On January 29, 1979, 16 year old Brenda Spencer opened fire on the Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego killing two (the principal and a student) and injuring nine. The school was located across the street from her home. Wielding a .22 semi-automatic rifle she'd just gotten for Christmas, she got off thirty rounds from a window before barricading herself in the house, and after a seven hour standoff she surrendered to the police. When asked why, she replied, "I just did it for the fun of it. I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."This was hardly the first school shooting... that tragic history goes back to the 1700s. But prior to this, most of these events were typically focused on specific people, usually adult-on-adult violence. This was one of the first instances of a student randomly shooting at a school with multuple rounds. It has been called by some the "First Columbine" and was the first assault of this nature to be committed by a woman. Tried as an adult, Spencer was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. She's eligible again for parole in 2019.
Spencer's crime was immortialized by Bob Geldof's Boomtown Rats later that year in the song "I Don't Like Mondays", which became a #1 hit in the UK.
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