TIMELINE - Deadly mass shootings in United States

18 March 2008

(Reuters) - Following is a chronology of some of the deadly mass shootings in the United States in the past year, a period in which candidates have been actively campaigning for the November 2008 presidential election:

April 16, 2007 - Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the site of the deadliest rampage in U.S. history when a gunman killed 32 people and himself.

December 5, 2007 - A gunman opened fire in a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, killing eight people and wounding five, before fatally shooting himself, police said.

February 2, 2008 - Five women were shot dead in a clothing store at a suburban Chicago shopping centre in what police said appeared to be a botched robbery. Police were searching for a gunman described by a woman who was wounded.

Feb 7, 2008 - A gunman killed two police officers and three city officials when he stormed a city council meeting in a St. Louis suburb. The gunman was later shot dead by police.

February 8, 2008 - A nursing student fatally shot two women and killed herself in front of classmates at Louisiana Technical College in the state capital, Baton Rouge.

February 14, 2008 - A man fired into a lecture hall packed with students at Northern Illinois University, killing five people and wounding 18 before shooting himself dead.

(Writing by Paul Grant, Washington Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Eric Walsh)