Jan. 15. 1877: Standing Bear, Ponca chief, refuses to move to reservation because it is within lands already given to Lakota. 1929: Martin Luther King, Jr., born.

Jan. 16. 1991: US invades Kuwait and Iraq. Several dozen US troops (many victims of "friendly fire") and up to 400,000 Iraqi citizens die in the following weeks. An estimated 1,000,000 Iraqis die due to the effects of the following 12 years of US-led global economic embargo.

Jan. 17. 1938: Birth of Martha Cotera, Chicana feminist, librarian, and civil rights worker. 1993: Native Hawai'ians demonstrate against US control of their homeland.

Jan. 18. 1958: Lumbee Indians drive Ku Klux Klan off their land in Maxton, NC. 1998: More than 2,000 indigenous Tzeltals and Tojolbals from the Mexican state of Chiapas occupy the military barracks of the 39th Military Zone in protest over Mexican Army incursions into their communities.

Jan. 19. 1968: Lower Elwha band, after decades of struggle, are allotted reservation land on Olympic Peninsula. 1994: "Shoes for Guns" firearm buyback effort begins in Chicago. Program is denounced by the National Rifle Association.

Jan. 20. 1920: American Civil Liberties Union founded by Roger Baldwin, Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, labor leaders Rose Schneiderman and Duncan McDonald, Rabbi Judah Magnes, and others. 2001: Tens of thousands, lining Pennsylvania Ave. to protest the inauguration of Pres. George W. Bush, are systematically excluded from almost all media coverage of the event.

Jan. 21. 1647: Margaret Brent becomes first US woman to ask for vote (in Maryland assembly). 1969: The Navajo Community College, the first tribally established and operated community college in the US, opens at Many Farms, Arizona.

Jan. 22. 1973: US Supreme Court legalizes abortion in Roe v. Wade decision.

1991: Fourteen ACT-UP AIDS activists are arrested disrupting CBS, NBC and PBS evening news broadcasts with "Fight AIDS, not Arabs" banners.

Jan. 23. 1978: Two-week strike against Somoza dictatorship begins, Nicaragua. Beginning of 18-month insurrection that brings Sandanista triumph.

Jan. 24. 1826: In the first of a series of removal treaties, the Creek agree to cede their land in Georgia and move west. 1955: Ira Hamilton Hayes, a Native American (Pima) who was one of six US Marines to raise the US flag at Iwo Jima, dies of exposure.

Jan. 25. 1851: Sojourner Truth addresses first Black Women's Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio. 1995: Soldiers' Mothers Committee begins 56 mile march between Nazran and Grozny, Chechnya.

Jan. 26. 1856: In the first "Battle of Seattle," settlers drove Indians off from their land so that a little town of white folks could prosper. 1991: 100,000 march against Gulf War, New York City, and San Francisco.

Jan. 27. 1973: Vietnam Peace Treaty signed in Paris, supposedly ending Vietnam War. Guaranteed US reparations to rebuild devastated country. (Never happened.) 1991: Gulf Peace Team evicted from peace camp by US troops, Judayyidat Ar'ar, Iraq.

Jan. 28. 1988: Public Service Co. of New Hampshire declares bankruptcy after drug scandal and rejected evacuation plans render Seabrook nuclear plant unusable. 1995: Over 100 Solders' Mothers Committee members go to Russian army training camp to reclaim their sons from the Army.