Feb. 1 1956: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Montgomery Improvement Association files suit in federal court against Alabama for segregation of buses. 1974: Lynda Ann Healy, first of serial killer Ted Bundy's murder victims, abducted in Seattle.

Feb. 2 1962: Univ. of Washington bans campus speech by Gus Hall, head of Communist Party USA. 1990: South African President de Klerk lifts ban on opposition groups.

Feb. 3 1743: Philadelphia establishes a "pesthouse" to quarantine immigrants. 1908: US Supreme Court rules a union boycott violates Sherman Antitrust Act. 1913: US federal income tax becomes law.

Feb. 4 1822: Emancipated US blacks settle in Liberia, West Africa. 1974: Heiress Patricia Hearst is kidnapped in Berkeley by the Symbionese Liberation Army, which demands that the Hearst family organize and fund a free food program for poor people in Oakland. Several street feeds do take place before the program runs out of money in March.

Feb. 5 1914: Birth of William Burroughs, St. Louis, Missouri. 1970: US troops invade Laos.

Feb. 6 1923: 172 revolutionary peasants condemned to death at Chanch, India. 1973: Two hundred American Indian Movement protesters clash with police for three days in Custer, S. Dak., over murder of Wesley Bad Heart; 37 arrested.

Feb. 7 1986: After huge popular protests, "Baby Doc" Duvalier flees from Haiti, ending 35 years of US-sponsored dictatorship.

Feb. 8 1965: South Vietnam: "Operation Rolling Thunder" begins using jet bombers inside the country, along with saturation bombing of the North, for strikes against "VC" targets.

Feb. 9 1619: Vanini burned at the stake as an atheist. 1886: Pres. Grover Cleveland declares a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence.

Feb. 10 1763: Treaty of Paris signed, ending French and Indian War. 1970: National protests against US invasion of Laos include 1,500 protesters and nine arrests at the Univ. of Washington.

Feb. 11 1963: CIA Domestic Operations Division created. 1990: Nelson Mandela released after being held 27 years in prison without trial by the US-supported apartheid government of South Africa, for the crime of "high treason." Government announces amnesty for all political prisoners in South Africa.

Feb. 12 1974: After ten years of direct actions to claim treaty fishing rights, Washington state tribes win court decision giving them 50% of allowable salmon catch. Legislators have sought to undermine or overturn the ruling 1989: Five Pakistani Muslim rioters killed protesting "Satanic Verses."

Feb. 13 1960: France becomes the fourth nuclear power, conducting first nuclear test 1991: During the Gulf War, approximately 400 Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, are killed during a US laser-guided missile attack on the Amirayah (al-Firdos) fortified bunker on the west side of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.

Feb. 14 1929: St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Seven members of Chicago's Moran gang, waiting in a garage for a shipment of hijacked liquor, are executed by a Capone firing squad outfitted in police uniforms. 1971: Pres. Richard Nixon orders secret taping system in the white House.