African American History
Month. In 1926 Dr. Carter Woodson
instituted a week-long celebration of the contributions of African Americans
to history. Dr. Woodson chose the week of Abraham Lincoln's birthday (February
12). In recent years the observance has expanded, and now the entire month
of February is celebrated as African American History Month. Because of
the variation in terms used, this month is also known as Afro-American
History or Black History and Black Experience Month. Each year, the Association
for the Study of Afro-American Life & History, founded by
February 1
Langston Hughes (1902–1967) : African American.
Writer. Hughes emerged as a leader of the
Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and became the most influential African
American writer of his time. His poetry, which drew on the traditional
Black art forms of spirituals, blues, and jazz, won an especially wide
audience, but Hughes also distinguished himself as a writer of fiction,
drama, essays, and history.
Confederation
Agreement Day : Senegal. Public holiday.
Eid al-Adha (eyed-al-ahdha)
(The Feast of Sacrifice) : Islam. This
three-day festival comes at the culmination of the hajj, or pilgrimage
to Mecca, which is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. All Muslims who can
are required to make this pilgrimage once in their lifetime. Mecca and
Medina, both in Saudi Arabia, are Islam’s two holiest sites. This
religious observance commemorates the story of Abraham and Ishmail as
told in the Qur’an. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only
son as a proof of his faith. Before Abraham completed the sacrifice, God
stopped him and provided a ram for sacrifice in place of Ishmail. After
a solemn service at the mosque, worshippers visit cemeteries to pay tribute
to the dead. When they return home, a festive meal is eaten. (m)
Any sweet dessert is an appropriate gift, particularly
baklava. Muslims do not drink alcoholic beverages. Eid Mubarak and “Happy
Eid” (pronounced eed) are common greetings.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 2
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) : Mexico.
This treaty, which marked the end of the Mexican
War, established U.S. sovereignty over 1,193,061 square miles of formerly
disputed or Mexican territory, including the present states of Texas,
Arizona, California, and Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and
Wyoming.
Candlemas : Christian. This
religious holiday originated with the ancient Jewish custom that required
mothers to present their first male child in the temple. As a Jewish mother,
Mary would have presented Jesus on February 2. The day is associated with
light and purification. The holiday takes its name from the custom of
blessing the church's supply of candles for the year on this date.
Imbolc: Pagan and Wiccan.
Imbolc, which like all Pagan and Wiccan holidays
begins at sundown on the day before, is a celebration of fire and light
and the return of life. It is also the holy day of St. Brigid, the Goddess
of fire, healing, and fertility. Wicca is the common term for many different
traditions of Neo-Pagan nature religions that celebrate seasonal and life
cycles and reveres a Goddess and a God. Most Wiccans celebrate eight seasonal
sabbats (days of rest) four of which are considered major: Imbolc, Beltaine
(May 1st), Lughnasadh (Aug 1), and Samhain (November 1). The minor sabbats
correspond to the four solstices. Pagan and Wiccan traditions have a long
history preceding that of any of the major Western religions. Originating
as agricultural festivals going back for thousands of years, many sabbat
practices were incorporated into Roman, Greek, and other traditions and
also found their way into subsequent Western religions. Pagans and Wiccans
are not anti-Christ or in oppostion to any religion. Their beliefs and
practices focus on the earth’s seasons and the natural cycles of
the world. As such, they are largely pacifist in nature. Their only “rule”
is to “harm none”. They stress reverence for nature; belief
in ecological principles and that the divine is in everything as well
as that there are multiple deities and many different pathways to the
divine, and acceptance of reincarnation. The circle with five points,
“the Pentacle” is the most common symbol used in Wicca. Its
five points symbolize Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Spirit, in the circle
of eternity. Wiccans are found primarily in Britain, U.S.A., Canada, Australia,
Germany and Holland.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 3
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) : Lesbian.
