January 13th, 2017 
(THE WASHINGTON POST) — The attacks can happen almost anywhere: In a holiday market outside a historic church in Berlin, on the street during a national holiday in France, in an airplane over Scotland or during the first day of school in a small town in Russia.
Sometimes, a plot fails – a detonator malfunctions or authorities make an arrest – and no one is injured.
Other times, an attack leaves a trail of death and destruction that can shake a nation. Sometimes a continent.
Terrorism across Europe has killed 10,537 people in 18,803 reported attacks – excluding those considered military tactics in war zones – between January 1970 and December 2015, according to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database.
The database tracks more than 150,000 foreign and domestic terrorism incidents worldwide.
Attacks in 2014 and 2015 have seen the highest number of fatalities, which includes terrorists targeting civilians, government officials, businesses and the media, across Europe since 2004.