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Patria Mercedes Mirabal is born.
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Dede Mirabal is born.
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Minerva Mirabal is born.
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Trujillo becomes the "President" of the Dominican Republic.
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Maria Teresa Mirabal (Mate) is born.
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Patria, Dede, and Minerva join Inmaculada Concepcion.
. In 1938, Patria, Dede, and Minerva, were all sent off to Inmaculada Concepcion, a school run by nuns. At the school, Minerva met a girl named Sinita, who later becomes her best friend and who tells her the secret of Trujillo, how he is a killer. That was a turning point in Minerva’s life which helped her dedicate her life to change the ways of the government. -
Patria Mirabal and Pedro Gonzales get married.
At some point between February 27, 1940 and February 27, 1941, Patria got married to Pedro. The exact date of her wedding is unknown, but it is known that she was 16 at the time of her wedding. -
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Inmaculada Concepcion - The poor Lina.
In 1941, Trujillo came to the town where Inmaculada Concepcion was located. While visiting, he caught sight of a girl, Lina, which he had "fallen in love with." He began sending her notes, and flowers, and taking her out on dates. On one of the dates, she had gotten pregnant and Trujillo had decided to keep her as another one of his many wives. Lina was unable to leave the house where she was kept hidden, because one of his other wives had gotten jealous and gone after her with a knife. -
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Inmaculada Concepcion -The Performance.
Sinita, Elsa, Lourdes, and Minerva, had become best friends throughout the school years. That year at Inmaculada, there was a drama competition dedicated to Trujillo. The four girls won the competition and were then asked to perform it in front of Trujillo publicly. While they were performing, Sinita became angry because she remembered how Trujillo had killed so many people in her family and pulled a stunt pretended to shoot him with an arrow. -
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Dede and Minerva's dating lives.
. In 1948, Minerva and Dede began sneaking out to dates with their boyfriends, but after a while, Lio, Minerva's boyfriend, started getting into legal trouble. Minerva began having to hide him and had to make sure that they wouldn’t get caught together. This caused some family tension between the two sisters. Also, Lio starts getting Minerva more interested on the revolution. -
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Family Problems.
. Minerva realizes that things are getting weird between her father and mother. One day, she realized that when her dad continued saying he was tending the farm, he actually wasn’t. He was cheating on her mother. Minerva drove over to the other woman’s house and nailed the back of her father’s Ford. He came out of the woman’s house and Minerva then realized that her father was the weakest person in the family, and needed the families love. -
At the Discovery Day Dance.
Enrique Mirabal, Patria, Dede, and Minerva attended one of Trujillo’s parties. Trujillo used the parties to find pretty girls to "seduce". When he caught Minerva's eye, he asked her to dance. As they dance, Minerva took advantage of him and complained about how she wanted to go to college to study law, but her parents wouldn’t let her go. Trujillo could force her parents to let her go, which is why later in the book she ends up at the college in the Capital. -
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University in The Capital.
In mid December 1953, the girl’s father died, and at the funeral, Patria, Dede, and Mate found out that their dad had cheated on their mom. In 1954, Minerva began listening to illegal stations, and falls in love with an engaged man, Manolo, who breaks off his engagement to be with her. In 1956, Mate got elected Ms. University. -
Minerva Mirabal and Manolo Tavarez Justo get married.
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The Revolution Begins.
When Minerva graduates from the capital and gets her degree, she realizes that it doesn't allow her to practice law. Mate drove Manolo and Minerva home and on the ride there, they began speaking in code about the revolution that they were planning. One night, Mate was asleep and heard someone whisper "open up" at the front door near her room. When she opened the door, she fell in love with the man who was at the door, Leandro. When she learned that he was part of the revolution, she wanted to, a -
Maria Teresa and Leandro Rodriguez announce their engagement.
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Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa are incarcerated at La Cuarenta.
While the girls were in jail, they missed out on a lot of their children’s lives, and became friends with the other girls in their cell. Some of the guards were nice to them and helped bring stuff from their families such as: toothbrushes, toothpaste, brushes, crucifixes, etc. Although the girls were in jail, they continued plotting their rebellion and what they would do when they left La Cuarenta. Every day the girls feared that the guards would take them out and not bring them back in alive. -
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House Arrest.
Patria, Minerva, and Mate were stuck back at home with their kids under house arrest for a little over four months. In those four months the girls were allowed to leave the house twice a week, but had to have slips from the government indicating where they were going and why. Even when the girls where "sick" they got in trouble because they left the house without the governments permission. -
The Butterflies (Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa) are Murdered.
Three of the four Mirabal sisters died on ride home from La Cuarenta, the prison where Minerva and Maria Teresa’s husbands (Manolo and Leandro) were located. The husbands had told the girls that it was too dangerous to drive back home that night because of the stormy weather on the road down the mountain. The girls didn’t listen and on the way home were stopped by some of Trujillo’s soldiers, asked to get out of their car, and clubbed to death. -
Trujillo is Assassinated.
This image is of Trujillo's car where he was assassinated in 1961.
