The Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, dies when his plane is shot down

Cyprian Ntayamira, the second Hutu president of Burundi, dies in the crash of the president of Rwanda's plane

The assassination of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana sparks the outbreak of genocide

As many as 800,000 people die, most of them slashed to death with machetes, in three months of genocide in Rwanda

Two leading members of Mexico's ruling party, Luis Donaldo Colosio and José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, are assassinated

A massive bomb destroys federal buildings in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people

Yitzhak Rabin, after addressing a mass rally for peace in Tel Aviv, is killed by an Israeli assassin

An IRA bomb at Canary Wharf shatters the fifteen-month ceasefire achieved after the Downing Street Declaration

Tupac Amaru guerrillas take 460 guests hostage at the Japanese ambassador's Christmas party in Lima, Peru

The Real IRA, a splinter group of the Provisional IRA, declares its commitment to a continuing campaign of violence

224 deaths in simultaneous attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are linked to al-Qaeda

The Real IRA kills 26 people and injures about 200 with a bomb planted in Omagh, in northern Ireland

US cruise missiles attack al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical factory in Khartoum

Moderate Shiite cleric Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and two of his sons are assassinated in the Iraqi city of Najaf

The Russian army returns to Chechnya after Islamic militants commit acts of terrorism

Suicide bombers kill 17 crew members of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbour

The Scottish Court in the Netherlands convicts a Libyan, Al-Megrahi, of responsibility for the Pan-Am Lockerbie bomb

Crown Prince Dipendra kills nine members of his own royal family at the court of Nepal

Laurent Kabila, the president of the Congo, is assassinated in a failed coup attempt

Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, is fatally wounded in an attack by two suicide bombers

Four hijacked planes are used in a massive September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington

Anthrax attacks, in the form of letters carrying the bacteria posted to journalists and politicians, begin in the USA

Describing September 11 as an act of war, President Bush retaliates with a 'War on Terrorism'

UK terrorist Richard Reid tries to bring down a Paris-Miami flight but fails to light the exposive in his shoe

Controversial Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated outside a a radio station in Hilversum