CHRONOLOGY: A month of mushrooming protests in Myanmar

(Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people joined streams of monks on marches through Yangon on Monday in the biggest demonstration against Myanmar's ruling generals since they crushed student-led protests in 1988.

Here are some key dates over the last month:

August 15: Without warning, diesel prices are doubled and the cost of compressed natural gas rises five-fold. Bus networks in Yangon grind to a temporary halt.

August 23 - Thirteen prominent dissidents are arrested for organizing protests against the fuel price rises. They face up to 20 years in jail.

August 28: After two weeks of sporadic marches, mostly by social activists and the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), Buddhist monks join in for the first time, leading a march in the northwest city of Sittwe.

September 5: Soldiers fire warning shots to halt 500 marching monks in Pakokku, 370 miles northwest of Yangon.

September 6: Several hundred angry Pakokku monks hold government officials hostage for more than four hours and torch their cars.

September 11: Monks threaten to shun the military unless the junta apologizes for assaulting monks in Pakokku.

September 16: Two monks in Sittwe are arrested, the first to members of the priesthood to be detained.

September 17: Myanmar-language foreign radio stations broadcast reports that an alliance of monks will refuse to accept alms from the ruling generals, their families and associates -- a very serious threat in the devoutly Buddhist country.

September 18: Authorities fire tear gas to break up a protest of about 1,000 monks and civilians in Sittwe.

September 19: Nearly 1,000 monks stage a sit-in outside government offices.

September 20: After being barred for three days, 500 monks are allowed into Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's holiest shrine, to pray. Armed police throw up barbed wire barricades near Yangon university, a focus of the 1988 uprisings.

September 21: Some 600 monks march through Yangon, meeting no opposition from watching plainclothes policemen.

September 22: Monks are let through the barbed-wire barricades outside the home of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel peace laureate appears in a doorway and prays with the monks for 15 minutes.

It is the first time she has been seen in public since May 2003.