Puerto Rican attack at the US Capitol
How independence campaigners opened fire in Congress in 1954, wounding five US law-makers
In March 1954, a group of Puerto Rican militants opened fire from the public gallery of the US Congress in an effort to promote their fight for independence for the American territory. Five members of the House of Representatives were wounded in an attack which made headlines around the world and turned its leader, Lolita Lebron, into a nationalist heroine on the Caribbean Island. Simon Watts has been listening to archive accounts of the incident.
PHOTO: Lolita Lebron and two Puerto Rican colleagues are arrested after the attack (US Congress/Corbis/Getty Images)
Last on
More episodes
Broadcasts
- Tue 12 Jan 2021 08:50GMT91热爆 World Service
- Tue 12 Jan 2021 12:50GMT91热爆 World Service
- Tue 12 Jan 2021 18:50GMT91热爆 World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Tue 12 Jan 2021 23:50GMT91热爆 World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Wed 13 Jan 2021 03:50GMT91热爆 World Service
Featured in...
![]()
US presidential history—Witness History
Landmark moments in US presidential history told by the people who were there
Podcast
-
![]()
Witness History
History as told by the people who were there
