Aug. 4. 1964: Bodies of civil rights volunteers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney found near Philadelphia, Mississippi. 1977: Dept. of Energy established.

Aug. 5. 1842: England: "Plug Plot" riots. In response to economic crisis, high unemployment, high food prices, and decreased wages, a spontaneous strike wave of weavers and spinners starts at Ashton under Lynn. Got its name when the plugs were pulled out of factory boilers. 1912: Formation of the Progressive Party.

Aug. 6. 1945: US drops atomic bomb on civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan. 1997: Hundreds turn out at Seattle's Pier 90 to protest the first-ever arrival in Elliot Bay, for Seafair, of the Trident nuclear submarine USS Ohio on Hiroshima Day.

Aug. 7. 1960: Students stage kneel-in demonstrations against segregation in Atlanta churches. 1968: Republican Convention is held in Miami. Two days of rioting in the black sections of the city ensue, leaving three dead.

Aug. 8. 1865: Birth of Matthew A. Henson, Charles City, MD. African American explorer, first man to reach the North Pole. 1994: Cesar Chavez is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, becoming the first Mexican-American ever to receive the honor.

Aug. 9. 1945: US drops atomic bomb on civilian population of Nagasaki, Japan. 1987: Hundreds arrested in all-day blockade of Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, Golden, CO.

Aug. 10. 1993: Three hundred arrested in protest against clearcutting of temperate rainforest. Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island. 1998: Formation of the Minnehaha Free State in suburban Minneapolis to prevent a freeway extension, in the country's first major anti-road blockade.

Aug. 11. 1945: Striking Mexican filmworkers bar distribution of US films. 1984: During a radio voice test for which the speakers were inadvertently left on, President and Idiot-in-Chief Ronald Reagan jokes, "I have signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Aug. 12. 1812: Lady Ludd "leads" women in Knottingly, England, in riots over high bread prices. 1982: Twelve arrested in sea blockade of first Trident submarine at Hood Canal, WA.

Aug. 13. 1892: Striking miners at Tracy City, TN, capture their mines and free 300 convict strikebreakers. 1936: Newspaper Guild members begin strike of Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper.

Aug. 14. 1908: Illinois declares martial law following Springfield race riot. Riots lead to formation of NAACP. 1980: After two months of labor turmoil, 16,000 Polish workers seize the Lenin Shipyard, Gdansk.

Aug. 15. 1947: After decades of nonviolent activism, India becomes the first major Third World country in the 20th Century to win independence from colonial rule. Dozens more countries would follow in the next twenty years. 1991: Guerillas bomb McDonald's and IBM in Mexico City.

Aug. 16. 1967: Broadcasting from Cuba, Stokely Carmichael tells black Americans to prepare for "total revolution." 1987: The Harmonic Convergence, remember?

Aug. 17. 1985: Hormel meat-packing strike begins in Austin, Minnesota. The Hormel strike, generally regarded as labor's first major grassroots revolt against corporate downsizing, is suppressed after nearly a year by Hormel in cooperation with both the state and the workers' own national union.