MIKE GRACIA

On August 1, 1966, after stabbing his mother and his wife to death
the night before, Charles Whitman,(above) a former Marine, took
rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main
Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin, then opened
fire indiscriminately on persons on the surrounding campus and
streets. Over the next 96 minutes he shot and killed 16 people
(including one unborn child) and injured 31 others; a final victim
died in 2001 from the lingering effects of his wounds. The incident
ended when a policeman and a civilian reached Whitman and shot
him dead. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone
gunman in U.S. history until it was surpassed 18 years later by the
San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre.

The University of Texas at Austin Tower, Austin, Texas.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

The Columbine High School massacre was a mass shooting that  occurred on this day in 1999, at Columbine High School in
Columbine, Colorado.The perpetrators, twelfth grade (senior)
students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students
and one teacher and injured 21 additional people trying to escape
the school building. Ten students were killed in the library, where 
the pair subsequently committed suicide. At the time, it was the 
deadliest shooting at a high school in United States history.

Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) recorded on the high
school’s surveillance cameras in the cafeteria, 11 minutes before
their suicides.

MIKE GRACIA

The New York "Lantern" newspaper published the first "Uncle Sam cartoon" on this day in 1852 and quickly became the symbol of the
United States. The editorial cartoon, “Raising the Wind; or, Both
Sides of the Story,” was drawn by Frank Henry Bellew (below). It
was used in criticizing U.S. policies on shipping.

 

Frank Henry Temple Bellew
(April 18, 1828 – June 29, 1888)

The Dunblane school massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School (above) near Stirling, Stirlingshire, Scotland, on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot 16 children and one teacher dead before killing himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history
                                                                                                                                              

Public debate about the killings centered on gun control laws, including public petitions calling for a ban on private ownership of handguns and an official
inquiry, which produced the 1996 Cullen Reports. In response to this debate,
two new Firearms Acts were passed, which outlawed private ownership of
most handguns in Great Britain.

Thomas Watt Hamilton  (May 10, 1952 – March 13, 1996)

A memorial at the Dunblane primary school in Scotland, where a 43-
year-old former shopkeeper with four handguns stormed the school
gymnasium.

Sgt. Ron Helus, was killed after responding to calls of gunshots at
a Southern California country music bar Wednesday night. He was
among 12 people killed when a gunman walked into Borderline Bar
& Grill in Thousand Oaks, California and opened fire.