List of events named massacres
This is a list of events named "massacre". The term suggests mass [...] and its usage May Be controversial.
The English word massacre comes from Middle French, derived from Old French maçacre (and variants) "slaughterhouse, butcher's shop". The term maçacre was already used in Anglo-Norman in the sense of "slaughter of many people" in the 12th century. The word's ultimate origin is from late Latin mazacrium "slaughter". The first recorded use in English of the word massacre dates to the late 16th century, in reference to the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. The Oxford English Dictionary records:
- 1578 (R. Lindsay, Hist. & Cron. Scotl. (1899) II. 291): "The xxiiij day of August..the grytt..murther and massecar of Paris wes committit."
- 1593 (Marlowe) "The massacre at Paris"
- 1617, (F. Moryson Itinerary I. 131) "I wondered to see the Massacre of Paris painted upon the wall."
Massacre can also be used as a verb (the first usage of which was "1588 J. PENRY Viewe Publ. Wants Wales 65 Men which make no conscience for gaine sake, to breake the law of the æternall, and massaker soules..are dangerous subjects."), and this usage is not recorded in this list.
Massacre is also used idiomatically for events that do not involve any deaths, such as the Saturday Night Massacre, which was a mass firing of political appointees during the Watergate scandal. Such events are not listed in the table below.
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List of events
Note: the location column will sort by the following sub regions: Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, Central America, Northern America, South America, Eastern Asia, South-eastern Asia, Southern Asia, Western Asia, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe Southern Europe, Western Europe, and Oceania
Date |
Location |
Name |
Deaths |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Massacre of Thessaloniki |
7,000 |
Emperor Theodosius I of Rome ordered the executions after the citizens of Thessaloniki murdered a top-level military commander during a violent protest against the arrest of a popular charioteer. |
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St. Brice's Day massacre |
unknown |
King Ethelred II of England ordered all Danes living in England killed. The Danes were accused of aiding Viking raiders. The King of Denmark invaded England and deposed King Ethelred. |
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Granada massacre |
4,000 |
A Muslim mob crucified Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and killed most of the Jewish population of the city, apparently angered by the prominence and wealth attained by Naghrela and his people. |
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Massacre of the Latins |
ca. 60,000-80,000 |
Wholesale massacre of all Latin (Western European) inhabitants of Constantinople by a mob. |
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Crow Creek massacre |
c.500 |
Native Americans indigenous to South Dakota killed Central Plains villagers. |
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Cyprus massacre |
ca. 30,000-50,000 |
Ottoman forces capturing Cyprus killed mostly Greek and Armenian Christian inhabitants. |
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St. Bartholomew's Day massacre |
c.3,000 over several days. |
A wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots. |
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Spanish Killings |
31 |
Spanish whalers went on a whaling expedition to Iceland and were killed after conflict with the people of Iceland. |
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Jamestown Massacre |
347 |
The Powhatans killed 347 settlers, almost one-third of the English population of the Virginia colony. |
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Bolton Massacre |
up to 1,600 |
Royalist forces killed many of the town's defenders and citizens. |
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Siege of Drogheda |
up to 4,000 |
Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army massacred almost all of the town's defenders and many citizens. |
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Massacre of Glencoe |
38 |
Government soldiers, mainly from Clan Campbell, killed members of the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe. |
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Boston Massacre |
5 |
British troops fired at a mob of colonists. This helped spark the American Revolution even though an all-colonist jury found the soldiers innocent. |
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Bloody Falls Massacre |
20 |
Chipewyan warriors attacked an Inuit camp, [...] men, women and children. |
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Baylor Massacre |
15 killed |
British infantry troops attacked sleeping Continental Light Dragoons using bayonets. |
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Gnadenhutten massacre, also called the Moravian massacre |
96 |
Pennsylvania militia men attacked a Moravian mission and killed 96 peaceful Christian American Indians there in retaliation for unrelated deaths of several white Pennsylvanians. |
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Ismail Massacre/Russian conquest of Ismail |
about 40,000 |
Russian forces pressed the assault from house to house, room to room, and nearly every Muslim man, woman, and child in the city had been killed in three days of uncontrolled massacre - some 40,000 Turks dead, only a few hundred surviving to be taken into captivity. General Alexander Suvorov later told an English traveller that when the massacre was over he went back to his tent and wept. |
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September Massacres |
c. 1440 |
Popular courts in the French Revolution sentenced prisoners to death, including around 240 priests. |
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Boyd massacre |
66 |
Whangaroa Maori killed and ate 66 crew and passengers on ship The Boyd. |
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Peterloo Massacre |
