Massacres - Definition


Massacres - Definition

Massacres are individual events of deliberate mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents. The term may refer to individual, civil, or military acts and is often characterised as having distinct political significance in shaping subsequent events.

Below is a list of incidents that are commonly referred to as massacres, though other incidents may also qualify yet not be called massacres. Note that the figure for deaths is usually an estimate, and is frequently contested. See the individual article on each massacre for more information.

Date	Name	Deaths	Location	Description
1 AD	Massacre of the Innocents	8–30	Bethlehem, Judea	(according to the Gospel of Matthew)
9 AD	Teutoburg Massacre	~30,000	Teutoburg Forest, Germany	Roman legions under Varus ambushed by Germanic tribes
November 13, 1002	St. Brice's Day Massacre	~Unknown	England	Danes slaughterd on orders of Ethelred II of England
1096	German Crusade, 1096	Thousands	Along the Rhine	"People's Crusade" prior to the First Crusade killed thousands of Jews along the Rhine; see also Emich of Leiningen
March 16, 1190	Massacre at Clifford's Tower	~150	York, England	Mob attacks Jewish residents; many commit suicide
June 1220	Samarkand Massacre	~75,000	Samarkand, Khwarezm (present day Iran and Iraq)	During the Khwarezm War Mongols under Genghis Khan sieged to the capitol city of Khwarezm and, after the Turkish garrison surrendered the city, drove out the remaining population slaughtering over 75,000 men, women, and children. The Turkish soldiers were also killed as an example for their treason.
1282	Sicilian Vespers	?	Italy
1284	The Pied Piper of Hamelin	130	Hamelin	Children supposedly lured away and killed. Legend, not clear what really happened.
October 25, 1415	Agincourt	~5,000	Agincourt, France	One of the major atrocities commited during the Hundred Years War Henry V, in order to raise enough soldiers guarding the French Nobles, orders the deaths of 5,000 prisoners of war during the Battle of Agincourt after receiving reports of French forces breaking though the English rear defenses and attacking its supply lines.
August 24, 1572	St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre	70,000	France	A wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots
September 20, 1565	Fort Caroline	~Unknown	Fort Caroline, Florida [US]	Spanish forces under naval officer Pedro Menendez de Aviles attack and destroy Fort Caroline killing most of the settlers. Renaming the settlement San Mateo the Spanish would use the fort as one of many bases in which Menendez would search for a water passage through Florida.
March 22, 1622	Jamestown	~347	Jamestown, Virginia [United States]	Led by Opechancanough, brother of Powhatan, local attack the Virginia Colony destroying virtualy all the settlements save the heavily fortified Jamestown.
May 10, 1631	Sack of Magdeburg	20,000	Magdeburg
1648-1649	?	100,000		Jews and Poles killed by Cossacks under Bohdan Chmielnicki
1689	Massacre of Palatinate	?	Germany
February 13, 1692	Massacre of Glencoe	78	Scotland
September 22, 1711	Tuscarora	~Unknown	North Carolina [US]	The Tuscarora kill an unknown number of settlers along the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers in northeastern North Carolina as well as abandoning the settlement of New Bern begining the Tuscarora Indian War lasting from 1711-1713.
April 1715	Yamassee	~Unknown	South Carolina [US]	With Spanish support the Yamassee kill several hundred [[South Carolina settlers. This act would begin a war between South Carolina colonists, allied with the Cherokee, defeating the Yamassee northwest of Port Royal, South Carolina almost a year later in January 1716.
1755	Deportation of the Acadians in New France		New France
1763	Distribution of blankets exposed to smallpox to American Indians	unknown (none or possibly hundreds)	Fort Pitt	During Pontiac's Rebellion, in which many white noncombatants (perhaps hundreds) were killed by Native American warriors, British General Jeffrey Amherst wrote a letter suggesting this tactic to stop the assault, but it is uncertain anyone died as a result.
1768	Koliwszczyzna	?		massacre of Poles and Jews in Human, Ukraine
March 5, 1770	Boston Massacre	5	British colony, now US state of Massachusetts
1778	Cherry Valley Massacre	eastern New York		during the American Revolutionary War
July 4, 1778	Wyoming Valley Massacre	~Unknown	Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania [US]	A combined force of Loyalists and American Indian allies under the command of John Butler attacked a settlement in Wyoming County of northeastern Pennsylvania on July 3. Forcing the settlement to surrender the following day the settlers were granted safe passage by Bulter however Indian forces looted the town and killed many of the settlers. The event would be immortalized by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell's poem "Gertrude of Wyoming" in 1809.
March 29, 1780	Waxhaw Massacre	~113 plus 100+ mortally wounded	Buford, South Carolina - the Waxhaws	The British Col. Banastre Tarleton massacred American forces as they attempted to surrender.
