Crimes adapted into films

The September 11 attacks, colloquially known as 9/11, were a coordinated series of suicide attacks perpetrated by the Islamist terrorist organization al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four airliners, then flew one into each of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The third plane crashed into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt. In response to the attacks, the United States launched the global war on terror, seeking to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, and the governments purported to support them. This foreign policy agenda was conducted over the next two decades.

two sequential lone wolf terrorist attacks in Norway on 22 July 2011

1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in which 800,000 were killed

unidentified 19th century serial killer

political scandal that occurred in the United States (1972–1974)

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field.

2013 terrorist event in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

Palestinian terror attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany

serial killer in California

On April 20, 1999, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 students and 1 teacher in a school shooting and attempted bombing at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. Twenty people were injured by the gunfire, and three others were injured while trying to escape. The attack ended when Harris and Klebold died by suicide. The Columbine massacre was the deadliest mass shooting at a K–12 school in U.S. history until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012. It remains among the most infamous massacres in the United States and the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado. As of June 2025, it had inspired more than 70 copycat attacks, a phenomenon dubbed the Columbine effect, and Columbine has become a byword for modern school shootings.

American bank robbers

shooting of 26 civilians by British soldiers in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1972 during the Troubles

Soviet serial killer (1936–1994)

unidentified man who hijacked an airplane in 1971

1865 murder in Washington, D.C

John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured and murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys between 1972 and 1978 in Norwood Park Township, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He became known as the "Killer Clown" due to his public performances as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes.

event on 1 June 2001 in Kathmandu, Nepal in which Crown Prince Dipendra killed most of the royal family (including King Birendra and himself) with a gun

On June 25, 2009, American singer Michael Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 50. His personal physician, Conrad Murray, said that he found Jackson in his bedroom at his North Carolwood Drive home in the Holmby Hills area of the city not breathing and with a weak pulse; he administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to no avail, and security called 9-1-1 at 12:21 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (UTC–7). Paramedics treated Jackson at the scene, but he was pronounced dead at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood at 2:26 p.m.

murder taking place on 8 December 1980

February 1929 gang showdown in Chicago, Illinois, USA

American serial killer

shooting attack in Hanau, Germany

1970 shootings in Kent, Ohio, US during student-led protest of Vietnam War

Junko Furuta was a 17-year-old Japanese high school student who was abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered. Her abuse was mainly perpetrated by four male teenagers—Hiroshi Miyano (18), Jō Ogura (17), Shinji Minato (16), and Yasushi Watanabe (17)—and took place over a 40-day period starting on 25 November 1988.

robbery of a Royal Mail train heading between Glasgow and London

German serial killer (1883-1931)

German serial killer (1879–1925)

1989 mass shooting in Montréal, Canada

murder of James Bulger on 12 February 1993 in England

American serial killer (1939–1973)

American murder victim (1972–1993)

The Port Arthur massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 28 April 1996 at Port Arthur, a tourist town in the Australian state of Tasmania. The perpetrator, Martin Bryant, murdered 35 people and wounded 23 others, in the deadliest massacre in modern Australian history. The attack led to fundamental changes in Australia's gun laws.

1880s East End of London serial murders

1997 bank robbery and subsequent shootout between bank robbers and police

1969 homicides by the Manson Family in Los Angeles

group of four mostly Irishmen wrongly accused of terrorism during the Troubles

hijacking of an Air France commercial airliner by a terrorist group in 1994

1996 bombing in Atlanta, Georgia, United States

attempt by John and Clarence Angelin, Allen West, and Frank Morris to escape Alcatraz

unsolved serial murders

three teenage boys convicted of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas

Czechoslovakian mass murderer (1951-1975)

child murder case in Indianapolis

Kidnapping and murder of 20 month old Charles Lindbergh Jr

Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1963

occurred on 21 November 1974, when bombs exploded in two public houses in central Birmingham

American murderer (1940–2020)

French criminal (1932–1989)

American serial killers

June 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, U.S.

unidentified serial killer or killers, however convicted rapist Albert DeSalvo confessed to many of these murders, DNA evidence links him to the final victim

series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia

investment scandal discovered in 2008

mass shooting

Canadian child abuse victim

Murder of Iranian American man in Florida, U.S.

American serial killer (1955–2020)

killing on February 21, 1965

series of murders in South Australia, Australia