July 30. 1973: Grand Opening of Left Bank Books Collective, Seattle, WA. It split off from Red and Black Books Collective (before it had even opened). 1990: Women and children massacred by army, Liberia, Africa.

July 31. 1969: A Moscow police chief reports that thousands of telephone booths have been made inoperable by thieves who have stolen phone parts in order to convert their acoustic guitars to electric.

Aug. 1. 1968: Court acquits sanctuary activist and reporter Demetria Martinez of conspiracy to smuggle aliens for her part in helping bring two Salvadoran women to the US to give birth. 1983: US resumes making chemical weapons after 14 years' suspension.

Aug. 2. 1931: Albert Einstein urges all scientists to refuse military work.

Aug. 3. 1931: Chicago eviction riots leave three dead; 60,000 march for anti-eviction laws. 1971: 200 march in Seattle to demand release of federal surplus food supplies to feed the hungry.

Aug. 4. 1792: Percy Bysshe Shelly, poet of liberty and nonviolent resistance, born, Britain. 1964: Bodies of civil rights volunteers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney found near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Aug. 5. 1842: England: "Plug Plot" riots. In response to economic crisis, high unemployment, high food prices and decreased wages; spontaneous strike wave of weavers and spinners, starting at Ashton under Lynn. Got its name when the plugs were pulled out of factory boilers. 1977: US Nuclear Regulatory Commission audit cannot account for 4 tons of enriched uranium.

Aug. 6. 1945: US drops atomic bomb on civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan. 140,000 die from the immediate effects of the bombing; tens of thousands more in subsequent decades from radiation-induced illnesses. 1985: USSR begins unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. US responds by conducting more underground nuclear tests. In 1998 the US will express moral outrage at India and Pakistan for similar tests.

Aug. 7. 1960: Students stage kneel-in demonstrations against segregation in Atlanta churches. 1964: After a reported US confrontation with North Vietnamese forces that, it was later discovered, never occurred, Congress nearly unanimously passes the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, authorizing the President to use "all necessary steps" to "win" the war in Vietnam.

Aug. 8. 1942: Indian National Congress passes "Quit India" resolution, leading to mass arrests by British rulers.

Aug. 9. 1779: Gen. Clinton and 1,500 American troops break dam to flood Iroquois towns and fields in upstate New York; troops then burn and ravage settlements for 12 days. 1943: Franz Jagerstatter, Austrian conscientious objector to Nazi draft, publicly beheaded in Berlin.

Aug. 10. 1981: Pres. Reagan approves work order for the neutron bomb, which kills people but leaves private property intact, thus avoiding costly "takings" litigation. 1997: Nine activists detained but not charged after throwing red paint on the Trident nuclear submarine USS Ohio at Seattle's waterfront.

Aug. 11. 1945: Striking Mexican filmworkers bar distribution of US films.

Aug. 12. 1812: Lady Ludd "leads" women in Knottingly, England, in riots over high bread prices. 1932: Voters of Arkansas make populist Democrat Hattie Carraway first woman elected to US Senate.