Partial Chronology of Planned Terrorist Attacks, Assassinations, Civil Disorders and Military Actions Against Civilians: 1901-2001

Compiled by Prof. Brian Levin, copyright 2001 All rights reserved

September 11, 2001
In the worst terrorist attack, and the worst single day loss of life, in American history, approximately 7,000 people are murdered in New York, Arlington, Va., and in Pennsylvania after four commercial airliners are hijacked, and three are crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center (WTC). The attack is believed to be coordinated by fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida consortium. The loss of life as of September 26, 2001 consisted of 189 souls at the Penatgon, 287 at New York's WTC , with an additional 6347 people missing and believed dead at the WTC. In addition United Airlines flight 93 en route from Newark to San Francisco with 44 aboard crashed in western Pennsylvania, killing all on board, United flight 175, a boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the south WTC tower, killing 65 aboard, American Airlines flight 11, also en route from Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the north WTC tower killing 92 on board.

August 10, 2001
A 23 year old suicide bomber associated with Hamas killed at least 15, including women and children, and injured 90 more at a Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. Terrorist bombings and shootings by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli civilians and subsequent Israeli reprisals leave over 700 dead, 550 of them Palestinians, over 11 months.


June 1, 2001
At least 17 were killed, mostly teenagers, and 70 more injured by a suicide bomber outside of a Tel Aviv dance club.

October 12, 2000
Terrorists on a small boat packed with explosives murder 17 U.S. Navy sailors aboard the USS Cole during a refueling run in Aden, Yemen. Osama bin Laden believed to be behind the attack

August 9, 2000
A bomb explodes in the Moscow subway, killing 8 people and injuring 50 more.

December 25-31, 1999
The Afghanistan Taliban allow hijacked Indian Airlines flight 814 to land at Qandahar airport after refusing landing rights the day before. The hijacking continues until December 31 when the Indian Government frees three people linked to Kashmiri militant organizations in exchange for the release of the captives on the plane. The hijackers, who had previously murdered one of the Indian passengers, are allowed to escape. The Taliban announced that the hijackers, reportedly Kashmiri militants, would leave Afghanistan even if they were unable to obtain political asylum from another country. The terrorists are still at large.

December 1999
Osama bin Laden associates launch failed plots to blow up Seattle Space Needle, Los Angeles International Airport, Jordanian tourist destinations, and a U.S. Navy ship.

September 16, 1999
A truck bomb destroys an apartment house in Volgodonsk, Russia killing 17 people. Chechen extremists are allegedly connected to a series of bomb attacks throughout Russia that strike fear through the heart of the nation.

September 13, 1999
130 people are killed by a bomb blast that leveled an  eight-story apartment house in Moscow by explosives estimated to be the equivalent of 400 pounds of TNT. 

September 9, 1999
An explosion destroys a nine-story Moscow apartment house, killing 93 people.

September 4, 1999
An apartment house in Dagestan is bombed killing 64 people. 

August 31, 1999
A bomb at an upscale Moscow shopping mall kills one woman and injures dozens of people. 

August 10, 1999
Neo-Nazi Buford Furrow shoots three children, and two adults at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles before murdering a Filipino-American postal worker.

September 2, 1998
A UN court convicts a Rwandan man of genocide, in the first verdict of its kind.

August 15, 1998
At least 20 are killed from a massive bomb blast in Omagh, Northern Ireland, including 2 infants and 9 children allegedly committed by the "Real IRA".

August 7, 1998
The American embassies in the African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania are blown up nearly simultaneously for vehicular bombs resulting in the deaths of 224 people, mostly Africans. Osama in Laden is believed to be behind the attack.

July 2, 1999
White supremacist Ben Smith starts a two state shooting spree which results in 2 deaths and nine wounded, before he kills himself.


October 23, 1998
Dr. Barnett Slepian is shot to death in his suburban Buffalo, NY home. James Kopp is in custody in the US after being arrested in France.

