The following is a timeline of Occupy Wall Street (sometimes called OWS) which began on Saturday, September 17, 2011^[2] as an occupation of Wall Street, the financial district of New York City and is an ongoing demonstration.^[3]

OWS was preceded and partly inspired by the Arab Spring and Greek, Spanish, British, Chilean, and Israeli protest movements. A precursor in the United States was the 2011 Wisconsin protests occurring from late winter through the spring.

Chronology of events

Pre-Sept 17

• June 9, 2011 – a Canadian anti-consumerist magazine called Adbusters registers the domain name occupywallstreet.org.^{[citation needed]}
• July 13, 2011 – Adbusters makes the initial proposal for a peaceful demonstration to occupy Wall Street.^[4]
• July 14, 2011 – The domain name occupywallst.org is registered.^{[citation needed]}
• August 2 – with the "debt-ceiling deadline" of midnight August 2 drawing near^[5] (see: United States debt-ceiling crisis), a group calling itself "New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts" chooses this day to incorporate their "General Assembly" with another group holding a strategy session for OWS. The two groups join in a demonstration at the Charging Bull at 4:30 pm. Afterwards, these two groups "gather into working groups to plan for the September 17 event."^[6]
• August 23 – The hacktivist group Anonymous encourages its followers to take part in the protest.^[7]

September

• September 17 (Day 1) – the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street gathering. An estimated 1,000 people^[8] attend on the first day. NYPD police officers prohibit protesters from erecting tents, citing loitering rules. Masses of people walk up and down Wall Street. Roseanne Barr speaks to protesters during the first day of the demonstration.^[9]
• September 19 (Day 3) – the stock market opens on Wall Street for regular business. Keith Olbermann of the news outlet, Current TV, becomes the first major journalist to fully cover the protests. A couple days later, Olbermann criticizes mainstream media for failing to cover Occupy Wall Street, saying, "Why isn't any major news outlet covering this? ... If that's a Tea Party protest in front of Wall Street ..., it's the lead story on every network newscast."^[10] Ever since, Olbermann has devoted every program to the protests, interviewing union leaders and members, eye-witnesses and protestors. Many other major news sources then begin to publish articles on the occupation^[11] and Occupy Wall Street caught some mainstream media attention across a wide variety of sources.^[12]
• September 20 (Day 4) – Police arrest mask-wearing protesters, using a law dating back to 1845 which bans masked gatherings unless part of "a masquerade party or like entertainment."^[13]
• September 22 (Day 6) – it is reported that a largely black crowd of about 2,000 people march from Union Square to Wall Street to protest the execution of Troy Davis. Four black men, two from the City University and two from Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, are arrested during the protests.^[14]
• September 23 (Day 7) – the action at Zucotti Park, now renamed Liberty Plaza, across the street from finance hub One Liberty Plaza in New York City continues.^[15] The Colbert Report^[16] satirized the protests and major newspapers including The Guardian^[17] and the New York Times covered the protests.^[18]
• September 24 (Day 8) – At least 80 arrests are made^[19] after protesters begin marching uptown, forcing the closure of several streets.^[20] Soon after the arrests, videos begin to appear around the web. In particular, public concern is raised by a video released later in the day showing young women being maced by a police officer.^[21]
• September 25 (Day 9) – YouTube discloses that the hacktivist group Anonymous uploads a video around 4:30 pm on this day, threatening the NYPD: "If we hear of brutality in the next 36 hours then we will take you down from the internet as you have taken the protesters voices from the airwaves."^[22]
• September 26 (Day 10) – The name of the police officer who maced some young women on September 24 (Day 8) is revealed as Anthony Bologna. OWS claims that this incident occurred without provocation, demanding jail time for Bologna and the resignation of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.^[23][24] It is reported that Noam Chomsky has sent a public "strong message of support" to the organizers of the OWS protests.^[25] In the evening hours, filmmaker Michael Moore addresses the crowd at Liberty Plaza.^[26]
• September 27 (Day 11) – An OWS afternoon march ends not at Wall Street but at a rally by postal workers protesting against a five-day delivery week, which many believe will severely harm the postal service and cause significant job losses.^[27][28] NYC Councilman Charles Barron visits Liberty Plaza addressing those gathered with public support for OWS.^[14] Later Dr. Cornel West speaks to the gathering at Liberty Plaza and opens the General Assembly.^[29] It is reported by the official Occupy Wall Street website that "nearly two thousand people gathered to hear Dr. West speak."^[30]
• September 28 (Day 12) – According to various sources,^[31][32][33] the board of the local union of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU Local-100) votes to support OWS.^[34] Police Commissioner Kelly says that the NYPD could not bar protesters from Zuccotti Park since it is a public plaza that is required to stay open 24 hours a day. ^[35]
• September 29 (Day 13) – Chris Hedges publishes a column in strong support of OWS.^[36][37] TWU Local-100 uses Twitter to urge members to take part in a "massive march and rally" on Wednesday, Oct. 5.^[38] There are unsubstantiated claims that the Oct. 5 event is co-sponsored by another eight labor and community outreach organizations.^[38] Meanwhile, protesters in San Francisco attempt to occupy Citibank, Chase, and attempt to enter a Charles Schwab financial institution, with some media outlets citing OWS as an inspiration to the spread of protests.^[39][40]
• September 30 (Day 14) – More than 1,000 demonstrators, including representatives of labor organizations, held a peaceful march to police headquarters to protest what they said was a heavy-handed police response the previous week. No arrests were reported.^[41]

