Ten Historic Sites Worth Visiting In The United States
8. Little Bighorn Battlefield, Montana
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to Lakota as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer’s Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which occurred June 25–26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory, was the most prominent action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.
The site was first preserved as a United States national cemetery in 1879, to protect the graves of the 7th Cavalry troopers. In 1946, it was redesignated as the Custer Battlefield National Monument, reflecting its association with the general. Beginning in the early 1970s there was concern within the National Park Service over the name Custer Battlefield National Monument, recognizing the larger history of the battle between two cultures, hearings on the name change were held in Billings on June 10 and during the following months in 1991 Congress renamed the site the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