1794	Raze of Praga	20 000	Praga, Warsaw, Poland	Praga, the eastern borough of Warsaw looted and burnt by Russian forces under Aleksandr Suvorov
April 6-9, 1812	Badajoz	~Unknown	Badajoz, Spain	After a four week siege British soldiers under the Duke of Wellington siezed the Spainish city of Badajoz, a fortress on the Spanish-Portuguese border, from French control. After the battle however British soldiers began looting the city for three days before Wellington could regain control. This was one of the most serious breakdowns of control over British military forces during the Napoleonic Wars.
August 15, 1812	Fort Dearborn	~46	Fort Dearborn (present day Chicago), Illinois	Receiving a guarantee of safe passage from British and American Indian allies to evacuate Fort Dearborn, under orders from American General William Hull, the US Troop column of 54 soldiers, 12 milita, 9 women, and 18 children, while escorted by Indian guides, joined in an attack by larger Indian force while on route to Detriot with over half of the column killed and the remainder captured several of which were ransomed to Detroit.
January, 1813	River Raisin massacre	30–60	Monroe, Michigan	prisoners scalped during the War of 1812
August 16, 1819	Peterloo massacre	11	United Kingdom
August 2, 1832	Bad Axe River	~Unknown	Bad Axe River, Wisconsin [US]	Illinois milita under the command of General Henry Atkinson attack a Sauk camp at the mouth of Bad Axe River where many Sauk women and children are killed in the fighting. Shortly after the Winnebago would abandon Black Hawk forcing him and the Sauk to surrender several weeks later ending the Black Hawk War.
1836	Goliad massacre	342	Goliad, Texas	Mexican army executes American prisoners of war
February 16, 1838	Weenen Massacre	~300	South Africa	Zulus massacre Voortrekker men, women, and children
November 29, 1847	Whitman massacre	?	near Walla Walla, Washington	Medical mission established by Marcus Whitman attacked by the Cayuse
1848	Rabacja	?	Galicia	massacre of Polish nobles by peasants
October 26, 1853	Gunnison Massacre	?	Utah territory	Exploration party of John Gunnison killed by Pahvant Utes
May 24–25, 1856	Pottawatomie Massacre	5	Franklin County, Kansas	Radical abolitionist John Brown murders pro-slavery men with swords in "Bleeding Kansas"
June 27-July 15, 1857	Cawnpore	~200	Cawnpore, India	During the Sepoy Rebellion the British garrison at Cawnpore agreed to abandon the post under the agreement they would be granted a safe escort by Nana Sahib. However as the left the city the men were immediately massacred and 200 women and children were held in the Bibi-Ghar (House of the Women) where they were killed on July 15, 1857. When the British recaptured Cawnpore they reportedly forced each Sepoy prisoner to lick one square foot of the bloodstained floor where the massacres took place before being hanged.
September 11, 1857	Mountain Meadows Massacre	120	Utah, United States	Mormon militia and Paiutes kill an entire wagon train of Arkansas farming families.
August 21, 1863	Lawrence Massacre	~150	Lawrence, Kansas	Confederate raiders under William Quantrill loot and burn the town killing over 150 men.
April 12, 1864	Fort Pillow	~354	Fort Pillow, Tennessee	After Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest demand of the surrender of Union Fort Pillow was refused Forrest's forces assaulted the fort defenses in a particularly violent battle until a white flag was flown by the Union defenders. However Confederate forces continued firing upon the surrendering soldiers killing or wounding over 354 of the 580 men.
November 29, 1864	Sand Creek Massacre	~150	Colorado Territory	United States cavalry troops kill Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples in an undefended Native American village.
March 10, 1873	Canby Massacre	~4		Four of seven Americans as part of a peace delegation led by General E. R. S. Canby, under the pretext of peace negotiations, are killed by Modoc leader Captain Jack during the Modoc Indian War.
April 13, 1873	Colfax Massacre	100	Colfax, Louisiana
June 1, 1873	Cypress Hills Massacre	16–23	Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan, Canada	16-22 Nakoda (Assiniboine) killed by American wolfers. 1 American was killed.
May 4, 1886	Haymarket Riot	12	Chicago	Bomb tossed amongst police and striking workers
December 29, 1890	Wounded Knee Massacre	153–300	Wounded Knee, South Dakota	Last confrontation of US troops and the Great Sioux Nation
1894	First Armenian Massacre	?	Ottoman Empire
1903	Kishinev pogrom	?	(Chisinau) - Moldova
April 20, 1914	Ludlow Massacre	20	Ludlow, Colorado	Suppression of a strike by twelve thousand Colorado coal miners.
