Key dates in Makah whaling

1855: U.S. government and Makah sign a treaty under which the Makah give up their claims to Olympic Peninsula lands and the government guarantees their right to hunt whales.

1926: Faced with dangerously low whale populations worldwide, the Makah stop whaling.

1994: Gray whales come off the endangered-species list.

May 1995: The Makah formally propose to the U.S. government that they resume whaling.

July 1995: The Makah harvest a gray whale that had become entangled in a tribal fishing net.

March 1996: The Clinton administration signs an agreement with the Makah Tribal Council in which the government promises to seek a quota of whales for the tribe from the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

October 1997: Meeting in Monaco, the IWC allows the Makah to take up to 20 gray whales over five years.

May 17, 1999: Makah whalers kill a gray whale and tow it back to Neah Bay.

May 2002: The IWC renews a five-year whaling quota for the Makah tribe, allowing the Makah and Russia's indigenous whalers to continue hunting Pacific gray whales.

December 2002: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals requires the Makah to obtain a waiver of the Marine Mammal Protection Act to legally whale again.

Sept. 8, 2007: Five Makah whalers illegally and fatally shoot a gray whale. The tribe vows to prosecute them.

Oct. 4, 2007: A federal grand jury returns an indictment in the September shooting.