On this day in 1980, four Catholic missionaries from the United States working in El Salvador were raped and murdered by five members of the El Salvador National Guard.

Their names were Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Ursuline Dorothy Kazel, and Jean Donovan. Although they were ostensibly missionaries, the nuns were also political radicals, with Maura Clarke having supported the anti-capitalist Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Although thousands of native Salvadorans had already been murdered by death squads there, the killing of these missionaries prompted international outrage and criticism of President Carter's support for the government in El Salvador. Although Carter initially suspended aid to the regime, he later reinstated it, and President Reagan continued this support.

After the release of declassified documents in the 1990s, New Jersey congressman Robert Torricelli stated that it was "now clear that while the Reagan Administration was certifying human rights progress in El Salvador they knew the terrible truth that the Salvadoran military was engaged in a widespread campaign of terror and torture".