Author. An avant-garde American writer whose
Paris home became a salon for the leading artists and writers of the period
between World Wars I and II, Gertrude Stein attended Radcliffe College,
studying psychology with the philosopher William James. After further
study at Johns Hopkins medical school, she went to Paris where she lived
with her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas. Stein was among the first
collectors of works by the Cubists and other experimental painters of
the period, such as Pablo Picasso (who painted her portrait), Henri Matisse,
and Georges Braque. These painters were introduced to expatriate American
writers, such as Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and other visitors
drawn by her literary reputation. Her first published book, Three Lives
(1909), the stories of three working-class women, has been called a minor
masterpiece. Her only book to reach a wide public was The Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas (1933), actually Stein's own autobiography. The
performance in the United States of her Four Saints in Three Acts
(1934), which the composer Virgil Thomson had made into an opera, led
to a triumphal American lecture tour in 1934–35.
Bean Scattering Festival (Setsubun) : Japan.
This festival expresses everyone's
desire for good health and good fortune in the new year. At home, children
throw beans at the "devil" and shout "out with the devil, in with good
luck."
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 4
Outbreak of Philippine
revolt against the United States (1899) : Philippines. During
the Spanish American War the United States encouraged the Philippine people
to organize an army of resistance against Spanish rule. When the treaty
ending the war transferred control from Spain to the United States, the
rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo called for the people to declare their independence.
On February 4, they rose in armed insurrection. An American force of 700,000
men succeeded in ending organized resistance by the end of the year. However,
many influential Americans denounced the government's policies.
Butter Sculpture
Festival : Tibet. Also known as the Butter
Lamp Festival, this holiday is celebrated on the evening of the fifteenth
day of the first month of the Tibetan lunar year. It is part of Monlam
Chenmo, the Great Prayer Festival of Tibetan Buddhism held after
the New year. People make pilgrimages to the monastery in Kumbum to witness
a spectacular display of sculptures, all hand-sculpted from yak butter
by the monks and painted in vibrant colors, depicting Buddhist deities,
events from the stories of Sakyamuni's previous births, and various events
in Tibetan folklore and religious hisotry. These exquisite butter sculptures,
some of which are thirty feet high, are illuminated on this special night
by hundreds of butter lamps. As ephemeral as they are beautiful, all of
the sculptures will be destroyed by the monks before dawn, a reminder
of the Buddhist belief in the impermanence of all things.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 5
Constitution
Day : Mexico. On this day in
1917 Mexico adopted its first constitution. (See entry for November
20.)
Lantern Festival
(Yuan-hsiao) : China. This celebrates
the end of the New Year season. In Taiwan people make elaborate lanterns
to hang in the temples and hold contests to choose the most beautiful
one. They also write riddles on the lanterns and compete to solve them.
In the People's Republic of China the lanterns are hung in public parks.
(m)
Taeborum (tay-bore-oom)
: Korea. Taeborum is the day of the first
full moon of the Korean lunar year, marking the end of the traditional
New Year's holiday season and the beginning of the agricultural cycle.
The holiday is celebrated with a folk festival, Jushin Balpgi,
when people bang loudly on drums and gongs to drive away the evil spirits
of the old year and to usher in peace, health, and prosperity for the
coming year. In the evening, everyone gathers at the center of the village
to revel under the first full moon.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 6
Bob Marley (1945–1981) : Jamaican.
Musician. Marley was the most influential
star of reggae, a Jamaican form of popular music that draws on Afro-Caribbean
dance and American soul music and was one of the first musical idioms
from the Third World to become popular in Europe and the United States.
Reggae is associated with Rastafarianism, a faith founded by Marcus Garvey,
whose adherents see the late Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as a divine
figure and themselves as black Hebrews exiled in the Babylon of western
colonial capitalism. Marley's intense, compelling presence and the stirring
messages of his songs brought him the acclaim of international audiences
and influenced singers and songwriters throughout the Western Hemisphere,
Europe, and Africa.
Waitangi Day : New Zealand. This
commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the
indigenous Maoris of New Zealand and the European colonists, providing
for British sovereignty in exchange for guaranteed possession by the Maoris
of their lands.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 7
T'u B'Shvat (two-bish-vat) (New Year of the Trees) : Jewish.