1915	Second Armenian Massacre	0.2–1.8 million	Anatolia	Deportation of ethnic Armenians by the Young Turks.
July 17, 1918	Romanov massacre	~10	Yekaterinburg, Russia	Bolshevik execution of Nicholas II and the Russian royal household
April 13, 1919	Amritsar Massacre	379	India
September 1–8, 1923	Kanto massacre	~4,000–10,000	Kanto region, Japan	Korean and Okinawan immigrants blamed for looting and arson
November 21, 1927	Columbine Mine Massacre	at least 6	Serene, Colorado	500 striking coal miners, some with their families, were attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes
February 14, 1929	St. Valentine's Day Massacre	7	Chicago	Bugs Moran's gang is murdered by Al Capone's men
1929	Hebron massacre	?	Palestine
1937	Nanjing Massacre	200,000–300,000	China	by Imperial Japanese Soldiers, also called Rape of Nanking
1938	Kristallnacht	36–200	Germany	also called Pogromnacht
September 1939	Bromberg Bloody Sunday	up to 8000	Bydgoszcz, Poland	Killing of between 358 and 5,000 ethnic Germans during the Polish Defence War of 1939 and subsequent massacre of ~3,000 Polish civilians as a reprisal.
1939	Polish victims of Nazi initial occupation of Poland	most of Poland	Poland	Imprisonment and execution of Polish citizens and soldiers immediately after German invasion.
December 27, 1939	Wawer	107	Poland	120 men caught in a łapanka shot as a reprisal for death of two German soldiers, 13 of them survived the massacre under the pile of bodies.
December 1939 - July 1940	Palmiry	~2000	Poland	Gestapo murder systematically members of Polish intelligentsia, sportsmen, politicians and common people.
1940	Katyn Massacre	25,700	Soviet Union	Russian massacre of Polish intelligentsia, POW reserve officers
July 1941	Massacre of Lw�w professors	45	Lw�w, Poland	Part of the AB Action
1941	Massacre in Jedwabne	380–1600	Poland
September 29–30, 1941	Babi Yar massacre	33,771	Ukraine
July 1941- August 1944	Ponary	~100,000	Lithuania
June 10, 1942	Lidice	~172	Lidice, Czechoslovakia	After Czech agents, with British assistance, assasinate Nazi Protector of Bohemia-Morovia, and former Deputy Chief of the Gestapo, Reinhart Heidrich the small Czechoslovakian town of Lidice is surrounded by the German SS and all men and teenagers over 16 are rounded up and shot. The remaining women and children are sent to concentration camps and the village is destroyed.
1943	Massacres of Poles in Volhynia	~100,000	Ukraine
July, 1943	Canicatti slaughter	12	Sicily	US Troops kill unarmed civilians at a soap factory.
July 14, 1943	Biscari Massacre	76	Sicily	US Troops kill German and Italian POWs.
February, 1944	Manila Massacre	100,000	Philippines	Retreating Japanese troops kill Filippino civilians.
1944	Massacre in Koniuchy	~300	Poland
June 10, 1944	Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre	642	France
August 1944	Wola Massacre	up to 50,000	Warsaw	German troops slaughter most of civilians in the borough of Wola during the early stage of the Warsaw Uprising
December 17, 1944	Malm�dy massacre	80	Belgium	Massacre of American POWs
April 29, 1945	Dachau Massacre	560	Germany	US Troops kill German POWs.
May 8, 1945	Setif Massacre	150 pied-noirs 1,500–45,000 Algerians	Algeria
May, 1945	Bleiburg massacre	Tens of thousands	Yugoslavia	Partisans retaliate against Ustashe and their supporters
July 31, 1945	Usti Massacre	~80	Czechoslovakia	Czech soldiers lynch ethnic Germans
August 6, 1945	Hiroshima	100,000	Japan
August 9, 1945	Nagasaki	60,000	Japan
1948	Hadassah medical convoy massacre	~77	Palestine
1948	Deir Yassin massacre	107	Palestine
1948	Arab al-Mawasi massacre	14	Palestine
April 3 1948	Jeju Massacre	30,000	Korea
July 26-29, 1950	Nogun-ri massacre	121–?	Korea
1953	Qibya massacre	~50	West Bank
1956	Kafr Qasim massacre	49	Israel
March 21, 1960	Sharpeville Massacre	69 killed, 180+ injured	South Africa	police opened fire on a crowd of black protesters
October 17, 1961	Paris Massacre of 1961	32-200[1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1604970.stm)	Paris, France	Killing of Algerian demonstrators
1968	Tlatelolco massacre	200–300	Mexico	Mexican soldiers open fire on student demonstrators.
1968	My Lai massacre	347–504	Vietnam
February 8, 1968	Orangeburg Massacre	?	South Carolina State University, USA
January, 1969	Massacre at Hue	~2500	Hue, Vietnam
May 4, 1970	Kent State massacre	4	Kent State University, Ohio, USA
January 30, 1972	Bloody Sunday	14	Derry, Northern Ireland
September 5, 1972	Munich Massacre	12	Munich, Germany	Palestinian terrorists kidnap and kill Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games
November 18, 1978	Jonestown massacre	5+913	Jonestown, Guyana	People's Temple cult attacks Rep. Leo Ryan and delegation; after 5 killed in shootout, Jim Jones leads mass suicide
November 3, 1979	Greensboro massacre	5	Greensboro, North Carolina	Ku Klux Klansmen and American Nazis opened fire on an anti-Klan demonstration.
