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.
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.
One of the major atrocities commited during the Hundred Years WarHenry 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.
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.
Led by Opechancanough, brother of Powhatan, local tribes attack the Virginia Colony destroying virtualy all the settlements save the heavily fortified Jamestown.
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 War lasting from 1711-1713.
With Spanish support the Yamassee kill several hundred South Carolina settlers. This act would begin a violent conflict between South Carolina colonists, allied with the Cherokee, defeating the Yamassee northwest of Port Royal, South Carolina almost a year later in January 1716.
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.
After a four week siege British soldiers under the Duke of Wellington siezed the Spanish 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.
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.
Illinois militia 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.
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 they 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.
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.
British troops led by Brigadier General Reginald Dyer fired 1650 rounds of ammunitions into a crowd of 20,000 people gathered in a garden with its sole exit blocked to prevent people from escaping.
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.
Jewish residents of Jedwabane are marched into the center of the city where there are beaten, tortured, and killed by Nazi and Gestapo members (although Polish citizens may have been involved). Only seven of the group, hidden by a Polish family, survive the massacre.
After Czech agents, with British assistance, assassinate Nazi Protector of Bohemia-Morovia, and former Deputy Chief of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich 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.
Three hundred men women and children are murdered by 120 members of Soviet partisan groups, including the Lithuanian Brigade, of the village of Koniuchy.
After two railway cars are derailed, presumably by the French Underground, soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division under the command of SS Obersturmführer Walter Hauck murder 86 men in the surrounding area of the Ascq railway station.
In responce to French Underground activity the 2nd SS Panzer Division, upon finding mutilated remains of 64 garrison soldiers of the 95th Security Regiment, 99 men are hanged and the remaining population of Tulle sent to work labor camps in Germany. Of the 149 townspeople only 48 survived the war.
Responding to recent French Underground activity in which two German soldiers were killed, 120 SS soldiers of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, commanded by SS Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann, execute 642 men, women, and children of the town of Oradour.
General Heinz Helmuth von Wuhlisch orders the execution of 39 Dutch civilians and the village burned after an attack by the Dutch resistance results in the capture of a German soldier despite the later release of the hostage. The remaining men in the village are sent to labor camps and out of 589 only 49 survive the end of the war.
29 Dutch civilians are executed as well as several buildings set on fire after the assassination of S.D. officer Herbert Oelschagel by the Dutch resistance the previous day.
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.
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.)
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.
