 people poured onto the streets to demonstrate in a fifth day of massive protests against the conscription of soldiers to serve in the war. [see October 16, 1967 above]

read more

October 21, 1837

The U.S. Army, enforcing Pres. Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, captured Seminole Indian leader Osceola (meaning "Black Drink") by inviting him to a peace conference and then seizing him and nineteen others, though they had come under a flag of truce. The Seminole had moved to Florida (then under the control of Spain) from South Carolina and Georgia as they were forced from their ancestral lands, and were force farther south into the Everglades. Under the law Jackson urged on Congress, they and the others of the “Five Civilized Tribes” (Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Cherokees) were to be moved, by force if necessary, west of the Mississippi (Arkansas and Oklahoma).

read more

October 21, 1967

In Washington, D.C., more than 100,000 demonstrators from all over the country surrounded the reflecting pool between the Washington and Lincoln monuments in a largely peaceful protest to end the Vietnam War.

It was organized by "the Mobe," the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Some then marched on, encircled and attempted to storm the Pentagon; 682 were arrested and dozens injured. This protest was paralleled by demonstrations in Japan and Western Europe, the most violent of which occurred outside the U.S. Embassy in London where 3,000 demonstrators attempted to storm the building.

Read two different accounts of the day with photographs:

October 21, 1983

In the first public action of the new Seattle Nonviolent Action Group (SNAG), 12 people blockaded the Boeing Cruise Missile plant in Kent, Washington; none were arrested.

October 22, 1968

October 22, 1979

The deposed Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, arrived in New York for medical treatment. He received permission to do so from the U.S. government (which had installed him as shah in a 1954 coup) despite warning from the newly established Islamic republic in Iran which demanded that the Shah be turned over to them for trial.

more on the Shah

October 22, 1983

October 23, 1915

October 23, 1945

Jackie Robinson and pitcher John Wright were signed by Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers Baseball Club, to play on a Dodger farm team, the Montreal Royals of the International League.

Robinson became the first black baseball player to play on a major league team.

Jackie Robinson

October 23, 1947

The NAACP filed formal charges with the United Nations accusing the United States of racial discrimination. "An Appeal to the World," edited by W.E.B. DuBois, was a factual study of the denial of the right to vote, and grievances against educational discrimination and lack of other social rights.

This appeal spurred President Truman to create a civil rights commission.

W.E.B. DuBois

October 23, 1956

The Hungarian revolution began with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to demand an end to Soviet rule.More than 250,000 people, including students, workers, and soldiers, demonstrated in Budapest in support of the insurrection in Poland, demanding reforms in Hungary.

Hungarian students,1956

On 22 October, the students had produced a list of sixteen demands, including the removal of Soviet troops, the organization of multi-party democratic elections and the restoration of freedom of speech. On the evening of the 23rd a large crowd pulled down the statue of Josef Stalin in Felvonulási Square.

read more

Hungarian revolution monument

Langston Hughes's play "Mulatto" opened on Broadway.

It was the longest-running play there by an African-American until Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" premiered in 1959.

about Langston Hughes

read or listen to the poem "Mulatto"

Langston Hughes

The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, requiring employers to pay overtime and restricting the use of child labor.

Decades of labor agitation and a considerable number of lives made this change possible.

Background on opposition to child labor:

The United Nations World Security Organization came into being when the Soviet Government in mid-afternoon deposited its instrument of ratification, the twenty-ninth necessary to bring this about, and James F. Byrnes, Secretary of State, then signed the protocol formally attesting that the Charter of the United Nations had come into force.

read more

For the next three years, the United States would exert tremendous pressure to try to destabilize and unseat the Allende government. In 1958, and again in 1964, Allende had run on a socialist/communist platform. In both elections, the United States government (as well as U.S. businesses such as International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), which had significant investments in Chile) worked to defeat Allende by sending millions of dollars of assistance to his political opponents.

more on Salvador Allende

October 24, 1981

More than 250,000 people, organized by the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, marched through London to protest the siting of American nuclear missiles in the U.K.

watch the march

Sadako Sasaki, following the Japanese custom of folding paper cranes – senbazuru, symbols of good fortune and longevity – persisted daily in folding cranes, hoping to reach 1000 when a person's dream is believed to come true, died of leukemia.

the Sadako story                             

Sadako Sasaki

Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and at 12 was diagnosed with Leukemia, "the atom bomb" disease.

Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima showing Sadako holding a golden crane

Photo: Mark Bledstein

October 26, 1970

"Doonesbury", a cartoon series addressing political and social issues written by Garry Trudeau, and initially published in a collegiate daily, debuted in 28 newspapers.

read Doonesbury

October 26, 1994

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam al-Majali, with President Clinton in attendance, formally signed a peace treaty ending 46 years of war at a ceremony in the desert area of Wadi Araba on the Israeli-Jordanian border. President of Israel Ezer Weizman shook hands with Jordan’s King Hussein.

read more

October 27, 1659

William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who came from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, were executed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law, passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death.
Quakers opposed central church authority, preferring to seek spiritual insight and consensus through egalitarian Quaker meetings. They advocated sexual equality and became some of the most outspoken opponents of slavery in early America.

October 27, 1967

Phillip Berrigan pouring blood on draft files

The Baltimore Four, as they became known, were arrested and later tried and convicted for the action which they saw as a symbolic act of civil disobedience — a non-violent attack on the machinery of war. This day later became known as Plowshare Action Remembrance Day.

read more

Berrigan in his jail cell

drawning by Tom Lewis

October 27, 1968

120,000 marched against the Vietnam War in London. Violence erupted when a 6,000-strong Maoist splinter group broke away and charged the police outside the United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

Ralph Nader set up a consumer organization with young lawyers and researchers (often called "Nader's Raiders") who produced systematic exposés of industrial hazards, pollution, unsafe products, and governmental neglect of consumer safety laws. Nader is widely recognized as the founder of the consumers' rights movement. He played a key role in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Freedom of Information Act and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

read more

Ralph Nader (center)

October 27, 2002

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil in a runoff, becoming the country's first elected leftist leader.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

October 28, 1973

Cox had been investigating Nixon, his administration and re-election campaign. Earlier in the day, Attorney General Richardson had resigned, and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus had been fired, both for refusing to dismiss Cox. Solicitor General Robert Bork, filling the vacuum left by the departure of his two Justice Department superiors, fired Cox at the President’s direction.

October 29, 1940

October 29, 1966

October 29, 1969

One hundred demonstrators disrupted the university’s ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) with "nonviolent ridicule," in Buffalo, New York. The urgency of opposition to the Vietnam War made many otherwise legitimate military activities targets of anti-war activity.

anti ROTC demo

October 29, 1969

U.S. Federal Judge Julius Hoffman ordered a defendant in his courtroom gagged and chained to his chair during his trial after repeatedly asserting his right to an attorney of his own choosing or to defend himself.

The defendant, Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale, and seven others had been charged with conspiring to cross state lines "with the intent to incite, organize, promote, encourage, participate in, and carry out a riot" by organizing the anti-war demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

The Chicago Eight included Seale, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and John Froines.

October 30, 1967

Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, on charges stemming from demonstrations in 1963.

October 30, 1983

500,000 Dutch took part in an anti-missile rally in the Netherlands’ capital city,

the Hague.

October 30, 1995

Over 80 people were arrested at Sugarloaf Mountain in southern Oregon during a massive direct action to prevent corporate clear-cutting of old-growth forests on public land.

read more

Earl Lloyd was the first African-American to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA) when he started with the Washington Capitols.

He became the NBA's first African American Assistant Coach to win an NBA Championship in 1955 as a member of the Syracuse Nationals, which is now the Philadelphia 76ers.

Earl Lloyd

Mike's Mushroom cloud

read more

Thirty thousand Iranian oil workers went on strike against the repressive rule of the U.S.-installed Shah and for democracy, civil and human rights.

read more

Striking Iranian oil workers.

    Photo: December 1978 issue of Resistance. A publication of the Iranian Students Association in the U.S. (ISAUS)

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot to death by Sikh members of her own security guard while walking in the garden of her New Delhi home. Gandhi's son, Rajiv, was sworn in as Prime Minister following the assassination.

read more

This Week In History compiled by peacebuttons.info from various sources
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