Columbine High School massacre

1999 CE.

Shown on the map at 39.603°, -105.075°.

On April 20, 1999, high school senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 students and one teacher in a school shooting and attempted bombing at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. Twenty people were injured by the gunfire, and three others were injured while trying to escape. The attack ended when Harris and Klebold committed suicide. The Columbine massacre was the deadliest mass shooting at a K–12 school in U.S. history until December 2012. Columbine is considered among the most infamous massacres in the United States, which as of June 2025, had inspired more than 70 copycat crimes, a phenomenon dubbed the Columbine effect, and Columbine has become a byword for modern school shootings. Harris and Klebold, who planned for roughly a year, intended the attack to be primarily a bombing and only secondarily a shooting. The pair launched a shooting attack after the homemade bombs they planted in the school failed to detonate. Their motive remains uncertain. The police were slow to enter the school and were strongly criticized for not intervening during the shooting.

Text from the Wikipedia article Columbine High School massacre, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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