Occupy Wall Street: A protest timeline

A relatively small gathering of young anarchists and aging hippies in lower Manhattan has spawned a national movement. What happened?

Occupy Wall Street
(Image credit: Amy Sussman/Corbis)

This article — originally published on Oct. 7 — was last updated on Nov. 21. Scroll down for the latest updates.

The Occupy Wall Street protest began in September as a small encampment of mostly young activists with mostly inscrutable objectives that were mostly ignored by the media. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protests quickly became a subject of ridicule. But then something funny happened: Occupy Wall Street exploded into a nationwide series of demonstrations drawing support from unions and mainstream liberal groups, and earning comparisons to the powerhouse Tea Party movement and revolutionary pro-democracy protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square. How did that happen? Here, a look back at some key events:

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