Washington (AFP) - The massacre at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday is the latest in a series of mass shootings in the United States over the past 25 years.

Here is a timeline of some of the most shocking cases:

-- Killeen, Texas, October 16, 1991: A man shoots dead 23 people in a restaurant and then kills himself.

-- Jonesboro, Arkansas, March 28, 1998: Two boys aged 11 and 13 kill four students and a teacher after pulling a fire alarm and opening fire from nearby woods when people streamed out of their school. Ten other children were hurt.

-- Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999: Two teenaged boys shoot and kill 12 fellow classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves.

-- Atlanta, Georgia, July 29, 1999: A stock market trader goes on a day-long shooting rampage, killing 12 people, including his wife and two children, before taking his own life.

-- Red Lake, Minnesota, March 21, 2005: A teenaged boy kills two people at his grandfather's home on an Indian reservation and then goes to his local high school where he kills seven others before committing suicide.

-- Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007: A student goes on a rampage at Virginia Tech University, killing 32 people before committing suicide.

-- Covina, California, December 24, 2008: A man dressed in a Santa Claus suit opens fire at a family party and then sets fire to the house. Nine people are killed. The gunman commits suicide.

-- Binghamton, New York, April 3, 2009. A gunman shoots dead 13 people at a civic center for immigrants.

-- Fort Hood, Texas, November 5, 2009. US army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan opens fire at his military base, killing 13 people and wounding 42, before being overcome by police.

-- Oikos, California, April 2, 2012: A male nursing student methodically kills seven people at a Christian university.

-- Aurora, Colorado, July 20, 2012: A man kills 12 people when he opens fire at a movie theater showing a late-night premiere of a Batman film in a suburb of Denver.

Story continues

-- Oak Creek, Wisconsin, August 5, 2012: A white supremacist and US army veteran fatally shoots six people and wounds four others at a Sikh temple before taking his own life.

-- Newtown, Connecticut, December 14 2012: A young man kills 26 people, including 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school. He also fatally shoots his mother. He commits suicide.

-- Miami, Florida, July 26, 2013: A gunman kills six people in a shooting rampage at an apartment building, taking two people hostage before being killed by police after a lengthy standoff.

-- Washington DC, September 16, 2013: At least 12 people die in a mass shooting at a naval base in Washington DC, with the gunman being fatally shot by police.

-- Charleston, South Carolina, June 17, 2015: A white gunman kills at least nine people at a historic black church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, 21, believed to be a white supremacist, is arrested the next day.