August 7, 1998
The American embassies in the African cities of Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania are blown up nearly simultaneously from vehicular bombs resulting in the deaths of 224 people, mostly Africans. Osama in Laden is believed to be behind the attack.

January 29, 1998
A nurse is seriously injured and an off-duty police officer are killed by a bomb detonated outside a Birmingham abortion clinic. Eric Robert Rudolph is wanted in connection with the attack.

December 22, 1997
Paramilitary extremists massacre 45 in an Indian town in Mexico.

November 18, 1997
Extremist Egyptian zealots  murder 62 at ancient tour site at Luxor.

September 27, 1997
Taliban extremists take control of Afghan capital of Kabul.

September 27, 1997
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is embroiled in controversy after an assassination attempt against an alleged Palestinian terrorist fails in Jordan.

July 25, 1997
Former Cambodian leader Pol Pot responsible for the murder of upwards of 1 million people during the 1970s is put on trial. He later dies in custody.

July 31, 1997
Two men allegedly connected to Palestinian extremists are arrested for plotting a suicide bombing attack on a Brooklyn subway stop.

February, 24, 1997
An elderly Palestinian schoolteacher opens fire on people at the Empire State Building, killing one and wounding half a dozen others.

January 16, 1997
Two bombs blow up outside an abortion clinic in an Atlanta suburb. Eric Rudolph is wanted for the bombing

July 27, 1996
A large shrapnel laden pipe bomb is detonated at Centennial Park in Atlanta, near the Olympics Venue, leaving one woman dead. Eric Robert Rudolph has been charged, but is still at large.

June 25, 1996
Khobar towers, a military service person's residence is blown up by a truck bomb resulting in the deaths of 19 American soldiers and wounding hundreds. Hezbollah is behind the atrocity.

April 3, 1996
After a tip from his brother Theodore Kaczynski is taken into custody by the FBI after a 17 year bombing campaign that killed 3, maimed 23 others. Kaczynski is serving a life term in federal prison after a pleas bargain spared him the death penalty.


March 4, 1996
Hamas suicide bomb detonates outside a Tel Aviv shopping mall, leaving 12 dead and 100 injured.

March 3, 1996
Hamas suicide bomber on a bus in Jerusalem leaves 18  dead injures 10 people.

Feb. 25, 1996
Two Hamas suicide bombers destroy a bus in Jerusalem and in  Ashkelon, leaving 23 Israelis, two Americans and a Palestinian dead and injuring over 80.


February 1, 1996
73 die from suicide bomber on the Indian Ocean island nation of Sri Lanka.

Nov. 13, 1995
Five United States military personnel are killed in a car bomb attack at a military building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

November 4, 1995
Yitzahk Rabin shot to death by Jewish religious fanatic at a Tel Aviv peace rally.

October 9, 1995
At 1:20 am Amtrak train no. 1, of the ``Sunset Limited,'' was derailed in the Arizona desert 59 miles Southwest of Phoenix after persons unknown sabotaged train tracks and deactivated a warning system. Over two dozen spikes and a 3-foot, 18-pound steel bar rail connector were removed and replaced with a metal wire to override a warning system of track damage. One person died and more than 100 were injured when the train jumped the tracks descended into a gulch.

April 19, 1995
168 Americans are killed and 500 wounded when former Army soldier and anti-government extremist, Timothy McVeigh, detonates a 4000 pound truck bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Ok. It is the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. It causes $125 million in insured losses. McVeigh was executed in June 2001 after being convicted in 1997 for his role in the fatal bombing. His accomplice Terry Nichols escaped a death sentence in federal court, but faces murder charges in state court in Oklahoma.

March 20, 1995
Members of Aum Shinryko (Supreme Truth), a multinational religious cult launch a nerve gas attack on metropolitan Tokyo subways resulting in 8 deaths and thousands of injuries.

Jan. 22, 1995
Dual suicide bombers from Islamic Jihad detonate bombs at Beit Lid junction, Israel killing 21 Israelis.

December 30, 1994
John Salvi kills two and injures five others at a Brookline, Mass. abortion clinic.

