A Brief History
On September 1, 2004, terrorists seeking the independence of Chechnya from Russia invaded School Number One in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia, taking 1,100 hostages, of which well over 700 were school children. The incident lasted three days and cost 333 innocent lives and the lives of 31 of the 32 terrorists.
Digging Deeper
The Riyad-us Saliheen attackers had pre-staged weapons and explosives in the school weeks before the attack. A standoff followed demands that Chechnya be given independence, and after three days, Russian forces began an assault that triggered explosions and shooting by the terrorists and a firefight that resulted in 186 children killed among the 364 total number of deaths.
The actual worst school massacre in history was the Santa María School massacre of 1907, in Chile, in which 2,300 people died! In fact, no US school massacre is among the 15 deadliest ever.
Question for students (and subscribers): What can be done to protect our schools? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bernstein, Arnie. Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN REGIONAL, 2009.
Phillips, Timothy. Beslan: The Tragedy Of School No. 1. Granta Books, 2014.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of a memorial site for the victims in Beslan, is in the public domain because legal statutes, administrative regulations, court decisions and other decisions by public authorities are unprotected. This is also the case with proposals, reports and other statements which concern the public exercise of authority, and which are made by a public authority, a publicly appointed council or committee, or published by the public authorities. Similarly, official translations of such texts are unprotected.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.