December 29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre

December 29, 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre takes place near the creek and now town of the same name, in southwestern South Dakota. It is the last major action between the U.S. Army and Native Americans, and possibly the worst.

In 1876, the the Lakota Sioux fought the 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (who'd held the temporary, or brevet, rank of Brigadier General in the American Civil War), at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana, and the Cavalry lost more than 1/3rd of its men, including Custer.

One of the chiefs leading the Lakota troops was Sitting Bull. For 5 more years, he managed to avoid capture by U.S. troops, until finally surrendering. He joined William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody's Wild West Show, but returned to the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, which had gained Statehood along with North Dakota on November 2, 1889.

In response to the many degradations the Natives faced, the "Ghost Dance" movement began, a nationalist movement similar to the later Black Panther Party and the Reconquista movement of Mexican-Americans.

Faced with a nonwhite people expressing pride in themselves and their traditions, white America's government did what it had done so many times, and would continue to do: It overreacted. In the tradition of "Cut off the head, and the body will die," the rebuilt 7th Cavalry went to arrest Sitting Bull. They arrived on December 15, 1890, and he refused to accept arrest, and was shot and killed. Although Native record-keeping made establishing his exact birthdate impossible, he was believed to be 59 years old.

The Cavalry, under the command of Colonel James W. Forsyth, moved on to Wounded Knee, 275 miles to the southwest. Arriving on December 28, they surrounded the Lakota camp. On the morning of the 29th, they went in to take the Lakota men's guns away. A Ghost Dance ritual was being conducted at the time. A man named Black Coyote refused to give up his rifle, citing the large amount of money he'd paid for it. What happened next is in dispute: Either Black Coyote fired, and a soldier grabbed his rifle, they struggled over it, and it went off.

What is not in dispute is what happened after that first gunshot: The Cavalry opened fire, and those few Lakota who still had their weapons returned what fire they could. More than 250 men, women and children were killed. That was nearly as many men as the 7th Cavalry lost at the Little Bighorn, but those were all trained soldiers. To put that in a modern perspective, it's nearly half again as many people as died in the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, and 1/8th as many as were killed on 9/11 -- and since the U.S. had about 1/4th as many people in 1890 as it had in 2001, it's proportionately about half as bad as 9/11.

The Cavalry lost 31 men. Twenty men were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. There was no honor in what they did.

At the time, the President of the United States was Benjamin Harrison. His grandfather, William Henry Harrison, had been President for one month in 1841, before dying of pneumonia. In 1811, William Henry Harrison defeated Native tribes at the Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana. In 1813, his troops killed the Native chief Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames near what's now Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Now, perhaps unwittingly, he had finished his grandfather's work. Of course, white men's attacks on the Native peoples of North America went all the way back to the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida in 1565, so it's not like "Old Tip" Harrison started it.

Wounded Knee is far from any major city. It's 104 miles southeast of Mount Rushmore, 350 miles northeast of Denver and over 400 miles northwest of Omaha. In fact, the Little Bighorn Battlefield is about 350 miles to the northwest, so it's closer to that than to Denver, the closest major league city.

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December 29, 1890 was a Monday. Baseball and football seasons were over. Basketball wouldn't be invented for another year. There was a hockey league at the time, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, but no games were scheduled for this day. So, there were no scores on this historic day.

February 28, 1973: The Wounded Knee Occupation

February 28, 1973: A group of 200 Oglala Sioux members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, located within the borders of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The town had been the site of the last major conflict between the U.S. government and Native Americans, in 1890, when the U.S. Army shot and killed 250 Natives in one of the worst massacres, committed by any side, in American history.

The occupation was launched after the Oglala Sioux were unable to remove the Oglala Reservation Chairman, Dick Wilson, whom they accused of corruption since his election the year before. Frank Fools Crow, the senior elder of the Oglala, and AIM leader Russell Means led the occupation. Fools Crow later said, "We called our brothers and AIM to help us because we were being oppressed and terrorized. They answered our call."

Frank Fools Crow

The occupation lasted for 71 days, until an agreement was reached between federal officials and a Lakota delegation, which included Fools Crow. Following the occupation, violence increased on the reservation, with residents reporting attacks by Wilson's henchmen. More than 50 of his opponents allegedly died violently in the next three years. He was finally defeated in the next election, in 1976. He was never tried for any crime, and died in 1990.

Fools Crow continued to lead his people. On September 5, 1975, he accepted an invitation to recite the opening prayer before a session of the U.S. Senate. He delivered it in the Lakota language, and it was translated into English. He died in 1989.

Means retired as AIM leader in 1988, saying the organization had achieved its goals. He continued his activism, and ran for President and for Governor of New Mexico on the ticket of the Libertarian Party. He also became an actor, appearing in films as Native heroes Jim Thorpe and Sitting Bull, and was the voice of Powhatan, Chief of the Virginia tribes and father of the title character, in Disney's animated Pocahontas films, even though they flew in the face of history. He lived until 2012.

Russell Means

Wounded Knee is far from any major city. It's 104 miles southeast of Mount Rushmore, 350 miles northeast of Denver and over 400 miles northwest of Omaha. In fact, the Little Bighorn Battlefield is about 350 miles to the northwest, so it's closer to that than to Denver, the closest major league city.

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February 28, 1973 was a Wednesday. Hockey star Eric Lindros was born.

Baseball and football were out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Golden State Warriors, 118-111 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 102-96 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. This was a rare win for the Sixers, undergoing the worst season in NBA history: 9-73. Phil Chenier scored 36 in defeat for the Bullets, who moved a few miles down Interstate 95 to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. the next season.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 124-110 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena. Spencer Haywood scored 36 for the Sonics, but it wasn't enough.

* And the Kansas City-Omaha Kings beat the Phoenix Suns, 109-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Nate "Tiny" Archibald of the Kings led all pro scorers on the night, with 41 points.

There were 4 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Memphis Tams, 115-108 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Virginia Squires, 117-97 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 109-106 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

* And the Carolina Cougars beat the Denver Rockets, 104-96 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. The Rockets became the Denver Nuggets for the 1974-75 season.

There were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 3-3 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings, 5-2 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Vancouver Canucks, 7-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-5 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the California Golden Seals, 7-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the New York Islanders, the Boston Bruins, the Buffalo Sabres and the Atlanta Flames were not scheduled.

There was 1 game played in the World Hockey Association: The Houston Aeros beat the Alberta Oilers, 3-2 in overtime at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.