Oct. 19, 1994
Hamas suicide bomber kills 22 Israelis, and injures 48 on a Tel Aviv bus .

September 12, 1994
A propeller plane is intentionally crashed on to the White House grounds.

August 15, 1994
Wanted international terrorist Carlos "The Jackal" is apprehended.

April 6, 1994

Car bomb explodes near a bus in Northern Israel killing nine Israelis, and injuring 45.

April 6, 1994
Rwandan Hutus commence genocidal slaughter against ethnic Tutsis. Over 800,000 are murdered over the next three months.

March 23, 1994
The front running Mexican presidential candidate is shot dead in a blaze of gunfire during a campaign rally in Tijuana, Mexico.

February 25, 1994

A Brooklyn transplant, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, seeking revenge for a pervious fatal attack enters a mosque wearing an Army uniform and murders 29 innocent worshippers before he himself is beaten to death.

October 23, 1993   
Nine innocent civilians and an IRA bomber killed are killed at a fish store in Belfast.

April 19, 1993
About 80 Branch Davidians die at the hands of cult leader David Koresh when he sets fire to his compound and shoots his members after the FBI uses armored tear gas carriers following a fifty one day standoff. Four federal officers and several cult members were killed in a shoot-out on Feb. 28, when the stand-off began.

Feb. 28, 1993
Six people are murdered and over 1000 injured when a truck bomb is detonated in an underground garage beneath the World Trade Center. The attack casues $510 million in insured losses. Six terrorist are convicted in the plot. Rhamzi Yousef, the ringleader is connected to bin Laden, a charge bin Laden denies.


April 29-May 1, 1992
Riots in Los Angeles leave approx. 58 dead and cause $700,000,000+ in damages after various police officers are acquitted in the beating of motorist Rodney King.

December 2-4, 1992
The three remaining American hostages held in Lebanon are freed.
During the 1980s several Americans in Lebanon were abducted and held hostage.

December 15, 1989
Romanian President Nikoli Ceausecu and his wife are summarily executed after being deposed. His regime was infamous for human rights violations

June 4, 1989

Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators are slaughtered by military forces in Tiananmen Square by Chinese government troops.

February 14, 1989

Salman Rushdie is put under death sentence by an Iranian cleric for blasphemy in connection to his book "The Satanic Verses." Over a decade later the sentence is lifted.

December 21, 1988
Pan Am flight 103, a 747 en route from London to New York is blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland by a C-4 bomb in a tape player. 270 are killed including some on the ground who were struck by burning debris.

August 17, 1988

An aircraft explosion kills Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and his staff.

July 11, 1988
Nine passengers on a cruise in the Aegean Sea are murdered by terrorists.

July 3, 1988
After an approaching Iranian airliner fails to respond to inquiries it is shot out of the sky by the American naval cruiser USS Vincennes which mistook it for a military plane. 290 Iranian civilians are killed and the US offer reparations in accordance with international law.

March 16, 1988

Iraqi military operatives use poison gas to kill between 4,000-12,000 men, women and children in Kurdish town of Halabja.


November 9, 1987
Bomb blast in Sri Lanka capital kill 32 and injure 75.


November 8, 1987   
Many civilians die and are buried in debris when a bomb destroys a building in Enniskillen in the "Poppy Day Massacre"

January 20, 1987
CIA bureau chief William Buckley is murdered in Lebanon after being tortured by religious zealots.

September 5, 1986
20 passengers die aboard a Pan Am jet when it is raided on the tarmac at an airport in Karachi, Pakistan, where it was being held by highjackers.

February 28, 1986

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme is shot dead by an assassin on a Stockholm street. The assassin is not apprehended.

1985
Assorted terrorist attacks throughout the year in Europe and the Mediterranean area by Arab, Palestinian and French assailants result in 107 deaths and 438 injuries.

November 24, 1985
Egyptian commandos seize hijacked Egyptian airliner on the ground in Malta, but 59 die.

