Archbishop Óscar Romero assassinated

On March 24, 1980, Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, El Salvador by a right-wing death squad. Romero had become unpopular with conservative elements in the country when he began speaking out against government repression of the nation’s poor and of his fellow priests. Read a biography of Archbishop Óscar Romero from the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame University.

In 2003, the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), an American human-rights organization, filed a lawsuit in the United States against former Salvadorean Air Force Captain Álvaro Rafael Saravia for his alleged role in the assassination of Archbishop Romero. The suit was filed in a US federal district court under the Alien Tort Claim Act (28 U.S.C. § 1350). In Doe v. Rafael Saravia, the defendant was found guilty of crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killing, resulting in a $10 million judgment against Saravia. Read a description of the case.

Romero was later canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2018.

THIS DAY @ LAW

19th Amendment adopted

On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted, granting women full suffrage. The Amendment states that "[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Learn more about the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment from the National Archives.

Declaration of the Rights of Man adopted

On August 26, 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted by the French National Assembly. Click here to read the text of the Declaration and learn more about its formulation.