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Today in History, December 29th

On December 29, 1890, U.S. troops killed hundreds of Lakota at Wounded Knee. Plus Thomas Becket's murder and Texas statehood.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 3 min read Sources checked

Published December 29, 2025 · Last updated November 10, 2026

December 29 is best known for the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, when U.S. Army troops killed hundreds of Lakota men, women and children in South Dakota. The date also saw the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 and Texas joining the Union as the 28th state in 1845.

The big story: The Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)

By late 1890, the Ghost Dance had spread across Lakota country. The movement promised a renewed world and the return of lost ancestors, and federal officials read it as a threat. Two weeks earlier, tribal police sent to arrest Sitting Bull had killed him in a struggle. Fearing more trouble, the Army went after a Miniconjou band led by the chief Big Foot, who was taking about 350 people toward the Pine Ridge Agency. Soldiers of the 7th Cavalry caught up with them at Wounded Knee Creek, about 20 miles from the agency. On the morning of December 29, while troops were disarming the camp, a shot rang out. The soldiers, backed by four Hotchkiss guns on a hill, opened fire. Modern scholars estimate that 250 to 300 Lakota died, nearly half of them women and children. At least 25 soldiers were also killed, many probably by their own side’s fire. Wounded Knee is remembered as the last major armed clash between the U.S. and the Plains Indians.

More events on December 29

Year	What happened
1170	Four knights from King Henry II’s court killed Archbishop Thomas Becket inside Canterbury Cathedral. He was declared a saint three years later.
1778	British troops under Lt. Col. Archibald Campbell captured Savannah, Georgia, in a surprise attack on its American defenders.
1845	Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state.
1851	The first YMCA in the U.S. was founded at Boston’s Old South Church, modeled on the original in London.
1865	William Lloyd Garrison published the final issue of The Liberator, his antislavery newspaper, after 35 years in print.
1937	A new constitution took effect in the Irish Free State, renaming the country Ireland (Éire in Irish).
1940	German bombers set off hundreds of fires in London in one of the worst raids of the Blitz; St. Paul’s Cathedral survived.
1998	Former Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea publicly apologized for the deaths under their regime in Cambodia, the first such apology by its senior leaders.
2015	The World Health Organization declared Guinea free of Ebola transmission.
2022	Brazilian soccer great Pelé died in São Paulo at age 82.

Born on December 29

1800: Charles Goodyear, the American inventor who worked out how to vulcanize rubber.
1808: Andrew Johnson, 17th U.S. president, born in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1809: William Ewart Gladstone, Victorian-era British prime minister, born in Liverpool.
1936: Mary Tyler Moore, American actress and TV star, born in Brooklyn.