October 11, 1985
Alexander Michael Odeh, the Western Regional Director of the American-Arab Anti-Defamation Committee (ADC), an Arab American Civil Rights organization, was killed when a bomb exploded at the group's regional office at 1905 East 17th Street in Santa Ana, California.

October 8, 1985
An elderly disabled American Jew, confined to a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, is killed by PLO terrorists and pushed into the sea from the Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro.

June 23, 1985
A bomb destroys a 747, Air India Flight 182 originating in Toronto, at 31,000 feet off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 passengers, including 60 young children. Sikh extremists are implicated

June 23, 1985

Luggage from CP Air Flight 003 on the ground at Tokyo’s Narita Airport detonates as it was being transferred to Air India Flight 301. Two Japanese baggage crew are killed and four others are wounded.

June 14, 1985
A TWA  727 is highjacked by Shiite extremists demanding the release of prisoners in Israel and forced to land  in Beirut, Lebanon. American Navy sailor James Stetham is murdered and thrown out of the plane. The passengers are released on July 10.

May 13, 1985

The residence of the radical urban group MOVE, connected to the previous killing of a police officer and continuing harassment of neighbors, is accidentally set ablaze during a police assault. 11 are killed and the neighborhood of row houses burns to the ground.

December 8, 1984
Robert Mathews, the founder and remaining member of the neo-Nazi terrorist group the Order is killed in a fire following a violent shootout with FBI agents in Whidbey Island, Washington State. The Order previously murdered a Denver radio talk show host and robbed over 3 million during a heist of a Brinks armored truck in Ukiah, California.

1984
Famine exacerbated by Civil War in eastern Africa results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

October 31, 1984
Sikh security officers assassinate Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi. Subsequent backlash leaves 1000 Sikhs dead.

October 1984

Cult members associated with Bagwan Shree Rajneesh poison over 700 local residents with salmonella by spiking food at local restaurant buffets in a plot to corner an upcoming local election.

September 20, 1984

A car bomb kills 16 at the US embassy annex in Beirut, Lebanon.

December 12, 1983

Vehicular bombs blow up outside the French and American Embassies in Kuwait City leaving 5 dead and 86 injured.

October 23, 1983
In the worst terrorist attack ever against Americans, 241 Americans are killed when a truck bomb is detonated outside a French military outpost and an American Marine barracks in Beirut.

October 5, 1983

Bomb blows up at the Unites States capitol.

August 30, 1983
Korean Airlines Flight 007, a 747, is shot out of the sky by Soviet fighters after it enters Soviet airspace, resulting in the deaths of 269 people.

June 5-6, 1984
1000 Sikhs and Hindu Indians are killed in an assault by troops at the Golden Temple at Amristar, Punjab Province.

April 18, 1983
The American embassy in Beirut is blown up by a car bomb, leaving 17 Americans dead.

September 15, 1983

Lebanese Christian Phalangists murder hundreds of Palestinian refugees in two camps in West Beirut.

October 20, 1981

Ultra-leftist extremists kill 2 police officer in Rockland County, New York in after seizing a Brinks' armored vehicle with $1.6 million.

October 6, 1981
After a crackdown on religious extremists Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is shot to death in a reviewing at a military parade by some of his own soldiers. Five out of 24 accuses plotters are executed.

May 14, 1981

His Holiness Pope John Paul II is wounded by a gunman  in Vatican City. The gun man is believed to have been supported by Eastern Bloc operatives.

March 30, 1981
John Hinckley carries out an assassination attempt with a handgun on President Ronald Reagan after he talks to a union gathering at Washington, DC Hotel. The President and two law enforcement agents are injured. Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982.

December 8, 1980

John Lennon, co-founder of the Beatles, and peace activist is shot dead outside the Dakota Apartment Building in New York by a deranged gunman named Mark David Chapman.

November 4, 1980
Three nuns and a civilian aide are murdered by right wing operatives in El Salvador.

May 17, 1980
Racial rioting erupts in the Liberty City section of Miami after police are acquitted in the killing of a Black motorist. 10 Blacks and 8 whites are killed and there is $80 million in property damage.

