July 6. 1945: Nicaragua becomes first nation to ratify United Nations charter.

July 7. 1883: Chief Moses and the Sinkiuses (Chelan tribe) forced to move from their Columbia River reservation to the Colville reservation; the former is "restored to public domain." 1992: Peace march to Presidential residence blockaded by police, Belgrade, Serbia.

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. 1951: Dashiel Hammett sentenced to six months imprisonment for refusing to cooperate with anticommunist inquiry. 1957: Washington State Labor Council formed.

July 10. 1875: Mary McLeod Bethune, black educator and activist, born. 1985: French secret police blow up Greenpeace "Rainbow Warrior" anti-nuclear vessel in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, killing one activist, Fernando Pereira.

July 11. 1947: Eight black prisoners killed in Georgia for refusing to work in swamp without boots. 1967: A week of riots begins in Newark, New Jersey, eventually leaving 26 dead, 1,500 wounded, and over 1,000 arrested amidst widespread charges of police brutality.

July 12. 1817: Henry Thoreau, author of "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience," born, Massachusetts. 1966: Racial riots erupt in Chicago and Cleveland.

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." 1942: Top-secret Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons begins, Chicago.

July 14. 1912: Birth of folk singer Woody Guthrie. 1950: Indian Claims Commission upholds an 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. 1978: The Longest Walk, transcontinental walk for Native American justice, arrives in Washington D.C. from Alcatraz Island, Calif., with 30,000 marchers. 1994: Cease-fire agreed to in Rwanda after genocidal levels of ethnic violence.

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. 1983: In anti-nuclear protest, 10,000 activists form human chain linking U.S. and Soviet embassies. London, England.

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. 1979: Nicaraguan dictator Somoza flees to Florida.

July 18. 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. 1974: Martha Tranquill jailed nine months for tax refusal over Vietnam War, Sacramento, California. 1979: Nicaraguan "Sandanista" rebels overthrow U.S.-supported dictator Somoza; mass celebrations in streets of Managua.