1. 1970: The National Guard kills four at Kent State
Photo: awesomestories
An anti-war protest ends badly as the National Guard opens fire on a crowd of protesters, 3 killing four people on this day back in 1970 at Kent State University. There had been significant protesting going on in regards to the anti-Vietnam War, as well as the United States invasion on Cambodia for the quite some time. Just two days before the shooting, the National Guard was called in to disperse the crowds that had gotten violent and started to vandalize. The guards responded with tear gas and riot shields to get thing under control. There was another gathering scheduled to take place on this day around noon, and even university officials did everything they could to cancel the rally, including sending out as many as 12,000 leaflets about the cancellation, over 2,000 protesters still arrived before noon. The Guardsmen proceeded to fire tear gas canisters into the crowd, but it had little effect as the the protesters just lobbed the canisters right back at them. This would go on for some time, and at approximately 12:24 pm, Sgt. Myron Pryor allegedly started shooting with his .45 hand gun and of the 77 other Guardsmen in the group, 22 said they had also fired their weapons. Over 67 shots were fired on the unarmed crowd, with four receiving fatal wounds, leaving eight others severely wounded and one paralyzed.
