March 20, 2020

Tomorrow, March 21, marks 60 years since the Sharpeville Massacre took place in South Africa in 1960. On that day, South African police opened fire into a crowd of black demonstrators. The incident occurred in the township of Sharpeville, now part of the city of Vereeniging. The shooting left 69 people dead and more than 180 wounded.

People flee from gunfire during the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa on March 21, 1960. Credit: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images

The demonstration in Sharpeville was part of a nationwide protest against the pass laws. The pass laws required black adults to carry identity papers called passes. They also restricted the movement of black people around the country. The pass laws were part of a policy of rigid racial segregation called apartheid. The policy had existed in South Africa since 1948.

An antiapartheid group called the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) organized the protest. The group called on black South Africans to go to police stations without their passes on March 21, 1960, and peacefully submit to arrest. Only a few demonstrators responded in most cities. In Sharpeville, however, several thousand protesters gathered outside the police station. A few hundred police officers faced them from behind a wire fence surrounding the station. In the early afternoon, the officers began to fire, probably in confused reaction to a scuffle between police and protesters near the fence. Many demonstrators were shot in the back as they fled.

The events at Sharpeville had long-lasting effects on the antiapartheid campaign. At first, the shooting sparked large demonstrations in sympathy for the victims. The government then banned the PAC and the African National Congress (ANC), a larger antiapartheid organization. Forced underground, the organizations altered their tactics to include violent forms of protest. Outrage over the deaths at Sharpeville also helped spur an international antiapartheid movement.

Apartheid ended in South Africa during the early 1990’s. Today, South Africans honor March 21, the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, as Human Rights Day.

March 27, 2018

On Saturday, March 24, more than a million people around the world participated in March For Our Lives protests against gun violence, mass shootings, and school shootings in the United States. The U.S. protests centered on Washington, D.C., where people called on lawmakers to pass gun control legislation. The protests were planned and led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in the Miami, Florida, suburb of Parkland, where a mass shooting killed 17 students and faculty on February 14.

Hundreds of thousands of people crowd Washington, D.C., streets during the March For Our Lives protest against gun violence on March 24, 2018. Credit: © Nicole S. Glass, Shutterstock

MSD students and other gun crime survivors from across the country spoke to hundreds of thousands of people along Pennsylvania Avenue, with the White House and the U.S. Capitol looming in the background. The emotional speeches were punctuated with cheers, tears, and chants of “no more guns” and “no more NRA,” a reference to the powerful pro-gun group, the National Rifle Association. The NRA has been effective at persuading members of Congress to block the passage of gun control bills, arguing that such bills violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. “Vote them out!” was another protesters’ chant aimed squarely at those NRA-influenced members of Congress. Many hand-painted signs carried among the crowds read “Graduations, not funerals,” “Protect kids not guns,” and “Am I next?”

Credit: © March For Our Lives

The most stirring moment came when 18-year old MSD student Emma González named her dead classmates and teachers and then paused in silence until she had used up 6 minutes and 20 seconds—the amount of time it took for the gunman to take 17 lives at her high school. Naomi Wadler, an 11-year-old speaker from Virginia, declared “Never again!” on behalf of black women and girl victims of gun violence. Never Again is the name of another student-led movement pushing for tighter gun regulations. Singers Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, and Lin-Manuel Miranda performed at the Washington rally, which was also attended and supported by thousands of parents and teachers as well as numerous Democratic politicians and entertainment celebrities.

“Sibling” March For Our Lives protests took place throughout the United States, with large events in such cities as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City. The nationwide rallies also encouraged voter registration, particularly for students about to turn 18 and vote for the fist time. Former president Barack Obama voiced his support for the protesters and the voting drive, saying “You’re leading us forward. Nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change.” Solidarity events also took place in such world cities as Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Saturday’s March For Our Lives followed a 17-minute school walkout (one minute for each MSD shooting victim) that took nearly a million U.S. high school students briefly out of classes on March 14. The massacre at MSD High School was the most recent in a long line of school shootings in the United States. The worst came at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in 2012, when 26 people were killed. Another national school walkout is planned for April 20 to commemorate the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in which 13 people died.

October 2, 2017

Last night, on October 1, in Las Vegas, Nevada, a gunman killed at least 58 people at an open-air concert near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The gunman fired from the window of his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, shooting into a crowd of 22,000 people attending a music festival across the street. Armed with numerous automatic weapons, the gunman poured hundreds of bullets into the crowd until police reached his hotel room. The gunman then committed suicide. The attack—which has also resulted in over 500 injuries—is the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. The death toll from the domestic terror attack will most likely rise.

People run for cover as a gunman fires into a crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 1, 2017. Fifty-eight people died in the domestic terror attack. Credit: © David Becker, Getty Images

The attack began just after 10 p.m. local time, not long after country music star Jason Aldean had taken the stage at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, a three-day event held in an open-air venue across the Las Vegas Strip from the Mandalay Bay. The Las Vegas Strip, a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard, is famous for its large resort hotels and casinos. Many people in the concert crowd did not react immediately to the attack, as the popping of gunshots was confused with the sound of firecrackers and drowned out by the music being played on stage.

People soon realized the horror of what was taking place, however, and began running for cover and searching for loved ones in the chaos. The shooting paused occasionally as the gunman reloaded his automatic weapons, but the rapid fire then resumed as bullets ricocheted around the concrete concert ground and inflicted further injuries. Police responding to the attack saw gun flashes coming from the Mandalay Bay, and soon zeroed in on the gunman’s locked hotel room. As police used explosives to burst into the room, the gunman shot and killed himself.

Thus far, the shooter, identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, has not been tied with any militant or terrorist groups, and his motive remains unclear. Paddock lived in Mesquite, a small city northeast of Las Vegas. His dead body was found with 23 guns, many of which are readily available in Nevada, a state with some of the least stringent gun laws in the United States. Police found another 19 guns at Paddock’s home in Mesquite.

The previous worst U.S. mass shooting occurred just last year, in June 2016, when a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. That shooter, who was killed by police, had professed his allegiance to an Islamic terrorist group.

June 13, 2016

Police officers stand guard near the scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016. Credit: © Phelan M. Ebenhack, AP Photo

Early Sunday morning, June 12, at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a gunman entered carrying an assault rifle and a handgun and started shooting. The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, shot several people before retreating deeper into the club and taking hostages. Orlando police, paramedics, and firefighters were quickly on the scene, but, unsure of what they were dealing with, they awaited the arrival of heavily armed Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers. About 5:00 a.m., SWAT officers broke through a wall of the nightclub. In a brief gunfight, Mateen was killed and one officer was wounded. Thirty hostages were freed, wounded bar patrons were treated and evacuated, and a suspected explosive device was destroyed. Forty-nine people died in the attack—plus the shooter—and 53 others were injured, making it the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. Some 350 patrons were in Pulse for a Latin music event at the time of the attack.

Mateen, a U.S. Muslim born to Afghan parents in New York City, apparently targeted the nightclub because it caters predominantly to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. While hiding in a restroom with hostages, Mateen called 9-1-1 and pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State, but there is no evidence that he had ties to the terrorist group. Mateen had, however, been questioned previously for suspected terrorism links. Mateen’s ex-wife described him as “emotionally and mentally disturbed,” and others noted a history of anger and violent behavior.

Numerous sympathies and tributes poured in to Orlando from around the world as people absorbed the shocking reality of the attack. President Barack Obama described the attack as an “act of terror and an act of hate.” Pope Francis condemned the “senseless hatred” of the massacre. This most recent mass shooting reignited calls for stricter gun control in the United States.

December 3, 2015

On Thursday, authorities were attempting to sort out the details of a deadly mass shooting that had taken place in San Bernardino, California, the day before. Two heavily armed shooters killed 14 people and wounded nearly two dozen others during a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center, a facility for people with disabilities. The suspects were themselves killed in a gun battle with police hours after the rampage. The motives for the shooting have not yet been determined. However, authorities indicated that one of the shooters may have had previous contact with international terrorism suspects and may also have had work-related grievances.

The San Bernardino killings were the second mass shooting to take place in the United States on Wednesday and the sixth in a week, according to Mass Shooting Tracker. The group defines a “mass shooting” as the shooting of four or more people. Early Wednesday morning, a gunman shot four people, one fatally, in Savannah, Georgia. Wednesday’s massacre in San Bernardino was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting nearly three years ago. On Dec. 14, 2012, a gunman killed 20 students—all 6 or 7 years old—and 6 adults at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut.

Thus far in 2015, by Mass Shooting Trackers’ definition, 355 mass shootings have occurred in the United States. According to the University of Alabama Department of Criminal Justice, the population of the United States comprises about 5 percent of the global population. Yet, from 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of all the mass shootings in the world occurred in the United States. Researchers at the university attributed the high percentage of mass shootings in the United States to the high number of civilian gun owners in the country.

Additional World Book articles:

• Columbine High School shooting
• Tucson shooting of 2011
• Aurora movie theater shooting of 2012
• Paris terrorist attacks of 2015
• “Routine” (a Behind the Headlines article)
• Charleston Church Shooting Called a Hate Crime (a Behind the Headlines article)