Suyapa Portillo Villeda is an Associate Professor of Chicano/a-Latino/a Transnational Studies at Pitzer College. She recently published an article in Counter Punch called An Illegitimate, US-Backed Regime is Fueling the Honduran Refugee Crisis.

Nicolas J. S. Davies writes about U.S. foreign policy, war and militarism for Consortium News and other outlets. He has been working as a researcher with CODEPINK, and co-authored its report on "War Profiteers: the U.S. War Machine and the Arming of Repressive Regimes." He is also the author of the excellent book, Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

January 20. On this day in 1987, humanitarian and peace activist Terry Waite, special envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury, was taken hostage in Lebanon.

January 19. On this day in 1920, in the face of egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group took a stand, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was born.

January 18. On this day in 2001, two members of the direct action group, Trident Ploughshares, were acquitted after being charged with harming the British HMS Vengeance which carried a quarter of Britain's nuclear arsenal.

January 17. On this day in 1893, U.S. profiteers, businessmen, and Marines overthrew the kingdom of Hawaii in Oahu, beginning a long string of violent and disastrous government overthrows around the world.

January 16. On this day in 1968, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin founded the Youth International Party (the Yippies), just one day before President Lyndon Baines Johnson gave his State of the Union Address asserting that the U.S. was winning the war in Vietnam.

January 13. On this day in 1991, Soviet Special Forces attacked a Lithuanian television and radio tower, killing 14 and wounding over 500 as tanks drove through crowds of unarmed civilians guarding the tower in defense of Lithuanian broadcasting independence.

January 7. On this day in 1932, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson delivered the Stimson Doctrine.

January 5. On this day in 1968, Antonin Novotny, the Stalinist ruler of Czechoslovakia, was succeeded as first secretary by Alexander Dubcek, who believed socialism could be achieved.