October

• October 1 (Day 15) – More than 5,000 people marched towards the Brooklyn Bridge, and hundreds marched onto its pedestrian area and car lanes, taking over part of the bridge. Traffic into Brooklyn was stopped by the police for roughly two hours. Police split the crowd into two sections, enclosing a few hundred that were on the bridge between two lines of netting and kettling them – slowly closing in and keeping them from moving about. Over 700 arrests were made, while police had to call for paddy wagons and buses to transport the arrestees, including a New York Times reporter who was on the bridge. Others who were caught on the bridge were later allowed to walk away. The remaining protesters gathered in the evening in Liberty Plaza.^[42]
• October 2 (Day 16) – Videos emerged showing the police, after preventing them to do so, eventually let the protesters walk to the bridge's main road to then arrest them on traffic disruption charges:

Protesters started marching up the pedestrian walk way over the bridge while others tried to take the traffic lane. For a few minutes officers held the line and then they turned around and led the way up the traffic lane on the Brooklyn Bridge. From what I saw no police told any of the protesters to leave until they created a barricade in front of the march about halfway through the bridge. They then pulled vans and buses up to the back of the group and started arresting everyone.^[43][44]

• October 3 (Day 17) – Hundreds of protesters in New York dress as "corporate zombies" and zombie walked past Wall Street with painted faces and carrying fake dollar bills.^[45]
• October 5 (Day 19) – Joined by union members, students, and the unemployed, the demonstration swelled to the largest yet with an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 demonstrators marching from Foley Square to Zucotti Park. The march was mostly peaceful – until after nightfall, when scuffles erupted and some of the younger demonstrators were arrested after they stormed barricades blocking them from Wall Street. About 200 people tried to push through barricades and police responded with pepper spray and penned them in with orange netting.^[46] Smaller protests continue in cities and on college campuses across the country.^[47][48]
• October 6 (Day 20) – About 5,000 protesters march in Portland, Oregon.^[49] More demonstrations are held in Houston, Austin, Tampa, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Asked about Occupy Wall Street, President Obama replies: "I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country... and yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place."^[13]
• October 8 (Day 22) - Protesters were pepper sprayed in Washington, DC as they attempted to enter the National Air and Space Museum and one protester pushed a security guard against the wall. The group of "100 to 200" protesters intended to target displays about military drones. One was arrested.^[50] 1,000 protesters marched from Zuccotti Park to Washington Square Park without incident amid speculation that the protests would relocate there.^[51]

• October 9 (Day 23) - A crowd of approximately 100 protesters gathers in Washington, DC outside the White House.^[52] The American Spectator, a conservative publication, posted an article by assistant editor Patrick Howley in which he revealed he had infiltrated the group of protesters who had attempted to enter the National Air and Space Museum on October 8. Howley claims to have helped instigate the events that prompted the museum to close in order to discredit the protest movement. Commenting on the incident, an activist at Occupy Wall Street said that there were "obvious provocateurs" in the movement, and that a committee had been set up to identify and warn others about them.^[53][54] Meanwhile, at Zuccotti Park, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek addresses the crowd and expresses support for the protests^[55] during one of several "open forums" conducted throughout Day 23 around Liberty Park Plaza.
• October 10 (Day 24) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggests that he does not anticipate an effort by the city to remove the demonstrators. “The bottom line is, people want to express themselves, and as long as they obey the laws, we’ll allow them to,” the mayor told reporters at the start of the city’s 67th annual Columbus Day parade. The official @OccupyWallStreet Twitter account declares, “Bloomberg said we can stay indefinitely! Big win!” ^[56] Police reported that more than 140 protesters from the Occupy Boston movement were arrested after they ignored warnings to move from a downtown greenway near where they have been camped out for more than a week.^[57]
• October 13 (Day 27) - Mayor Bloomberg told demonstrators they will need to clear Liberty Plaza for the square to be cleaned. In response organizers issued a call for cleaning supplies and say they intend to clean the space themselves.^[58] The NYPD issued a statement saying that the protesters will no longer be allowed to keep sleeping equipment in the area.^[59] Reuters published an article in which they claimed to have found indirect financial links between George Soros and Adbusters, the group which initiated the OWS protests.^[60]
• October 14 (Day 28) - Brookfield Office Properties Inc. postponed cleaning its Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. ^[61] Reuters published an article in which they refuted an earlier claim to have found indirect financial links between George Soros and Adbusters, the group which initiated the OWS protests.^[62]

See also

• List of "Occupy" protest locations
• 2010 UK student protests

References

Further reading

• Fox, Jonathan A. (1998). The struggle for accountability: the World Bank, NGOs, and grassroots movements. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ISBN 0-262-56117-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)