May 1980	Gwangju Massacre	191–250–2000	Gwangju, South Korea	Jeon-nam University
December 11, 1981	El Mozote massacre	~900	El Salvador
February 2, 1982	Hama Massacre	~20,000	Syria
September, 1982	Sabra and Shatila massacre	300–3,000	Beirut, Lebanon
August 8, 1987	Hoddle Street massacre	7	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
August 19, 1987	Hungerford massacre	17	Hungerford, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom
December 8, 1987	Queen Street massacre	8	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
December 6, 1989	École Polytechnique Massacre	15	University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada	also called Montreal Massacre
June, 1989	Tiananmen Massacre	up to 2,600	Beijing, China	Chinese PLA troops open fire on unarmed students and civilians gathered in Beijing
November 13, 1990	Aramoana Massacre	13	Aramoana, New Zealand
November 12, 1991	Dili Massacre	271	Dili, East Timor	Timorese protesting Indonesian rule are killed by Indonesian soldiers.
July 11, 1995	Srebrenica Massacre	~8000	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Considered the largest massacre in Europe since World War II
1994	Rwandan Massacre	800,000	Rwanda	Hutus massacre Tutsis for 3 months
March 13, 1996	Dunblane massacre	18	Dunblane, Scotland, United Kingdom
April 18, 1996	Qana Massacre	102	Qana, South of Lebanon
April 29, 1996	Port Arthur massacre	35	Tasmania, Australia
1997	Sanaa massacre	8	Yemen
August 28, 1997	Sidi Rais massacre	~200	Sidi Rais, Algeria
September 22, 1997	Bentalha massacre	>200	Bentalha, Algeria
December 22, 1997	Acteal massacre	45	Acteal, Mexico	Allegedly government-linked paramilitaries attack a prayer meeting professing support for the goals of EZLN rebels
January 10, 1998	Sidi Hamed massacre	103	Sidi Hamed, Algeria
March 24, 1998	Jonesboro massacre	5	Arkansas, United States
December 9, 1998	Tadjena massacre	42	Algeria
April 20, 1999	Columbine High School massacre	15	Littleton, Colorado, United States	Two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, executed a planned shooting rampage killing 12 other students and a teacher before committing suicide. It is considered to be the worst school shooting in U.S. history.
January 9–11, 2001	Yakaolang massacre	~300	Yakaolang, Afghanistan	Taliban executes civilian members of the Shia Sadat and Hazara clans
June 1, 2001	Nepalese royal family massacre	8	Katmandu, Nepal	Prince Dipendra shoots his immediate family and himself at a royal dinner
June 8, 2001	Osaka School Massacre	8	Ikeda, Osaka prefecture, Japan
September 11, 2001	September 11, 2001 attacks	~3,000	New York, Washington DC, Pennsylvania (United States)	Al-Qaida hijacks 4 U.S. commercial airliners for use in a suicide bombing attack on major American targets. Two planes struck the World Trade Center towers in New York, causing the majority of the deaths; one plane hit the Pentagon; one plane was downed in a Pennsylvania field by its passengers (all of whom were killed.)
September 27, 2001	Zug massacre	14	Zug, Switzerland	Friedrich Leibacher (44) entered the Zug parliament and opened fire, killing three members of the cantonal government and 11 parliamentarians before turning the gun on himself.
December, 2001	Dasht-i-Leili massacre	250–3000	Afghanistan	Taliban prisoners were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal truck containers while being transferred between prisons by Northern Alliance soldiers during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
February 2002	2002 Gujarat violence	~800–2000	Gujarat state, India	Sectarian violence following a train fire in Godhra
April 26, 2002	Erfurt massacre	17	Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany
March 28, 2002	Passover massacre	30	Netanya, Israel
October 4, 2003	Maxim restaurant massacre	21	Haifa, Israel
March 2, 2004	Ashoura Massacre	~170	Karbala, Baghdad, (Iraq)
March 11, 2004	11 March 2004 Madrid attacks	191	Madrid, (Spain)	Islamic terrorists apparently linked to Al-Qaida plant several bombs aboard four commuter trains in Madrid
May 2, 2004	Yelwa massacre	~630	Nigeria
May 19, 2004	Mukaradeeb	42	Iraq	Bombing of a wedding party; described by US forces as a mistake provoked by its celebratory gunfire
September 3, 2004	Beslan school hostage crisis	331	Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia

See also