July 8. 1520: Battle of Otompan (Otumba, Mexico); Spaniards slay 20,000 Aztecs. 1980: Congress enacts the Hopi-Navajo (forced) Relocation Act to "solve" the problem of impeded access to coal deposits at Big Mountain, Arizona. Dine (Navajo) families at Big Mountain have continued their resistance to this day.

July 9. 1957: Washington State Labor Council formed. 1978: 100,000 march in Washington, D.C. for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

July 10. 1875: Mary McLeod Bethune, black educator and activist, born.

July 11. 1968: American Indian Movement (AIM) founded, Minneapolis.

July 12. 1810: Members of shoemakers' union face trial in New York City for striking to win wage increases. 1951: Adlai Stevenson calls National Guard to stop rioting in Cicero, Illinois. Mob of 3,500 tries to keep an African-American family from moving into the city.

July 13. 1786: Northwest Ordinance enacted, stating "the utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians ... in their property, rights, and liberty they shall never be disturbed." 1989: Nurses' local 1199 goes on strike in Seattle area.

July 14. AD 160: Founding of the kingdom of Copan (Mayan Indians), which would last for over 1,000 years. 1950: Indian Claims Commission upholds Indian claim for the first time in its history, awarding $3.5 million to the Choctaw and Chickasaw for lands illegally taken at the end of the Civil War.

July 15. 1863: New York anti-draft riots end after three days. Over 1,000 died in the riots, including many free blacks attacked and murdered by Confederate sympathizers. 1978: The Longest Walk, transcontinental walk for Native American justice, arrives in Washington D.C. from Alcatraz Island, Calif., with 30,000 marchers.

July 16. 1934: A longshoreman's strike spreads to become a two-day general strike paralyzing the San Francisco area and leading to a successful settlement.

July 17. 1927: First aerial military bombing of a civilian population, by a U.S. Marine squadron of seven airplanes at Ocatal, Nicaragua, kills 300. 1980: 28 female members of Canadian Parliament of all parties announce they will fight for repeal of section of Indian Act that denies Indian status to Indian women marrying non-Indians.

July 18. 552 B.C.: Mahavina, apostle of Jainism, born, India. 1964: Riots break out in Harlem, New York, after a police officer shoots an unarmed black youth, in the first of a series of summer racial riots in Brooklyn, Rochester, Paterson, Elizabeth, Newark, Philadelphia and suburban Chicago.

July 19. 1881: Sitting Bull and 186 followers cross the Canadian border into U.S.; Army breaks its amnesty promise and has him jailed at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory. 1979: Nicaraguan "Sandanista" rebels overthrow U.S.-supported dictator Somoza; mass celebrations in streets of Managua.

July 20. 1951: Mattachine Society, early gay rights organization, formally organized in California. 1979: Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier escapes Lompoc federal penitentiary, California.

July 21. 1954: Geneva Accords signed, freeing Vietnam ("French Indochina") from French colonial rule.