March 1997: YEMEN - A man with an assault rifle attacked hundreds of pupils at two schools in Sanaa, killing six children and two others. He was sentenced to death the next day.

March 1998: USA - At Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys aged 13 and 11 set off the fire alarm and killed four students and a teacher as they left the school.

May 1998: USA - In Springfield, Oregon, a student opened fire in Thurston High School, killing two students and injuring 22. The boy’s parents were later found slain in their home.

April 1999: USA - Two student gunmen killed 12 other students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.

The Finns must look hard at their children

After a second gun massacre in a Finnish classroom this proud Nordic country must ask itself searching questions

• 'YouTube' gunman kills 10 in shooting spree at Finnish vocational college

• Dear Finns, don't you think a mass murder deserves debate?

• YouTube killer shocks a grieving nation into breaking its silence

Gunman predicted school massacre on YouTube

Finnish student kills eight but fails in suicide attempt after posting video online giving warning of the massacre

• Prediction of killings posted hours before attack

• 'MySpace killers' can find instant notoriety

Multimedia

• 2007 massacre

Multimedia

• Video: YouTube killer's films

June 2001: JAPAN - Mamoru Takuma, armed with a kitchen knife, entered the Ikeda Elementary School near Osaka and killed eight children. Takuma was executed in September 2004.

January 2002: USA - A student who had been dismissed from the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, killed the dean, a professor and a student, and wounded three others.

February 2002: GERMANY - In Freising, in Bavaria, a former student thrown out of trade school shot three people before killing himself. Another teacher was injured.

April 26, 2002: GERMANY - In Erfurt, eastern Germany, a gunman opened fire after he said he was not going to take a maths test. A total of 18 people died, including the assailant.

September 1, 2004: RUSSIA - 333 hostages, at least 186 of them children, died in a chaotic storming of School No 1 in Beslan, after it was seized by rebels demanding Chechen independence.

March 21, 2005: USA - A 16-year-old high school student shot dead five students, a teacher and a security guard at the same school at Minnesota’s Red Lake Indian Reservation. He had also killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s companion elsewhere on the reservation.

September 13, 2006: CANADA - Kimveer Gill opened fire at Montreal’s Dawson College killing one student and injuring 19. Gill killed himself after a battle with police.

October 2, 2006: USA - Charles Carl Roberts, a dairy truck driver, attacked a one-room Amish school in rural Pennsylvania, shot ten girls, killing five of them, before killing himself.

April 16, 2007: USA - Gunman Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 15 at Virginia Tech University in the deadliest campus shooting in US history.

November 7, 2007: FINLAND - Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal and himself with a handgun at the Jokela High School near Helsinki.

February 8, 2008: USA - A nursing student killed two women and then herself in front of classmates at Louisiana Technical College in the state capital, Baton Rouge.

February 14, 2008: USA - A man fired into a lecture hall packed with students at Northern Illinois University near Chicago, killing five people and wounding 18 before killing himself.

September 23, 2008: FINLAND - A student opened fire in a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwest Finland, killing nine people and wounding himself.

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