Sept. 28. 1904: A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an open car on Fifth Avenue in Seattle. 1966: Dozens of antiwar demonstrators disrupt address of Vice President Humphrey at Olympic Hotel in Seattle.

Sept. 29. 1989: Two thousand openly smoke pot during UC Berkeley campus "smoke-in." 2002: A London crowd estimated at 200,000 to 500,000 protests British and US plans for a "preemptive" (i.e., without provocation) invasion of Iraq.

Sept. 30. 1542: First book is published, Johann Gutenberg's Bible. Rejected by several publishers. Great opening; ending is kinda weak. 1991: CIA finances military coup in Haiti, overthrowing the democratically elected government of Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Three years of state-sponsored murder, rape and theft follow. 1936: General Franco proclaims himself dictator of Spain. 1969: Canadian protesters shut down the US-Canada border crossing at Blaine, Washington, in opposition to US nuclear testing in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.

Oct. 2. 1967: Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first African-American US Supreme Court justice.

Oct. 3. 1995: O.J. Simpson, domestic violence poster boy and former football star, is acquitted of the 1994 murder of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles, California. The sensational case triggered a media frenzy and raised--without answering--difficult questions of race, gender, and class.

Oct. 4. 1970: Janis Joplin is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose in her room at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. The 27-year-old had just finished recording her second solo album, "Pearl." 1992: Irish singer Sinead O'Connor rips up a picture of the pope during an appearance on "Saturday Night Live." The ensuing uproar does much to damage O'Connor's popularity.

Oct. 5. 1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man. 1968: Seattle police kill Black Panther member Welton "Butch" Armstead during an arrest for suspicion of car theft.

Oct. 6. 1973: In Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria simultaneously attack Israel. Hoping to win back territory lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war, Egyptian and Syrian forces launch surprise attack against Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.

Oct. 7. 1944: Inmates at Auschwitz revolt and destroy one of four crematoriums before their revolt is quickly put down. 2001: US begins bombing campaign against Taliban government of Afghanistan, abruptly ending most food aid to the estimated 7.5 million at risk of starvation in the coming winter.

Oct. 8. 1967: Revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara, age 39, is captured and summarily executed in Bolivian Highlands (by troops trained in the US). 1998: A CIA report reveals that in the 1980s the CIA ignored importation of cocaine into the US by Nicaraguan "Contra" rebels who were trained and funded by the CIA.

Oct. 9. 1970: Alexander Solzhenitsyn turns down Nobel Prize for Literature. 1886: Haymarket anarchists sentenced to death.

Oct. 10. 1930: Birth of radical playwright Harold Pinter, London. Born in East London, son of a Jewish tailor. A conscientious objector, he was fined in 1949 for refusing to do military service. 1973: US Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns while under government indictments for several corruption charges.