The date marks the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota, including women and children, in the snow at Wounded Knee Creek by the 7th Cavalry on Dec. 29, 1890.

“I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee,” Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles, who took over the 7th Cavalry after the noncombatant deaths came to light, wrote in a private letter.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it would review 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who took part in the massacre as the military continues efforts to acknowledge the role that racism may have played in its past and that not all of its awardees meet modern standards of heroism.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed a five-member panel to present recommendations by Oct. 15, but those recommendations have yet to be announced.

As the last decade of the 19th century began, the Indigenous Lakota Sioux people of the Great Plains had been put in government reservations, according to History.com. Their culture and hunting livelihoods were destroyed as white settlers seized their lands and pursued fortunes of gold in the Black Hills of what had become South Dakota.

As noted by History.com, the year 1890 would only compound their despair, bringing prolonged drought and outbreaks of measles, influenza and whooping cough. As their world crumbled around them, many found hope in a dance ritual that adherents believed would ultimately spark an upheaval in which their enemies would be ousted and their once-free existence restored.

White settlers, however, viewed the growing Ghost Dance practice as a harbinger of insurrection. President Benjamin Harrison dispatched the 7th Cavalry to the area, where growing tensions would culminate in the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 29, 1890.

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