In 1979, Brenda Spencer, a seemingly average teenage girl living in a nice suburban neighborhood, made and executed plans that would place her in infamy and set a violent and terrifying national precedent. She received a rifle from her father for Christmas, and a month later, opened fire on the elementary school across the street, killing the principal and a custodian and wounding 8 students and a police officer.

The event is forever glorified by the song “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats and marks the bloody beginning of the American phenomenon of school shootings. Long before Columbine and Sandy Hook, there was Brenda Spencer.