Dec. 31. 1958: The Cuban guerrilla columns of Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara take Yaguajay and the city of Santa Clara. The next day, Cuban dictator Juan Batista would flee the island, and on Jan. 2 Fidel Castro's victorious revolutionary forces would march into Havana.

Jan. 1. 1981: Vancouver (Canada) Municipal and Regional Employees Union goes on the picket line for 13 weeks. Innovative strike tactics, including the complete shutdown of major tourist attractions and a propensity to sing labor songs at every rally and picket line, eventually win tremendous settlement.

Jan. 2. 1788: Birth of Etienne Cabet, French utopian socialist and influence on Robert Owen. Utopian colonies based on his ideas will be founded in Illinois, Iowa, and Texas.

Jan. 3. 1964: Five hundred thousand New York pupils stay at home in protest against racial segregation.

Jan. 4. 1933: Angered by increasing farm foreclosures, members of Iowa's Farmers Holiday Association threaten to lynch bankers and law officials who institute foreclosure proceedings for the duration of the Depression.

Jan. 5. 1964: Committee Against Nuclear Power Plants in New York stops plant planned for Queens. 1975: South Africa: 12,000 black workers strike at Vaal Reefs gold mine.

Jan. 6. 1937: Abraham Lincoln Brigade formed to fight Spanish fascism. Part of the International Brigade, it will fight valiantly on the Aragon front and in defense of Madrid. Some 4,000 American men and women join; nearly 2,000 of them die of wounds or disease. One of the casualties is Oliver Law, an African American who came to command the entire Lincoln Battalion. Law is the first black man known to command white US troops.

Jan. 7. 1800: Revolution in Switzerland. 1939: Tom Mooney, labor activist, freed after 22-1/2 years in jail on false charges.

Jan. 8. 1988: One hundred farmers in Novahl, France, destroy $1 million worth of genetically modified crops.

Jan. 9. 1964: US troops kill 21 protesters in Panama Canal Zone. Panama suspends relations with US after riots over American control of the Canal.

Jan. 10. 1920: By a vote of 328-6, the House of Representatives refuses to seat Victor Berger, duly elected Representative from Wisconsin, because he was a Socialist who vigorously opposed US participation in World War I.

Jan. 11. 1887: Birth of American naturalist Aldo Leopold, whose "Sand Country Almanac" is an early environmentalist classic. 1890: Anonymous woman revolutionary assassinates Sololouchin, chief of the tsar's secret police. Moscow, Russia.

Jan. 12. 1971: "All in the Family" premiere on CBS features first toilet flush on TV. Its depiction of a working class family would never be approved on modern network TV (wrong advertising demographics). 2002: "Refusenik" movement begins when 53 Israeli soldiers sign ad refusing to serve in West Bank or Gaza Strip.

Jan. 13. 1898: Birth of Kaj Munk. Danish playwright and priest, whose outspoken sermons and plays during World War II led to his murder. Believing the truths of Christianity can be realized only in action, his plays appealed to Danes to resist the occupiers. On January 4, 1944, Munk was taken from his home by the Gestapo and shot.