Timeline

July 7, 1919 - William Moses Kunstler is born.

1941 - Kunstler graduates from Yale College and enlists in the Army.

1943 - Kunstler marries Lotte Rosenberger. His first two daughters, Karin and Jane, are born in 1943 and 1949.

1944 -1945 - Kunstler's Army unit joins the invasion of Leyte, New Guinea. He receives a Bronze Star and (perhaps) also a Purple Heart, and returns to the U.S. before the end of 1945.

1946 - Kunstler enrolls in Columbia Law School. In 1948, he is admitted to the New York State bar. He and his brother Michael form the law practice Kunstler and Kunstler.

1960 - Kunstler represents Paul and Orial Redd, African American founders of the local NAACP chapter who lived in his Westchester community. This housing discrimination lawsuit is Kunstler's
first civil rights case.

June 15, 1961 - Kunstler receives a telephone call from ACLU Director Rowland Watts asking him to fly to Jackson, Mississippi, to support the Freedom Riders.

1966 - Kunstler founds the Center for Constitutional Rights with attorneys Ben King, Arthur Kinoy, and Morton Stavis.

October 5-9, 1968 - Kunstler represents the Catonsville 9, Catholic activists, including brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who burn draft files to protest the Vietnam war.

Summer 1968 - Kunstler meets young radical attorney Margaret Ratner in a New York City courtroom where she is defending protesters arrested during the Columbia University Protests. Kunstler is representing Abbie Hoffman on a marijuana charge.

August 22-29, 1968 - Protesters converge on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Protest organizers include the YIPPIES (Youth International Party) and the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam.

September 24, 1969 - February 18, 1970 - Kunster serves as lead counsel in the trial of the Chicago Eight (Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale and Lee Weiner), and faces off against Judge Julius Hoffman.

February 25, 1970 - After a speech by William Kunstler, rioting students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, burn down the local branch of the Bank of America.

September 9, 1971 - September 13, 1971 - When inmates at Attica Correctional Facility seize the facility and demand better living conditions, they invite Kunstler to be an observer to negotiations, and then their lawyer. On September 13, the state retakes the prison by force, killing 29 inmates and nine hostages.

Early 1970s - William Kunstler and Margaret Ratner find an apartment in New York's West Village.

February 27, 1973 - May 8, 1973 - At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the American Indian Movement and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation residents occupy the town and demand that the United States abide by longstanding treaties with the Native American people, and launch an investigation into corruption by local government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. U.S. military and government agents immediately surround the area. After 71 days, the standoff ends peacefully. Hundreds are arrested. Kunstler aids in negotiations.

January 8, 1974 - September 16, 1974 - William Kunstler is lead counsel at the trial of Dennis Banks and Russell Means (The Wounded Knee Leadership Trial) in St. Paul, Minnesota. After nine months, the judge dismisses the case because of government misconduct.

October 1976 - William Kunstler and Margaret Ratner marry at the Manhattan courthouse where they met. Margaret is eight months pregnant and their car is parked outside at a 15-minute meter.

November 5, 1976 - Sarah Kunstler is born.

June 24, 1978 - Emily Kunstler is born.

1984 - Gregory "Joey" Johnson burns a U.S. flag at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, and is convicted of violating a Texas law prohibiting destruction of venerated objects.
He is sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,000.

November 19, 1986 -Larry Davis, a 23-year-old drug dealer, shoots six police officers when dozens of officers raid his sister's Bronx apartment. He eludes capture for 17 days despite a massive citywide manhunt.

November 20, 1988 - With Kunstler as his lawyer, Larry Davis is found not guilty of the attempted murder of six police officers.

March 21, 1989 - Kunstler defends Johnson's flag-burning case before the U. S. Supreme Court arguing that his action was protected speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution. On June 21, 1989, the Court issues its decision, invalidating prohibitions in force in 48 of the 50 states, against desecrating the American flag. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989).

April 19, 1989 - A female jogger is found raped and beaten in Central Park

May 1989 - Kunstler represents Tyrone the Cat for "crimes against humanity" in a televised mock trial on Fox TV's "The Reporters."

August 18, 1990 - Yusef Salaam, 15, is convicted of raping and beating the Central Park Jogger. Kunstler is not Salaam's lawyer at trial, but spends two years appealing the conviction. Kunstler is brought up on disciplinary charges by the New York State Bar after calling the trial judge a "disgrace to the bench."

November 5, 1990 - Rabbi Meier Kahane is murdered after giving a speech at New York's Marriot Hotel.

December 22, 1991 - A jury acquits Kunstler's client, El Sayiid Nosair, of murdering Rabbi Meier Kahane.

1992 - Kunstler represents John Gotti and defends his constitutional right to counsel when his longtime attorneys are disqualified because they are "house counsel" for the Gambino organization.

February 26, 1993 - A car bomb is detonated below Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. Kunstler represents several of the suspects (Ibrahim A. El-Gabrowny, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig, and Sheik Abdel Rahman), but is eventually disqualified by district court Judge Michael B. Mukasey from representing them (August 25, 1995).

September 5, 1994 - William Kunstler dies.