11 killed, over 500 injured |
Armed cavalry charged a peaceful pro-democracy meeting of 60,000 people. |
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Waterloo Creek massacre |
100 to 300 |
Aboriginal Australians killed. |
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Myall Creek massacre |
28 |
A white posse killed Aboriginal Australians. The perpetrators were convicted and sentenced to death. |
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Haun's Mill massacre |
19 |
About 240 Livingston County Missouri Regulators militiamen and volunteers killed 18 Mormons and one ally. |
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Gippsland massacres. |
circa 450 |
A series of massacres spanning several years: 1840 - Nuntin, 1840 - Boney Point, 1841 - Butchers Creek - 30-35, 1841 - Maffra, 1842 - Skull Creek, 1842 - Bruthen Creek - "hundreds killed", 1843 - Warrigal Creek - between 60 and 180 shot, 1844 - Maffra, 1846 - South Gippsland - 14 killed, 1846 - Snowy River - 8 killed, 1846-47 - Central Gippsland - 50 or more shot, 1850 - East Gippsland - 15-20 killed, 1850 - Murrindal - 16 poisoned, 1850 - Brodribb River - 15-20 killed.. See also Angus McMillan. |
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Massacre of Elphinstone's Army |
16,000 |
Afghan tribes massacred Elphinstone's British army including some 12,000 civilians. |
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Ward massacre |
19 |
Shoshone tortured, killed and plundered Oregon emigrant wagon train members. |
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Mountain Meadows massacre |
120{{Citation |
last=Carleton |
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Aiken massacre |
6 |
Six wealthy Californians travelling through the territory, arrested as spies, released, then killed.{{Citation |
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Shepherd massacre |
5 |
Bannock, Shoshone, and whites dressed as Indians killed and plundered California emigrant wagon train members. |
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Miltimore massacre |
8. |
Bannock, Shoshone, and whites dressed as Indians tortured, killed and plundered Oregon emigrant wagon train members. |
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Shelton Laurel Massacre |
13 |
Thirteen boys and men, who were accused of being Union sympathizers, were summarily executed by members of the 64th North Carolina Regiment of the Confederate Army. |
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Lawrence Massacre |
c.150 |
Pro-Confederate bushwhackers attacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas during the American Civil War. |
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Sand Creek massacre |
c. 200 |
Colorado Territory militia destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho on the eastern plains. |
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Batak massacre |
5,000 |
Ottoman army irregulars killed Bulgarian civilians barricaded in Batak's church. |
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Wounded Knee Massacre |
c.200-300 |
The U.S. 7th Cavalry intercepted a band of Lakota Sioux people on their way to the Pine Ridge Reservation for shelter from the winter; as they were disarming them, a gun was fired, and the soldiers turned their artillery on the Lakota, [...] men women and children. |
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Moro Crater massacre |
800 to 1,000 |
Forces of the U.S. Army under the command of Major General Leonard Wood, a naval detachment comprising 540 soldiers, along with a detachment of native constabulary, armed with artillery and small firearms, attacked a village hidden in the crater of a dormant volcano. |
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Amritsar massacre |
379 |
British Indian Army soldiers, led by Brigadier Reginald Dyer fired at unarmed civilians. |
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Croke Park Massacre |
23 |
British Auxiliary police and Black and Tans fired at Gaelic football spectators at Croke Park. |
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Tulsa Massacre |
c.300 |
White mobs looted and burned Tulsa's prosperous African American neighborhood, shooting and clubbing to death many of its inhabitants. |
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Saint Valentine's Day massacre |
7 |
Al Capone's gang shot rival gang members and their associates. |
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Qissa Khwani bazaar massacre |
200 to 250 |
Soldiers of the British Raj fired on unarmed non-violent protestors of the Khudai Khidmatgar with machine guns during the Indian independence movement |
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Nanking Massacre ([...] of Nanking) |
42,000–400,000, median: 260,000 |
The Imperial Japanese Army pillaged Nanking for six weeks |
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Katyn massacre |
21,857 to 25,700 |
Soviet NKVD executed Polish intelligentsia, POWs and reserve officers. |
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NKVD prisoner massacres |
c.100,000 |
The Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, or NKVD) executed tens of thousands of political prisoners in the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa. |
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Babi Yar massacre |
more than 30,000 |
Germans killed the Jewish population of Kiev. |
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Laha massacre |
~300 |
The Japanese killed surrendered Australian soldiers. |
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Lari Massacre |
~150 |
About 150 Kikuyu were killed by fellow tribesmen. |
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Lidice massacre |
340 |
Nazis killed 192 men, and sent the women and children to [...] concentration camps where many died. |
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Massacre of the Acqui Division |
c. 5000 |
Wehrmacht troops executed POWs from the 33 Infantry Division Acqui |
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Marzabotto massacre |
c.700 to 1,800 |
