Steal from the rich and give to the poor? That sounds like communism! And an Indiana official says the Prince of Thieves should be banned from textbooks. He isn't, but the controversy spawns the Green Feather Movement, an important moment in college campus activism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Emperor Norton ordered a bridge to be built between San Francisco and Oakland via Yerba Buena Island in 1872. Now, more than a half-century later, that bridge opens in the most appropriate way: With a massive traffic jam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The world erupts in celebration as Germany signs the Armistice, ending the fighting in the War to End All Wars. Hundreds of thousands pour into the streets all over the Bay Area, delirious with joy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and 600 of his followers take over a beer hall where Bavaria's military leader is speaking. The leader gives way, but the coup fizzles, and Hitler decides on a new strategy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace and overthrow the Provisional Government in the second Russian Revolution of the year. A bloody civil war remained to be fought before the Soviet Union was established. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Black Students Union and the Third World Liberation Front call a student strike to protest the lack of representation for people of color in the curriculum, faculty and administration. The strike will last into March and have a profound impact on American higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Washington columnist Drew Pearson accuses California's conservative governor of doing nothing about a gay sex scandal in his administration. Reagan denies it. But you'll never guess where the columnist got his information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's the start of the Iran Hostage Crisis, a 444-day episode that would convulse American politics and culture: Students loyal to revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran and take more than 60 hostages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A pair of well-dressed men walk up to Blair House — the temporary presidential residence — and open fire. They're Puerto Rican nationalists, trying to assassinate President Harry Truman, who pokes his head out the window to check on the commotion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The King of Magicians dies on Halloween. Of course he does. Joe Posnanski, author of the new biography "The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini," talks about what made Houdini great — which also might be what killed him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" causes nationwide panic about a Martian invasion. At least, that's the legend. Really, hardly anyone heard the show, and the few people who panicked thought it was the Germans who were coming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Here comes the Great Depression. The stock market crash wasn't a one-day event, but the one day known as Black Tuesday shattered records, and it was a wild day on the Wall Street of the West, Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A week and a half before Election Day, Frank Jordan, running for re-election, thinks it'll be fun to go along with a morning radio show stunt. One result is a photo of him and two DJs naked in his shower. Another is a very happy opponent, Willie Brown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Albert B. Fall, secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding, is found guilty of taking a bribe in the Teapot Dome scandal. He's the first Cabinet member ever convicted of a felony. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The grand jury is in session. The boodlers who may end up in the dock? — that's how the Chronicle put it. Mayor Eugene "Handsome Gene" Schmitz and Abe Ruef, the Boss Tweed of San Francisco, the head of the city's political machine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yolanda Saldivar said she meant to kill herself, not Selena Quintanilla, when they met in a motel room to hash out charges that Saldivar was embezzling money from "the queen of Tejano music." A jury didn't believe her. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
With those words, on the cover of Time magazine, Air Force Technical Sgt. Leonard Matlovich becomes the face of the gay rights movement in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After four of the saddest days in Bay Area history, at last there's a reason for hope and joy: Longshoreman Buck Helm has been found alive in the rubble of the Cypress Structure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
San Francisco Chronicle reporters talk about where they were when the earth shook on Oct. 17, 1989, and what they did once it stopped. Memories from Kevin Fagan, Nanette Asimov, John Wildermuth, Bruce Jenkins and Sam Whiting. See the Chronicle's look back at the 1989 earthquake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake kills more than 60 people, injures hundreds, damages the Bay Bridge and other roadways and buildings, and interrupts the Giants vs. A's World Series. Citizens and first responders remember where they were. See the Chronicle's 30th anniversary look back at the 1989 earthquake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They came to Washington in fleets of buses, caravans of cars, and scores of redeye flights. The march may or may not have attracted a million men — the crowd size was hotly disputed in the aftermath — but it was massive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, a pair of Oakland political activists, form an organization to protect the African American community from police violence. They call it the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A man bursts into the offices of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and shoots its founder, who survives. Garvey is best remembered for his "back to Africa" sentiments, but his views on black self-sufficiency had a huge influence on the Civil Rights Movement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A San Francisco Board of Education order forces all students of Japanese heritage to attend one school. It's a win for anti-Japanese immigration forces, but it angers President Theodore Roosevelt and causes an international incident. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
President Woodrow Wilson presses a telegraph key in Washington and 4,000 miles to the south, eight tons of dynamite blow away the last barrier between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans at the Panama Canal. First through? A pair of Americans in a rowboat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Argentine doctor turned Cuban revolutionary icon had a grandmother born in San Francisco and "the blood of the Irish rebels in him." He's executed on the battlefield in Bolivia, where he was leading forces in a rebellion against the CIA-backed government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The old hearts of retired San Francisco volunteer firemen fluttered under their red shirts as they listened to speeches about Lillie Hitchcock Coit, their mascot and admirer, who left a third of her estate to further "the beauty of the city which I have always loved." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Their first televised debate — the first presidential debate in U.S. history — had been pretty tame. But now, in a TV studio in Washington with no audience, the gloves are off as the young senator from Massachusetts and the vice president battle over how to handle the Cold War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Allen Ginsberg isn't on trial for writing the poem but another poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is — for selling it at his City Lights Books. The hippest crowd that ever gathered at the Hall of Justice cheers the verdict. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It wasn't the first 20th century trial to be dubbed the Trial of the Century. But it might be the one that keeps the title. The gloves didn't fit, and the Juice was acquitted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
