June 21. 1788: US Constitution goes into effect.

June 23. 1947: Senate overrides Pres. Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act. The Act greatly weakened the power of US labor unions in collective bargaining.

June 24. 1970: US Senate votes overwhelmingly to repeal Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Late by at least a million dead Asians and Americans.

June 25. 1962: US Supreme Court rules official prayers unconstitutional in public schools.

June 26. 1894: Beginning of Pullman Railroad Strike, largest industrial strike to date in US history, eventually broken by federal government troops. At least two dozen strikers were killed, and Pres. Cleveland suspended the constitutional right to assembly (the ability of any two or more people to meet in public) in seven states.

June 27. 1869: Birth of Emma Goldman, anarchist, feminist and anti-militarist. St. Petersburg, Russia. 1905: Industrial Workers of the World, radical union, founding convention begins in Chicago.

June 29. 1972: US Supreme Court rules, 5-4, all current state death penalty laws unconstitutional. A later ruling allows states to rewrite laws to reinstitute capital punishment in 1976.

June 30. 1852: Duwamish tribe awarded $62,000 for the taking of their aboriginal lands, including the present-day site of the city of Seattle.

July 1. 1944: Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico resigns in the face of a massive general strike and nonviolent protest; a decade of peaceful democratic rule follows, until a CIA-backed coup in 1954 ushers in a new, even more brutal era of genocidal regimes. 1963: Dr. Samuel B. McKinney leads 400 civil rights marchers from the Central District to downtown Seattle. 35 break off and occupy the mayor's office for 24 hours before being arrested in Seattle's first major civil rights protest.

July 2. 1776: By constitutional statute, New Jersey gave "all inhabitants" of adult age, with a net worth of $50 and residing in the county for 12 months, the right to vote in the general election. In 1790, someone realized it meant both men and women. The law was legal until 1807, when the General Assembly passed new laws, limiting the vote to "free white males."

July 4. 1776: Spurred by unfair taxation issues, the US Declaration of Independence from England begins first successful anti-imperialist revolution in world history. Within 30 years, the US would begin its 200-year legacy of opposing similar revolutions in other countries.

July 5. 1961: Seattle City Council and state legislature announce probes of incidents of local police brutality.

July 6. 1894: US troops intervene in Nicaragua.

July 7. 1863: First military draft by US. Exemptions cost $100.

July 8. 1996: International Court Of Justice declares that in almost all circumstances use of nuclear weapons is illegal.

July 10. 1966: Martin Luther King, Jr. begins a Chicago campaign for fair housing--his first foray into a northern city for desegregation activities.

July 11. 1947: Eight black prisoners killed in Georgia for refusing to work in swamp without boots. 1954: First White Citizens Council organizes in Indianola, Mississippi. Trent Lott's homies.