Feb. 17. 1970: 76 are arrested and 20 injured in a downtown confrontation between Seattle police and an anti-war demonstration organized by the Seattle Liberation Front. 1975: Several hundred residents of Wyhl, Germany, occupy the construction site of a nuclear power plant. Police responded with water cannons and arrests; by the following week, 28,000 had joined the occupation, and police withdrew for over a year. This is believed to have been the first such plant occupation in the world.

Feb. 18. 1861: Arapaho and Cheyenne cede most of eastern Colorado, guaranteed to them forever in an 1851 treaty. 1997: Political prisoner Osman Murat Ulke is one of 12 Turkish activists charged with "alienating the people from the military."

Feb. 19. 1858: Leschi, chief of the Nisqually and Yakama, is hanged for leading attack on Seattle. 1942: 112,000 citizens of Japanese ancestry interned in U.S. concentration camps set up from this day, ten weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 1986: Farm Labor Organizing Committee signs agreement with Campbell Soup Co., ending seven-year-old boycott. Campbell is later bought by a tobacco company. 1996: 10,000 gather at the state capitol in Olympia, Wash., in a "Rally for Working Families" opposing cuts in social programs. 1997: 1,200 rally in support of striking musicians union, forcing cancellation of opening night Disney production of "Beauty and the Beast" at 5th Ave. Theater in Seattle.

Feb. 20. 1725: First recorded instance of scalping: perpetrated against Indian victims by Capt. Lovewell and troops at Wakefield, New Hampshire. 1950: When a U.S. Air Force B-36 bomber carrying an H-bomb develops engine trouble over the Pacific off Vancouver Island, crew members detontate the bomb (with its plutonium core removed), scattering 45 kg of highly enriched uranium into the atmosphere. Five crew members are killed. 1984: Supreme Court upholds ruling that 12 acres taken by Port of Tacoma, worth $112 million, belong to the Puyallup Indians.

Feb. 21. 1934: Augusto C. Sandino, hero of Nicaraguan independence, assassinated in Managua. 1965: Malcolm X assassinated, New York City. 1972: Beginning of the trial of Fr. Philip Berrigan and six other nonviolent activists (The "Harrisburg Seven") in Harrisburg, PA for an alleged plot to kidnap Henry Kissinger. Proceedings later end in a mistrial.

Feb. 22. 1943: Sophie Scholl, a 22-year-old activist at Munich University, is executed after being convicted of urging students to rise up and overthrow the Nazi government. 1974: Sam Lovejoy topples weather tower for proposed nuclear power plant, Montague, Massachusetts. First act of civil disobedience against nuclear power in U.S. 1997: Nearly 100,000 march in Paris against new anti-immigration bill sponsored by fascist far right.

Feb. 23. 1883: American Anti-Vivisection Society formed in Pennsylvania. 1982: Principality of Wales becomes a nuclear-free zone.