Massacre has a number of meanings, but most commonly refers to individual events of deliberate and direct mass murder, especially of noncombatant civilians without any reasonable means of defense, that would qualify as war crimes or atrocities. Massacres in this sense do not typically apply to combatants, except figuratively, although the deliberate mass killings of prisoners of war are often considered massacres.
At the same time, the term massacre is used more widely to refer to individual, civil, or military mass killings on smaller scales, but having distinct political significance in shaping subsequent events, such as the Boston massacre. Individual or small group acts of murder may also be described as massacres for sensationalist or sentimental reasons, as in the case of some school shootings. Additionally, the word massacre is often used for political or propaganda purposes, and the choice of whether to label an event a massacre may become a sensitive one; see, for example, the Kent State shootings.
Below is a list of incidents that either meet the criteria of resulting in large numbers of deliberate and direct civilian deaths in a single event, or that are commonly labelled as massacres, though they may not be on the same scale. Generally, the list includes individual events only, but where such an event includes too many individual massacres to list separately (e.g. The Holocaust, Great Purge), the wider event may be listed as well as some of the more prominent individual 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. Furthermore, the distinction between genocide and massacres may be difficult and controversial, this categorization musn't be seen as definitive nor authoritative. Please see relevant articles for further information.
Alexander the Great slaughters the population of the city when it revolts. Between 334-324 BC, Alexander will massacre at least a quarter million city dwellers at Sindimana, Gaza, and other locations.
Almost all Muslim inhabitants slaughtered after the fall of the city to the Crusaders. 12,000 Christians are killed two centuries later when the city is retaken by Muslims.
The Mongols under Genghis Khan laid siege to the capital city of Khwarezm and, after the Turkish garrison surrendered the city, drove out the remaining population slaughtering over 75,000 men, women, and children.
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.
Bulgarian man, women and children baricaded in the church massacred after five days defence by the irregular Ottoman troops (bashi-bazouks). Punitive action for the April Uprising. More than 7,000 others throughout Bulgaria.
Systematic destruction of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, including the mass deportation of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and homosexuals to Concentration Camps. Some individual incidents of massacres are noted in this table, but camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka accounted for the bulk of the slaughter.
In one of the first massacres of Jews, the German reserve Police Battalion 309 gathered the Jews of Białystok into the central synagogue and set it on fire, shooting people who tried to flee.
Jewish residents of Jedwabane are marched into the center of the village, where they are beaten and killed by their Polish neighbours, although some historians argue that German police, the SS and military forces were also involved.
Jews and Poles of Vilnius marched to Ponary Woods and shot by Lithuanian police units (known as Ponary Rifles) under German supervision. 40,000 were killed in 1941 alone.
Jews of Kaunas who were not able to work, including women and children, were marched to the Ninth Fort and shot. Over 40,000 Jews will eventually be killed there.
Led by Opechancanough, brother of Powhatan, local Native American tribes attack the Virginia Colony destroying virtualy all the settlements save the heavily fortified Jamestown.
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.
Killing of between 358 and 5,000 ethnic Germans during the Polish Defensive War of 1939 and subsequent massacre of ~3,000 Polish civilians as a reprisal.
During German occupation, Greek royalist militias battle pro Communist Muslims in northern villages of Epirus, known by Albanians as Chameria. Over 25,000 flee to Albania.
Three days of Sectarian violence following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Local government officials widely believed to be responsible for organizing mobs to massacre Sikhs.
Three days of pogroms in the Soviet industrial town of Sumgait directed against the Armenian population of the town by the Azeris where many were killed, burned, and raped and hundreds injured. Casualty count included violence against inadequately armed MVD soldiers. Large amounts of property damage done to the town and property.
Burundian Hutu-extremists, believed to be members of Palipehutu-FNL, ambush a civilian bus close to the Burundian capital Bujumbura. Hutu passengers are released unharmed. Tutsis and foreigners are shot dead.
Members of the Hutu-extremist group Palipehutu-FNL attack a refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting, hacking and burning to death 152 Congolese Tutsis.
Hundreds of armed men said to be from the Borana clan, surrounded Turbi primary school and nearby houses and opened fire as children were making their way to school. Turbi is a Gabra clan village.
After the invasion of Scotland by English forces under the command of Edward I of England, around 30,000 people died in the massacre by his forces of the then Scottish town]].
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.
After a four week siege British soldiers under the Duke of Wellington seized 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.
During the Philippine-American War, while the Philippines were a colonial possession of the USA, Filipinos armed with machetes kill all American soldiers from the garrison of the port of Balangiga on the island of Samar (see Balangiga massacre).
Committed by Japanese army in the aftermath of the Battle of Nanking. The fact that atrocities did occur is not disputed. However, there are significant disagreement about the magnitude of massacre. The estimate vary from 200,00-300,000 Chinese civilians being killed to less than 100,000 including the soldiers and civilian casualities during the battle of Nanking. The area and time period of Nanking Massacre as well as the definition of massacre in regard to the legality of executing "suspected enemy combatant" are contested as it directly influence the calculation of death toll.
The entire village in Belarus is burnt with all its inhabitants by the German Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators; one of hundreds Belarusian and Russian villages to share the similar fate.
After Czech agents, with British assistance, assassinate Nazi Protector of Bohemia-Morovia, and former Deputy Chief of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich the small village Lidice (in Czech lands) 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.
