Sep. 14. 1940: First peacetime draft in the US initiated. 1990: Pentagon announces $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. 1991: US and Soviet Union sign an agreement calling for an end to all outside military assistance to warring factions in Afghanistan. The fiercely conservative Muslim opposition to 1979's Soviet invasion had, with CIA training and support, eventually forced a Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Among the CIA's students: the faction later known to the world as the Taliban, and Osama bin Laden.

Sep. 15. 1782: Congress adopts a Masonic emblem as the Great Seal of the US. 2001: Four days after 9-11, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) casts the only Congressional vote opposing the granting of unlimited military power to Pres. Bush.

Sep. 16. 1982: Massacre of over 1,000 civilian Palestinian refugees begins, Sabra, and Shatila camps, Lebanon.

Sep. 17. 1796: George Washington's farewell address, in which he declined to run for a third term as president. He strongly warned against permanent alliances with foreign powers, large public debts, large military establishment and devices of any "small, artful, enterprising minority" to control or change the government.

Sep. 18. 1980: Cuban Cosmonaut Arnoldo Tamayo becomes first Black in space. 1987: Pope John Paul II speaks to Native American leaders in Phoenix, Arizona, urging them to "forget the past."

Sep. 19. 1990: Remains of 828 dead, radioactive beagles from 1950s animal experiments at UC-Davis are buried at Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Sep. 20. 1903: Troops sent to Cripple Creek, Colo. to break miners' strike.

Sep. 21. 1948: Folke Bernadotte, UN mediator, assassinated by Jewish paramilitaries, Palestine. 1956: Anastasio Somoza, Nicaraguan dictator, assassinated by Roliberto Lopez. Two hundred opposition leaders are promptly arrested. Somoza's son would assume power and continue the dictatorship with full US backing for another 23 years.

Sep. 22. 1980: After 10 months of skirmishes, Iran-Iraq war starts, halting 60% of world's oil traffic.

Sep. 23. 1868: "El Grito de Lares" uprising against Spanish colonial government of Puerto Rico.

Sep. 24. 1824: General Council of the Cherokee Nation passes a law making it unlawful for white men living on the Nation to have more than one wife, or to make use of her property without her consent. 1968: Anti-war protestors destroy 10,000 draft files in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1968: Mexican soldiers battle students at the National University in Mexico City, killing 17 and arresting at least 1,000.

Sep. 25. 1861: Secretary of US Navy authorizes enlistment of slaves in Union Navy. Enlistees can achieve no rank higher than "boys" and receive pay of one ration per day and $10 per month. This authorization has never been rescinded.

Sep. 26. 1786: Shay's Rebellion begins, Springfield Armory, Mass., against the authority of the newly installed central government.1874: Ronald Mackenzie's cavalrymen round up 2,000 Indian ponies in the Palo Duro Canyon and shoot each of them. Mounted soldiers then conduct the horses' former owners on a 200-mile forced march to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Sep. 27. 1983: Five members of Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp enter Boeing's Cruise missile production plant in Seattle, leaflet workers, and are arrested.