July 26, 1947: US armed forces consolidated in newly created Department of Defense, replacing the previous US War Department. The same legislation, the National Security Act, also establishes the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and numerous other secret "black budget" government agencies outside public review.

July 27, 1568: Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from Virginia. 1957: Jimmy Wilson, a black farmhand from Marion, Alabama, is sentenced to death for stealing $1.95 from a white woman.

July 28, 1591: Anne Hutchinson banished from Boston because of her independent religious views.

July 29, 1901: US Socialist Party established. 1968: Riots rock Seattle's Central Area after a police raid on the local Black Panther Party headquarters. Seattle BPP leader Aaron Dixon is arrested for possession of a stolen typewriter. (He is later acquitted.) Sixty-nine are arrested in riots over the following three days.

July 30, 1863: President Lincoln issues "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black prisoner shot. 1956: "In God We Trust" is adopted as the official motto of the United States of America.

July 31, 1964: Tonkin Gulf Hoax incidents begin. With fresh evidence now available, claims that the Tonkin Gulf incident was deliberately provoked gain new plausibility. Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.

Aug. 1, 1938: Hilo Massacre: 51 racially mixed longshoremen and union supporters in Hilo, Hawaii are gassed, hosed, bayoneted, and shot in the back by police. 1991: Berkeley (Calif.) police fire rubber bullets at protest over the installation of volleyball courts at People's Park.

Aug. 2, 1931: Albert Einstein urges all scientists to refuse military work. 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, after discussing plans with US Ambassador April Glaspie.

Aug. 3, 1863: Governor Seymour asks Lincoln to suspend draft in New York. 1971: Two hundred march in Seattle to demand release of federal surplus food supplies to feed the hungry.

Aug. 4, 1925: US Marines leave Nicaragua after 13-year occupation. 1996: After state voters had overwhelmingly passed a referendum legalizing medical marijuana, federal agents use overwhelming force to raid and shut down San Francisco Cannibus Buyer's Club.

Aug. 5, 1498: Christopher "Wrong-way" Columbus is first recent European to land on South American continent. This time he thought it was Australia. 1981: Pres. Reagan orders the FAA to fire 12,700 striking air traffic controllers, setting the tone for a decade of government complicity in corporate union-busting.

Aug. 6, 1945: US drops atomic bomb on civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan. An estimated 140,000 die from the immediate effects of the bombing; tens of thousands more in subsequent decades from radiation-induced illnesses.

Aug. 7, 1960: Fidel Castro announces plans to nationalize all US holdings in Cuba. US takes the moral high ground, begins its non-stop campaign to assassinate him. 1990: President George H.W. Bush (and former CIA head) orders deployment of US troops to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.

Aug. 8, 1998: Ten percent (6,000) of the UK's mink freed by Animal Liberation Front.