730 British bombers dropp 9,000 tons of bombs on Hamburg. The bombing created a firestorm which destroyed much of the city. Between 35,000 and 45,000 civilians died and 1 million were left homeless.
Retreating Japanese troops slaughter at least 100,000 Filipino civilians. Manila is razed, making it the 2nd most devastated city in WWII after Warsaw.
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.
24 male residents of the village are slaughtered by German troops, as suspects of helping partisan activities. The partisans killed one soldier who was guarding a bridge. 6 male residents of the nearby villages are slaughtered too.
Canadian POW's who were captured during the battle were marched out into a garden and interrogated before being shot by members of the 12th SS Panzer Division.
In response 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.
After attacking Italian partisans and civilians who held some German prisoners at Molin dei Falchi, the German soldiers took revenge. They gathered all the men of the nearby village of San Polo, brutally beat and tortured them, and took them to a nearby field. They were made to dig three pit graves and were then thrown in still alive. The partisans were placed in the pits with their heads above ground and with explosive charges attached to their bodies. They were then blown apart. The Germans did not allow anyone to bury the dead. (For details see Eugenio Calo).
ELAS communist fighters attack the village of Meligala and massacre 1,500 men, women and children. Their bodies were thrown into a large well, known as the "Pigada of Meligala". Many of the victims were collaborators of the Germans (see Greek Civil War).
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.
Nazis kill survivors making it ashore following the sinking of the ships SS Cap Arcona, the Thielbek, and the Deutschland full of concentration camp Neuengamme's POWs.
The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are razed by the American Atomic bombings. Hundrends of thousands die during and after the bombings from radiation.
The city of Dresden is bombed and razed to the ground by American and British bombers. It is considered one of the most controversial Allied actions of the war. Exact figures are unknown but estimates range between 25,000-400,000 civilians dead and 24,000 buildings destroyed.
Pakistan Army and local collaborators kill large number of doctors, engineers, educators, journalists, and other intellectuals during the flag end of the Bangladesh War of 1971.
Japanese troops and police opened fire on Korean protestors marching peacefully on the street calling for the independence of Korea and investigation on the sudden death of Emperor Gojong.
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.
White mobs invaded and burned the segregated black Greenwood district. The governor declared martial law, black people were rounded up by the National Guard and put into the internment camps. Whites in airplanes shot at black refugees and dropped explosives onto them.
General Douglas MacArthur, under order of President Hoover, sent in federal cavalry troops with rifles and tear gas to evict the Bonus Marchers and destroyed their camps. Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton were also ordered to take part in the operation. Hundreds of veterans were injured, several were killed, including William Hushka and Eric Carlson, a wife of a veteran miscarried, and other such casualties were inflicted.
Dominican military destroy the town of Palma Sola, the base of the (mostly Afro-Dominican) political and religious dissident movement known as the Liboristas
Shooting of 28 unarmed Irish Catholic Civilians, 14 of whom died, by Paratroop Regiment of the British Army following a protest march at the introduction of internment without trial.
Jorge Rafael Videla's military government tortured and killed dissident citizens, journalists, and professors as part of a wider continental plan of state terrorism called Operation Condor supported by the U.S. State Department, led by Henry Kissinger under Richard Nixon's presidency.
Explosion of 22 bombs in 90 minutes by Provisional Irish Republican Army in and around central Belfast in an attempt to bring normal life in the City to an end. The bombings killed seven civilians, two British soldiers and seriously injured 130 other people.
The Provisional IRA explode two bombs in busy public houses killing 21 civilians, more than half of whom were under the age of 25. Until the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, this was Britain's worst act of mass murder.
The Provisional IRA massacres eight civilians and one of its own terrorists by exploding a bomb in a fish shop on the Shankill Road on a busy Saturday afternoon. The massacre sparks a series of reprisals by Loyalist terrorists.
Irish republicans opposed to the Northern IrelandPeace Process explode a car bomb following an inaccurate warning which lead to people being guided towards the bomb rather than away from it. This was the biggest massacre in any single incident in Northern Ireland related to The Troubles. (The number of dead is sometimes stated as 31 as one of those murdered was a woman pregnant with twins).
Al-Qaeda hijacks 4 U.S. commercial airliners for use in a suicide bombing attack on major American targets. Two planes struck the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York, causing the majority of the deaths; one hit the Pentagon; and another plane was downed in a Pennsylvania field by its hijackers when passengers rushed the cockpit.
Charles Whitman goes on a shooting rampage atop the University of Texas at Austin's observation tower, killing 15 people and injuring 30. Whitman himself was also killed. Two additional deaths in later years are also attributed to this shooting.
Postman Patrick Sherrill shot and killed fellow employees in the Post Office before committing suicide, bringing the total to 15 dead. Between 1986 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed in more than 20 separate incidents involving the United States Postal Service.
Richard Farley, former employee of Electromagnetic Systems Labs (ESL), returned to ESL with guns and explosives and killed seven people and injured three others, including Laura Black, a woman he had been stalking for over 3 years.
Two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, execute 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.
Friedrich Leibacher entered the Zug parliament and opened fire, killing three members of the cantonal government and 11 parliamentarians before turning the gun on himself.
Robert Steinhäuser, expelled student, enters his former high school and opens fire on teachers, killing 13 teachers, 2 students and even a police officer before finally turning the gun on himself.
Aaron Kyle Huff entered a house party in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood and opened fire, shooting eight, and killing six. When confronted by police, Huff killed himself.