The SS killed Italian civilians in reprisal for support given to the resistance movement. |
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Oradour-sur-Glane massacre |
642 |
The Waffen-SS killed 642 men, women and children without giving any specific reasons for their actions. |
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Malmedy massacre |
88 |
German soldiers shot American POWs (43 escaped). |
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228 Incident |
10,000-30,000 |
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Sharpeville massacre |
72 to 90 |
South African police shot down black protesters. |
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Novocherkassk massacre |
23 to 70 killed, over 40 wounded |
The MVD open fire on a crowd of protesters demonstrating against inflation. |
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University of Texas massacre |
16 |
University of Texas was the site of a massacre by Charles Whitman, who killed his mother and wife at their homes before [...] 14 and wounding 32 others at the University atop the university tower before the police killed him. |
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My Lai Massacre |
504 |
US soldiers killed 504 unarmed South Vietnamese villagers ranging in ages from 1 to 81 years, mostly women and children. |
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Tlatelolco massacre |
25 to 350 |
Government troops massacred between 25 (officially) and 350 (according to human rights activists) students on the eve of the 1968 Summer Olympics taking place in Mexico City, and then tried to wash the blood away, along with evidence of the massacre. |
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Kent State massacre |
4 |
29 members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on the Kent State University college campus, [...] 4 and wounding 9, one of whom was permanently paralyzed. |
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Lod Airport massacre |
26 |
Three members of the Japanese Red Army, on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, killed 26 people and injured 80 others at Tel Aviv's Lod airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport). |
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Munich Massacre |
12 |
Members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and killed by the Palestinian Black September group. Also killed was a West German police officer. |
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Ma'alot massacreSources describing the event as a "massacre":
|
29 |
Members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine infiltrate Israel from Lebanon, shoot and kill a Christian Arab woman and a Jewish couple and their 4 year old son, and then take hostage and kill 22 high school students and three of their adult escorts. |
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Miami Showband massacre |
5 |
Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killed three members of pop group the Miami Showband in a gun and bomb attack. Two UVF members also died when the bomb exploded prematurely. |
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Kingsmill massacre |
10 |
Irish republicans shot ten Irish Protestant workers dead outside the village of Kingsmill in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. |
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Damour massacre |
582 |
Palestinian militia aligned with the Lebanese National Movement kill 582 civilians in the village of Damour during the Lebanese Civil War. |
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Coastal Road massacre |
35 |
Palestinian Fatah members based in Lebanon land on a beach north of Tel Aviv, kill an American photographer, and hijack an inter-city bus driving along Israel's Coastal Highway. 35 civilians are killed and 80 wounded. |
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Tula Massacre |
13 |
13 tortured bodies were found at Tula,Hidalgo,Mexico at the time of Arturo Durazo Moreno Administration |
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Hama massacre |
30,000-40,000 |
The Syrian Army kills an estimated 30,000 people in the city of Hama. Instances of mass execution and torture by the Syrian military were documented during the attacks. |
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Dujail Massacre |
148 |
Dujail was the site of an unsuccessful assassination attempt against then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, on July 8, 1982. Saddam Hussein ordered his special security and military forces to carry out a reprisal attack against the town, which resulted in 148 of the town's men being killed. |
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Sabra and Shatila massacre |
700 to 3,500 |
Refugees are killed by the Christian Lebanese Forces militia in refugee camps surrounded by Israel Defense Forces. The United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of [...]. |
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Accomarca massacre |
47, 69 or 74 |
An army massacre of campesinos (including six children) in Accomarca, Ayacucho. |
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Hungerford massacre |
16 |
A gunman armed with semi-automatic rifles and a handgun killed 16 people before committing [...]. |
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Milltown massacre |
3 |
Ulster Freedom Fighters member Michael Stone kills three people and injures 60 others in a gun and grenade attack at the funeral of three IRA members being held in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. |
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Tiananmen Square Massacre |
400 to 3,000 |
Student pro-democracy protestors were killed by the Chinese military. |
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École Polytechnique massacre |
14 |
Marc Lépine, claiming to fight feminism, shot and killed 14 female students of the École Polytechnique de Montréal and wounded 14 other people before turning his gun on himself. The event led to stricter gun control laws and changes in police tactical response to shootings in Canada. |