Although a minor Jewish holiday, New Year
of the Trees is widely celebrated—especially with a focus on children—as
a time to renew the land and to plant trees.
(m)
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 8
Martin Buber (1878–1965) : Jewish Austrian.
Theologian. Buber developed a theology
of Jewish existentialism that emphasized a strong personal relationship
between God and the individual. His most famous work is I and Thou.
Constitution Day : Philippines. This
holiday commemorates the adoption of the Constitution of the Philippines
in 1935.
Dawes General Allotment Act (1887) : United
States. This law dissolved American
Indian tribes as legal entities and divided formerly tribal lands among
individual property owners.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 9
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) : African
American. Dunbar became
nationally known for his poems and tales, many of them depicting the life
of Blacks on southern plantations. He also wrote essays protesting the
conditions of Black Americans.
St. Maroon's Day : Lebanon.
Public holiday.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 11
National Foundation Day (Kenkoku Kinen Bi) : Japan. This
holiday celebrates the ascension to the throne of the first Japanese Emperor,
Jimmu, and the founding of the Japanese nation in 660 B.C.E.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 12
Tadeusz (Thaddeus)
Kosciuszko (1746–1817) : Polish. Soldier
and statesman. As a colonel in the Continental Army during the American
Revolution, Kosciuszko planned the fortifications that helped defeat the
British at the battle of Saratoga. For his service to the cause of American
independence, Congress awarded him American citizenship. After returning
to Poland in 1784 and becoming a major general in the Polish army in 1789,
Kosciuszko emerged as a military and political leader, pressing for democratic
reforms in Polish government and society and leading Polish forces against
Russian armies sent to suppress the Polish movement for independence in
1791 and again in 1794. After his final defeat in 1794, he spent the rest
of his life in exile.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 14
Richard Allen (1760–1831) : African American.
Minister. In 1787 Allen founded the African
Methodist Episcopal Church to give African Americans the opportunity to
worship in a setting free of racial discrimination. His Bethel Church
in Philadelphia became a focal point of organized protest by African Americans
against slavery and racial discrimination in the North.
Frederick Douglass (1817–1895) : African
American. Writer, lecturer,
editor, and civil rights activist. Born a slave, Frederick Augustus Bailey
escaped at the age of 21, changed his name, and became a renowned campaigner
for the abolition of slavery. After publishing his autobiography in 1845,
Douglass made a lecture tour of England, where friends raised money to
buy his freedom. Upon his return he founded a newspaper, the North
Star. During the Civil War Douglass urged President Lincoln to free
the slaves and arm African Americans. After the war Douglass held a variety
of federal offices, including that of Minister to Haiti.
Masao Satow (1908–1977) : Japanese American.
Civic leader. Born in California to Japanese
American parents, Satow joined the Japanese American Citizens League,
an emerging national organization for persons of Japanese ancestry born
in the United States, in 1932. He became its national secretary in 1947,
when the organization had only two chapters, both on the West Coast, and
3,100 members. At the end of his twenty-five years of leadership, the
organization had 94 chapters across the nation and 27,000 members.
Valentine's Day : United States.
The origins of this day are confused. There
appear to have been two or three early Christian martyrs named Valentine.
One was probably executed on February 14. One man named Valentine secretly
married young sweethearts in opposition to the Roman Emperor Claudius'
ban on marriage (a policy designed to prevent young men of military age
from forming family ties). Another legend mentions flowers grown by Valentine
and given to children. When Valentine was imprisoned the children remembered
him by throwing nosegays and notes into his prison window. These were
the original Valentine greetings.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 15
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) : Suffragette.
Born in Adams, Massachusetts, Anthony
was a leader of the movement to gain women the right to vote. As a leader
of the Women's Temperance Movement along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
she secured the first laws in New York State giving women control over
their children, property, and wages.
Felix Frankfurter
(1882–1965) : Jewish American. Lawyer,
teacher, jurist. Frankfurter taught law at Harvard Law School, was an
advisor to President Wilson, and helped to found the American Civil Liberties
Union. He was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President
Franklin Roosevelt in 1939.
