It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

...and goddess, but I wish I could finish that sentence with "Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play", but in reality it's a much more grim anniversary.

(Trigger warning: extreme violence, suicide)

Twenty years ago today, a savage misogynist threw himself into L'école polytechnique de Montréal with a rifle, chose out the women among classes of engineering students, and shot fourteen of them to death. He also wounded fourteen others, ten women and four men, before killing himself. Twelve of the dead were engineering students, one a nursing student, the other an administrator.

While he was doing this, he shouted about how he was fighting back against feminism, saving society, and getting revenge for how women had mistreated him.

The long-range effects were also grim: several of the survivors have since taken their own lives, unable to cope with the events of the day, according to notes.

I'm not using his name because I don't believe in giving remembrance to mass murderers. Let his name rot along with him. Please don't use it in comments either, I request most strongly.

His victims:

* Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
* Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
* Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
* Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
* Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
* Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
* Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department
* Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
* Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
* Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
* Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
* Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
* Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

Je me souviens.