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Eastern University massacre, |
158 |
Eastern University massacre is the massacre of 158 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army in the eastern Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka.{{cite web |url=http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/asia10.html |
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Sathurukondan massacre |
184 |
Sathurukondan massacre, also known as the 1990 Batticaloa massacre is the massacre of 184 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army in the eastern Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. {{cite book | last=Hoole | first=Ranjan| title= Sri Lanka: The Arrogance of Power : Myths, Decadence & [...] |
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Luby's massacre |
23 |
George Jo Hennard drove his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot and killed 22 people, wounded another 20 and then committed [...] by shooting himself. {{ cite news |
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Vukovar massacre |
264 |
Members of the Serb militias, aided by the Yugoslav People's Army, killed Croat civilians and POWs. |
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Khojaly Massacre |
613 |
Armenian armed forces, reportedly with help of the Russian 366th Motor Rifle Regiment, captured the town of . The death toll according to the Government of Azerbaijan was 613 civilians, of whom 106 were women and 83 were children. |
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Maraghar Massacre |
45 |
Azerbaijani forces attacked the Armenian people ethnic Armenian town of Maraghar. According to Caroline Cox, who observed the damage and interviewed eyewitnesses, the Azerbaijani forces decapitated about forty five villagers, burned and looted much of the town, and kidnapped about one hundred women and children. The inhabitants of Maraghar who were driven out after the attack were unable to return to their village after the ceasefire of 1994, as the area was still under Azeri control. |
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Brown's Chicken massacre |
7 |
Seven people were murdered at the Brown's Chicken and Pasta in Palatine |
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Greysteel massacre |
8 |
Ulster Freedom Fighters opened fire in a crowded bar using an AK-47 and . |
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Yanomami Massacre |
c.16 to 73 |
Garimpeiros (illegal gold miners) killed Yanomami people. |
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Cave of the Patriarchs massacre/Ibrahimi Mosque massacre |
29 |
Baruch Goldstein opens fire with an assault rifle [...] 29 Muslims and wounding 150 at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque before being subdued and beaten to death. |
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Beit Lid massacre |
22 |
First [...] attack by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, [...] 22 and wounding 69. Carried out by two bombers; the second waited until emergency crews arrived to assist the wounded and dying before detonating his bomb. |
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Srebrenica massacre |
c.8,000 |
Units of the Army of the Republika Srpska killed male Bosniaks; the largest mass [...] in Europe since World War II. |
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Dunblane massacre |
17 |
A gunman opened fire in a primary school, [...] sixteen children and one teacher before [...] himself. |
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Port Arthur massacre |
35. |
The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a [...] spree which claimed the lives of 35 people and wounded 21 others mainly at the historic tourist site Port Arthur in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia. The massacre remains Australia's deadliest mass [...] spree and remains one of the deadliest such incidents worldwide in recent times. |
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1996 shelling of Qana, AKA: Qana Massacre |
106 |
Israeli artillery struck the Unifil Headquarters in Qana which was providing shelter to approximately two hundred Lebanese civilians. |
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Columbine High School massacre |
15> |
Two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold open fire on their classmates on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School, [...] 12 students and one teacher before committing [...]. |
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Nanoor massacre |
11 |
[...] of 11 landless labourers allegedly by activists of Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political party in India, in Suchpur, near Nanoor and under Nanoor police station, in Birbhum district in the Indian state of West Bengal. |
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Passover massacre |
30 |
[...] of 30 guests at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel, sitting down to the traditional Passover Seder meal. Another 143 were injured. Hamas claimed responsibility. |
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Beslan School Massacre |
334 |
Armed Chechen separatists took more than 1,200 people hostage at a school. 334 civilians were killed, including 186 school children, and hundreds wounded. |
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Virginia Tech massacre |
33 |
Seung-Hui Cho shoots and kills 32 people, and wounds 25 others, in two separate shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech. Cho later committed [...]. |
See also
- Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896
- List of Algerian massacres of the 1990s
- List of battles and other violent events by death toll
- List of mass murderers and spree killers by number of victims
- List of massacres at sea
- List of massacres of Indigenous Australians
- List of postal killings
- List of school-related attacks
- List of murderers by number of victims
- Mass [...]
- School shooting
- Spree killer
- Massacre
Notes and references
fr:Liste de massacres lb:Lëscht vu Massakeren zh:大屠杀列表