Nirvana (Buddha's Death) : Buddhist.
In the Mahãyãna Buddhist tradition, this day marks the death of Buddha
in 483 B.C.E. and commemorates his attainment of final Nirvana. The date
is based on the Japanese Buddhist calendar.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 16
Presidents Day
: United States. The birthdays of U.S.
Presidents George Washington (February 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (February
12, 1809) are observed on this day. (m)
Randy Shilts
(1952–1994) : Gay. Author
and journalist. The national correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle,
Shilts was one of the first openly gay journalists hired at a major newspaper.
Shilts' best-selling books includeThe Mayor of Castro Street: The Life
and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), And the Band Played On: Politics, People
and the AIDS Epidemic (1987), and Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians
and Gays in the U.S. Military(1993). And the Band Played On
was made into a docudrama that was broadcast on HBO on September 11, 1993.
Band has been translated into seven languages and released in 16
nations. Conduct Unbecoming won numerous awards, earning Shilts
the designation of Author of the Year in 1988 from the American Society
of Journalists and Authors. This is the date of his death from AIDS.
Independence Day : Lithuania.
In 1918 Lithuania declared its independence
from Russia. However, in the aftermath of World War II, the Soviet Union
absorbed Lithuania into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and it
was not until August 19, 1991 that Lithuania regained its independence.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 17
Marian Anderson (1902–1993) : African
American. Singer. Gifted with
a rich contralto that the conductor Arturo Toscanini called "the kind
of voice heard once in a hundred years," Marian Anderson rose from modest
beginnings in Philadelphia to become an internationally acclaimed concert
artist, renowned for her interpretations of the classical repertoire and
of African American spirituals. In 1955, thirty years after beginning
her concert career, she became the first African American to sing a leading
role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Widely admired for her
humane spirit, she served on the United States delegation to the United
Nations General Assembly in 1958.
Goyaale (Geronimo)
(1829–1909) : American Indian (Chiricahua Apache).
Military leader. As chief of the Chiricahua
Apache Indians, Geronimo escaped repeatedly from reservations and led
attacks on settlers and soldiers in northern Mexico and the southwestern
United States during the late 1870s and early 1880s. He surrendered to
U.S. government forces in 1885. This is the anniversary of his death.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 18
Sholom Aleichem (born Solomon Rabinowitz)
(1854–1916) : Jewish Russian American. Writer.
Born in Ukraine, Rabinowitz began writing in Yiddish in 1883, using as
his pseudonym the Yiddish greeting "Peace be upon you." His best known
works are his stories of Jewish life in the villages of Eastern Europe.
Along with I. Peretz and Mendele Sforim, he is considered one of the founders
of modern Yiddish literature.
Audre Geraldin Lorde (1934–1992) : Lesbian.
Poet and essayist. Audre Lorde was a Black lesbian who fought for
justice through both her writings and her political activities. She held
a number of teaching positions and toured internationally as a lecturer,
forming coalitions between Afro-German and Afro-Dutch women, founding
a sisterhood in South Africa, starting the Women of Color Press, and establishing
the St. Croix Women's Coalition. Her poetry collections include From
a Land Where Other People Live (1973), The Black Unicorn (1978),
Our Dead Behind Us (1986), and The Marvelous Arithmetics of
Distance (1993). She won the American Book Award in 1989 for A
Burst of Light and was appointed New York State's Poet Laureate by
then Governor Mario Cuomo in 1991. Lorde chronicled her 14-year battle
against breast cancer in works such as The Cancer Journals, before
finally succumbing to the disease in 1992.
Luis Muñoz Marín
(1898–1980) : Puerto Rico. Political
leader. Elected Puerto Rico's first governor in 1948, Muñoz Marín served
in that office until 1964, instituting programs of economic development
and social reform. He also proposed a plan for maintaining Puerto Rico's
union with the United States while establishing the island as a self-governing
unit exempt from U.S. taxes. This proposal became the basis for the Commonwealth
of Puerto Rico, created by an act of Congress and proclaimed in 1952.
