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LITTLETON, Colo. - Teenage gunmen spilled the blood of children before Columbine, in Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oregon. After Columbine, more blood was shed in Minnesota and California, in Germany and Finland.
But none of those incidents cast a shadow as long or dark as the rampage at Columbine High School, where 13 people were gunned down 10 years ago Monday.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors at the suburban Denver school, detonated homemade bombs and opened fire with shotguns, a rifle and a semiautomatic handgun on April 20, 1999. They killed 12 students, injured 23 others and mortally wounded a teacher before committing suicide.
The shooting shocked the country like no other. It was the worst school shooting in American history at that time, and it came in the wake of a half-dozen others. It played out on live television, watched by millions. And it represented the violent destruction of a cherished American idea: that schools in the suburbs and the countryside were havens of peace and safety.
"It's the iconic shooting," said Katherine S. Newman, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. "It defined the social category of a rampage school shooting."
Americans were on edge about school violence before Columbine. During the previous two years, at least 16 students and teachers had died in school shootings in small American cities and towns: Bethel, Alaska; Pearl, Miss.; West Paducah, Ky.; Jonesboro, Ark.; Edinboro, Pa.; Fayetteville, Tenn.; and Springfield, Ore.
All the killers were teenage boys, except one, an 11-year-old boy.
Read more: 10 years on, Columbine's hold remains strong - Columbine: 10 Years Later- msnbc.com