Early 1980s

President Hafez AlAssad of Syria orders the obliteration of the town of Hamma after dissident Islamic groups protested his rule and human rights record resulting in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 people.

Nov. 4, 1979
American Embassy staff are taken hostage by Iranian students and after some initial releases, 52 hostages are held for 444 days.

August 27, 1979   
British Royal family member Lord Mountbatten, Lady Brabourne and two children are killed when an IRA  bomb explodes on their boat at Mullaghmore.

March 9, 1977
Groups of Hanafi Muslims hold 134 civilians at B'nai Brith headquarters, DC City Hall, and the Islamic Center before they are released.

July 4, 1976
Israeli commandos dispatched to Entebbe Airport in Uganda rescue 103 hostages taken from a hijacked aircraft. One commando is killed as is an elderly passenger held off site.

December 29, 1975
At 6:30 a powerful bomb in the TWA terminal building near gate 22 exploded, killing at least 11 people and injured 80 more. The blast decimated that area of the building. No group or individual has ever been charged and the case is still open 25 years later. Possible suspect groups include radical Croatian or Puerto Rican terrorists.

September 22, 1975
President Ford is the subject of anassassination attempt in San Francisco, by Sara Jane Moore.

September 5, 1975
An assassination attempt is carried out against President Gerald R. Ford by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, in Sacramento, CA


April 5, 1975    

Four innocent civilians and 1 Protestant bomber are  killed by a bomb in Mountainview Tavern in a Catholic section of Belfast.

January 24, 1975

Colonial era building Fraunces Tavern, where then General George Washington bid his troops farewell, is bombed

October 1974
Mass. Governor Francis Sargent calls out the National Guard to protect after violent mobs threaten black school children who are bussed into white neighborhoods.

February 5, 1974

Ultra left extremists in the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnap publishing heiress Patricia Hearst demanding millions in ransom. They rob a San Francisco bank in April. Many members are subsequently killed in a violent shootout with the LAPD

September 5, 1972
Palestinian "Black September" terrorists raid the residences of Israeli athletes taking part in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.  Less than one day later 11 Israeli atheletes were dead, most killed by terrorist hand grenades detonated during an unsuccessful rescue attempt by German police at a nearby airfield.  Three terrorists were apprehended, but were released the following month
in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Lufthansa airliner. Israeli assassination squads subsequently killed at least eight others who were alleged to be involved in the Olympic attack.

August 22, 1972    
Six civilians and three IRA terrorists die when a bomb detonates prematurely at a Customs Office in Newry.

July 21 1972   
22 bombs explode across Belfast in Bloody Friday. There are so many mutilated bodies that death toll was not immediately determined.

May 30, 1972
Japanesse terrorists associated with Palestinian extremists embark on a shooting spree at Lod Airport outside Tel Aviv, Israel resulting in 24 dead and 76 more injured. Two of the terrorists are killed in the attack and another is sentenced to life imprisonment.

January 30, 1972
Bloody Sunday in Londonderry, Northern Ireland as 13 Catholics are shot to death by UK troops.

1972
The twin 110 story World Trade Center towers, designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki temporarily the world's tallest building, opens some offices for business in lower Manhattan.

May 15, 1972
Presidential candidate and Alabama Governor George Wallace is shot and paralyzed by a deranged gunman named Arthur Bremmer at Laurel, Md. campaign stop.

February 9,1971   
An IRA bomb kills five civilians when the IRA mistakenly attack a civilian land rover for a military vehicle.

September 6 and later, 1970

Palestinian hijackers seize a TWA 707 and a Swissair DC 8 and have them land at an airstrip near the Jordanian capital of Amman. A British airliner is later hijacked as well and the hostages are kept for weeks until another hijacker is released. All three empty planes are then blown apart.

August 24, 1970

Students at the University of Wisconsin detonate a bomb at research lab killing a graduate student and injuring four others.