Maha Shivaratri
(ma-ha-sheevah-rahtree) (Shiva's Night) : Hindu. This
festival honors Shiva who, along with Vishnu and Krishna, is one of the
most important deities in Hinduism. It is observed in the spring and is
celebrated with fasting, prayer, and meditation. (m)
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 19
Beginning of Japanese internment (1942) :
United States. On this date President
Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring the removal
of most persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast to internment
camps in rural Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Utah, and
Wyoming. This act, a response to anti-Japanese feeling in the country
after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, uprooted 120,000 people,
including 71,000 U.S. citizens.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 21
Barbara Jordan (1936–1996) : African
American. Lawyer, politician,
teacher. Born in Houston, Texas, Jordan graduated magna cum laude
from Texas Southern University and Boston University Law School. In 1966,
she was the first Black woman to be elected to the Texas State Senate.
She later became the first woman and first African American elected to
Congress from Texas.
First publication of the Cherokee Phoenix
(1828) : American Indian. In 1828 a
system of symbols developed by Sequoyah to give written form to the Cherokee
language made possible the publication of the Cherokee Phoenix,
the first newspaper printed in an Indian language.
National Mourning
Day : Bangladesh. Public holiday.
Muharram (moo-hah-ram)
(New Year) : Islam. This begins
the new year of 1425 based on the Islamic lunar calendar for Muslims.
The Islamic lunar calendar dates from the hegira, the flight of
the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 (based on the solar calendar).
(m)
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 22
Santiago Iglesias (1872–1939) : Spanish
Puerto Rican. Labor organizer
and political leader. Iglesias first became involved in activities demanding
civil rights for workers as a 12-year-old apprentice carpenter in his
native Spain. Immigrating to Cuba three years later, he continued to organize
laborers to demand better working conditions first there and then in Puerto
Rico, where he rose to leadership of the Federación Libre de Trabajadores
de Puerto Rico. He was the organization's president from 1900 to 1935.
An active Socialist, he eventually entered electoral politics, serving
in the Puerto Rican senate from 1917 to 1933 and as Puerto Rico's representative
to the U.S. Congress from 1933 until his death.
Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude
Bonnin) (1876–1938) : American Indian (Sioux). Writer
and activist. Born in South Dakota to a full-blooded Sioux mother and
a white father, Zitkala-Sa became an eloquent writer of essays and memoirs
and a leader in the movement to advance the civic, educational, and economic
opportunities of American Indians while recognizing and preserving American
Indian cultures. As secretary of the Society of American Indians and then
president of the National Council of American Indians, she lectured, wrote,
and lobbied on behalf of Indian legislation, and was instrumental in the
passage of the Indian Citizenship Bill of 1924. (See entry for June
2.)
People Power Day : Philippines.
This commemorates the overthrow of Ferdinand
Marcos, who ruled the Philippines as a dictatorship from 1972 to 1986,
by the democracy movement. This holiday is commonly celebrated from February
22 to February 25. It was on February 25 that Ferdinand Marcos left the
Philippines and Corazon Aquino was recognized by the United States as
president.
Union Day : Egypt. Public
holiday.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 23
Defenders of
the Motherland Day : Russia. Public
holiday.
Claude Brown
(1937-2003): African American.Writer. Claude
Brown is best know for his book, “Manchild in the Promised Land”
which became not only a best seller, but also a classical account of the
migration of African Americans from the rural south to large urban areas
such as New York City. The book paralleled Mr. Brown’s life on the
streets of Harlem. He later finished high school and graduated from Howard
University, where his talent for authentic narrative was first discovered
and he was encouraged to write the book that would make him famous.
W[illiam] E[dward] B[urkhardt] Du Bois (1868–1963)
: African American. Writer and
civil rights activist. Scholar, writer, and editor, Du Bois was the most
important leader of the effort to secure basic civil and human rights
for African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. Trained
in sociology, history, and philosophy, he wrote a number of scholarly
works about the social conditions of Blacks in America. The most famous
of these, The Souls of Black Folk, was especially influential;
it attacked Booker T. Washington's strategy of accommodation and urged
a more activist approach to improving the conditions of Black Americans.
Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement, an organization of Black intellectuals
working for civil rights, in 1905, and in 1909 helped to found the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He edited the NAACP
magazine The Crisis until 1934, when he resigned to devote his
time to teaching and writing.
Casimir Funk
(1884–1967) : Jewish Polish American. Scientist.
Funk discovered vitamins as
Beginning of Lent
: Eastern Orthodox Christian. This
begins the Lenten season based on the Julian Calendar followed by Eastern
Orthodox Christians. (m)
Shrove Monday
: Christian. Christians in some
countries customarily make treats to use up butter and eggs before the
40-day fast of Lent. (m)
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 24
Flag Day : Mexico.
Public holiday.
Shrove Tuesday
(Mardi Gras) : Christian. Shrove Tuesday
marks the final midwinter fling before Lent begins. (m)
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 25
Enrico Caruso (1873–1931) : Italian American.
Opera singer. The most acclaimed operatic
tenor of his time, Caruso was also the first great singer whose voice
is preserved in recordings.
Haing Ngor (1951–1996) : Cambodian American.
Physician, actor. Haing Ngor arrived in the
United States after escaping imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge following
the 1975 takeover of Cambodia by that party, and endured four years of
torture and starvation. He had to conceal his medical training to escape,
which he did after a Vietnamese invasion ousted the Khmer Rouge. He immigrated
to the United States in 1980 to resume his medical practice. In 1984,
Ngor won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his portrayal
of Dith Pran in the movie The Killing Fields. Ngor was the first
nonprofessional to win an Oscar for acting since Harold Russell in 1946
for The Best Years of Our Lives. He was shot to death outside his
home on this date. He was 45 years old.
José de San Martín (1778–1850) : Argentina.
Soldier and statesman. With Simón Bolívar,
San Martín led the movement of Spain's South American colonies to win
their freedom from Spain. In 1811 he resigned from the Spanish army to
organize the armed resistance to Spanish rule in the land of his birth,
modern-day Argentina. He raised an army there and led it over the Andes
to Chile, taking Santiago in 1817, and then organized a Chilean navy to
transport the rebel army to Lima. There he proclaimed the establishment
of a new country on July 28, 1821. Although he was made leader of the
new nation, he came into political conflict with Bolívar and retired to
France.
National Day
: Kuwait. Also observed on February
26, this two-day holiday marks the successful pushing back of Iraqi troops
from Kuwait during the Gulf War in 1991.
Ash Wednesday
(beginning of Lent) : Christian. This
marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of prayer and fasting preceding
Easter Sunday (February 25 to April 11, excluding Sundays). It is observed
in memory of Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the desert. In the early centuries
of Christianity, there were strict requirements for fasting during the
period of preparation for Easter. Although these rules have been relaxed
in the Western church, many Roman Catholics and Protestants choose to
give up a favorite food or activity during Lent. There are many symbolic
meanings to the use of ashes on this holiday. Generally, ashes symbolize
death. The priest or minister's placing of ashes on one's forehead in
the shape of a cross is part of the preparation for fasting and resistance
to temptation by those observing Lent that ends in the symbolic renewal
of life on Easter. (m)
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 26
Intercalary Days : Baha'i. The
days from February 26 to March 1 adjust the Baha'i year, which consists
of 19 months with 19 days each month, to the solar calendar. These days
are observed with gift-giving, special acts of charity, and preparation
for fasting that precedes the new year.
This Week | February | Index | Home
February 27
Independence Day : Dominican Republic.
This day commemorates the retreat in 1844
of the Haitians who had controlled the country.
Occupation of
Wounded Knee (1973) : American Indian. On
this date a group of American Indian activists began the occupation of
Wounded Knee, South Dakota, site of the 1890 massacre that ended the Plains
Indians wars, to demand reforms in tribal government. The occupation,
which erupted into sporadic violence after armed federal marshals surrounded
the area, continued until May 8 and brought increased national attention
to the grievances of American Indians. (See entry for December
29.)
This Week | February | Index | Home