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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to

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Speaker 1: you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from

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Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you Missed in History Class. It's

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Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

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Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

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Speaker 1: in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

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Speaker 1: and it's November twenty. The Mirabell Sisters, also known as

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Speaker 1: Last Meta Posis, were assassinated in the Dominican Republic on

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Speaker 1: this day in nineteen sixty. These were three sisters, Patria,

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Speaker 1: Minerva and Maria Theresa. They had a fourth sister, Day Day,

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Speaker 1: who wasn't targeted in the assassination. She wasn't politically active

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Speaker 1: in the way that her other sisters were. All four sisters,

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Speaker 1: though were born in the Dominican Republic. They grew up

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Speaker 1: in a relatively affluent family, and they had pretty conventional

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Speaker 1: lives for at least the first years. They went to

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Speaker 1: a athletic school, they went to church, they got married

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Speaker 1: and had children. But the Dominican Republic at that time

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Speaker 1: was under the oppressive and brutal rule of Dictator Rafael Trichio,

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Speaker 1: and when I say oppressive and brutal. As one example,

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Speaker 1: in seven he had ordered the massacre of thousands of

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Speaker 1: Haitians in the border region between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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Speaker 1: He had a secret police force that monitored everything, and

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Speaker 1: it was extremely common for his opponents and for political

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Speaker 1: dissidence to be imprisoned, tortured, and killed. He had total

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Speaker 1: control over virtually every aspect of Dominican society, including the

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Speaker 1: radio and passports and air travel. And he also had

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Speaker 1: a collection of so called beauty scouts whose job it

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Speaker 1: was to bring him attractive young women. And some of

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Speaker 1: these women they were very young, some of them were

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Speaker 1: still schoolgirls. Rafael Trillo also had a personal vendetta against

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Speaker 1: the Mirrorball family. He had invited them to a social

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Speaker 1: event at his estate, and this wasn't the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing that you could turn down. While they were there,

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Speaker 1: he started making advances on Minerva Mirraball. This was before

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Speaker 1: she got married. In some accounts, this led to a

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Speaker 1: heated argument between the two of them, and other accounts

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Speaker 1: she slapped him. Regardless of exactly what happened, though this

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Speaker 1: was unacceptable to him. Minerva's father was imprisoned. She and

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Speaker 1: her mother were kept basically under house arrest at a hotel.

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Speaker 1: Their family was the target of suspicion and surveillance for years.

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Speaker 1: Trucio even tried to stop Minerva from finishing law school.

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Speaker 1: Once she graduated, she wasn't even allowed a license to practice. So,

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Speaker 1: maybe unsurprisingly, considering the fact that their family had been

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Speaker 1: under this kind of surveillance and harassment for so many years, Patria, Minerva,

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Speaker 1: and Maria Teresa became part of a resistance movement called

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Speaker 1: the fourteenth of June movement. It was named for a

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Speaker 1: failed attempt by exiled Dominicans to try to retake the

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Speaker 1: country from Trichiyo. They planned to assassinate him with a

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Speaker 1: car bomb, but just before they were supposed to carry

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Speaker 1: that out, the leaders of this movement were arrested and imprisoned,

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Speaker 1: and this included Minerva and Maria Teresa and all three

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Speaker 1: of the sisters husbands. Eventually, Minerva and Maria Teresa were released,

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Speaker 1: but their husbands were transferred to a prison in Puerto Plata,

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Speaker 1: and visiting them required the sisters to travel over a

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Speaker 1: remote mountain range to get their own back. On the

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Speaker 1: way back from visiting their husbands on November twenty five,

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Speaker 1: NI they were overtaken by some of Tricio's men, and

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Speaker 1: the sisters and their driver were beaten and strangled and

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Speaker 1: then put back into the jeep that they had been

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Speaker 1: traveling in, and then the jeep was pushed over the

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Speaker 1: side of the mountain. It was clear to everyone though,

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Speaker 1: that this had not been an accident. The murder of

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Speaker 1: three attractive young mothers really brought a lot more criticism

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Speaker 1: than Andrello had been facing before. He started to lose

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Speaker 1: the backing of his military and he was assassinated six

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Speaker 1: months later. Data helped raise her sister's children after their deaths,

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Speaker 1: and she also helped protect their legacy and today the

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Speaker 1: sisters are national heroes and the Dominican Republic. November twenty

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Speaker 1: is also observed as the International Day for the Elimination

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Speaker 1: of Violence against Women in commemoration of them. You can

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Speaker 1: learn more about this in the November episode of Stuff

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Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class. Thanks to Casey Pgraham and

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Speaker 1: Tandler Mays for their audio work on the show, and

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Speaker 1: you can subscribe to the Stay in History Class on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app, and

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Speaker 1: wherever else you get your podcasts. You can tune in

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for one of the world's most famous tombs