On this day in 1988, the St. Jean Bosco Massacre took place when armed supporters of the Haitian government attacked and burned down the Saint-Jean Bosco church in a three hour assault that killed between thirteen and fifty people, wounding approximately eighty more. On the day of the attack, over one thousand people were attending the Sunday mass.

The church was the parish of future President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953 - ), then a liberation theology Roman Catholic priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco order. Aristide had already survived six previous attempts on his life due to a fiery 1985 Mass had helped spark the unrest which eventually led to the 1986 overthrow of the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The massacre contributed to the September 1988 Haitian coup d'état against the Henri Namphy regime a week later, putting Prosper Avril in power.

Aristide became president of Haiti in a 1990 election, but was deposed in a coup by military officials (who received military training in the U.S. and had ties to the CIA) just eight months later.