Monday marks the 124th anniversary of a dark chapter in America's history, the massacre of nearly 300 Native American men (including Chief Big Foot), women and children at Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Reservation.

On Dec. 29, 1890, the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment (defeated in battle by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors in 1876) opened fire on a camp of about 350 Lakota while attempting to disarm them at Wounded Knee Creek.

By the time the shooting was over, between 200 and 300 Lakota were killed along with 25 soldiers. Some of the soldiers were reportedly killed by "friendly fire."

Fifty-one years before the Japanese carrier strike force dropped their deadly bombs on Pearl Harbor, another "Day of Infamy" that will live forever in the minds of the Lakota (Sioux) people, occurred.

On December 29, 1890 the troops of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry slaughtered nearly 300 men, women and children at the Pine Ridge Reservation community of Wounded Knee. The people of Sitanka (Big Foot) were traveling from the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation under a white flag of truce. They were stopped at Wounded Knee and surrounded. And then the slaughter started.

One story says that a Lakota man stood and raised a rifle above his head holding it horizontally with both hands. A soldier yelled at him to drop the weapon. When the warrior did not obey immediately, he was shot in the back by another soldier. Some say that it was learned much later that the Indian with the rifle was deaf.

That first shot opened the floodgates and the Hotchkiss machine guns positioned on the hill above Wounded Knee ripped bullets into the unarmed Indian men, women and children. The women shielded the children with their bodies and in turn were torn to shreds by the high-powered bullets.