May 4, 1970

Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on college students protesting the Vietnam War, killing four.

March 6, 1970
A Greenwich Village, NY town house allegedly used by the Weather Underground to make bombs is destroyed in an explosion killing 3.


February 21, 1968
A hijacker detours a Delta airlines flight with 169 passengers over Florida to Cuba. It is the first of a series of hijacking which eventually results in security changes for American commercial aviation.

June 5, 1968

Presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy is shot at a Los Angeles hotel by Palestinian extremist Sirhan Sirhan after delivering a victory speech following the California primary. He dies one day later.

April 4, 1968

Civil rights leader and Nobel Laureate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is shot to death while on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tn. James Earl Ray, 39,  is given a life sentence, but later recants his confession.

Civil disorder breaks out in cities across the US resulting in 46 deaths and 22,000 arrests.

July 1967

Race riots take place in 127 American cities leaving 77 dead and 4000 injured.

February 21, 1965

African-American activist Malcolm X is shot to death by Nation of Islam assailants at a ballroom in northern Manhattan

November 22, 1963

President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. An assailant, Lee Harvey Oswald, is arrested in connection with the killing of Kennedy, a Dallas police officer, and the wounding of the governor of Texas. Days later Oswald is killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

July 1964
Racially motivated rioting in New York leave at least five dead.

June 1964

Three civil rights workers: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are killed by the Ku Klux Klan and their accomplices.

September 15, 1963
Four African-American school girls are killed when a bomb destroys the 16th St. Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. For years churches and homes have been bombed, shot at, or set ablaze throughout the South.

September 30, 1962
Race rioting kills two as Univ. of Mississippi. U.S. Marshals and National Guard repel attack.

March 1, 1954

Puerto Rican nationalists shoot and injure five U.S. Congressmen at the U.S. Capitol.

November 1, 1950
A pair of Puerto Rican terrorists get into a gun battle with authorities at Blair  House  in Washington, DC in an attempted assassination of President Harry S. Truman. The President is not harmed but an assailant is killed.

January 30, 1948
Mahatma Ghandi Indian national leader and peace pioneer is killed by a Hindu extremist who was angry about his conciliatory tone with regard to Muslims.


1917-53, 1949-
Soviet and Chinese Communists kill millions of their own citizens.

August 6 & 9, 1945

Atomic bomb detonations kill 200,000 civilians in Hiroshima and over 100,000 in Nagasaki. On August 10 sues for peace.

April/May 1945

Allied troops liberate Nazi concentration camps that were used to murder 14 million including between 5-6 million Jews. One third of World Jewry was wiped out.

February 15, 1933

An assassin, Giuseppe Zangara, fires several shots at President elect Franklin Roosevelt in an aopen car in Miami. The shots miss the President-elect but mortally wound Chicago Mayor Anton Cermack

1920-25

Ku Klux Klan violence is highlighted in investigative newspaper articles and Congressional hearings.

May 7, 1916
The English oceanliner Lusitania is attacked by a German submarine resulting in the deaths of 1200 people, including 100 Americans.

On April 24th 1915
Hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being ordered to the city. 1.5 million Armenians die between 1915 and 1923 during the Ottoman Empire's genocidal effort to expel Armenians from eastern Turkey.

April 1904
An Easter Sunday pogrom massacre in Kishenev, Bessarabia kills 45 Jews and destroys 600 Jewish homes. 50,000 more Jews will be killed in Russia through 1909, may by the anti-Semitic terrorist group called the "Black Hundreds"


Lynchings 1882-1962

Some 4736 people, mostly African Americans are lynched throughout the United States.

1910-1920
Race riots take place in 23 American cities. One alone in East St. Louis, Il. leave 47 dead.

September 6, 1901

President William McKinley, 58  is shot at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York by  anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He dies on September 14.

Sources: Trager, The People's Chronology; Time, Alamanac: 2001; The World Almanac  and Book of Facts: 2001,  Kushner, Terrorism in America: A Structured Approach to Understanding the Terrorist Threat & The archives of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism.