Prior to the July 13 assassination of former President Donald Trump, there have been several incidents of political violence targeting US presidents, former presidents, and presidential candidates.
In this text you can learn about the murders and assassinations that happened in the state founded in 1776.
Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the USA
Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while he and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were attending a special performance of the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington.
Lincoln was taken to a house across the street from the theater, where he received medical treatment after being shot in the back of the head. He died the next morning. His support for the rights of black people is cited as the motive for his murder.
Two years before the assassination, during the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to slaves within the Confederacy.
Lincoln was succeeded in the presidency by Vice President Andrew Johnson.
His assassin Booth was shot dead on April 26, 1865, after being found hiding in a barn near Bolling Green, Virginia.
James Garfield, the twentieth president of the USA
Garfield was the second US president to be assassinated. He was killed six months after taking office. Garfield was walking in a train station in Washington on July 2, 1998 when he was shot by Charles Guiteau.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, tried – but failed – to locate the bullet in Garfield’s chest, using a device he had designed specifically for the president.
The seriously injured president lay in bed for several weeks at the White House, but died in September after being flown to New Jersey.
Garfield was succeeded by the vice president, Chester Arthur.
Guiteau was found guilty of murdering the president and executed in June 1882.
William McKinley, the twenty-fifth president of the United States
McKinley was shot while giving a speech in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901. He was greeting people when someone shot him twice in the chest at close range. Doctors expected that he would survive the attack, but gangrene appeared in his chest.
McKinley died on September 14, 1901, six months into his second term as president.
He was succeeded in the presidency by the vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.
Leon F. Czolgosz, 28, of Detroit, admitted to the attack. He was found guilty and executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901.
Ronald Reagan, the fortieth president of the USA
Reagan was leaving Washington, D.C., after giving a speech, and as he walked toward the car in which he was to travel, he was shot by John Hinckley Jr., who was in the crowd.
Reagan survived the shooting in March 1981. Three other people were also shot, including his press secretary, James Brady, who was left partially paralyzed as a result of the attack.
Hinckley was arrested and committed to a mental hospital after a jury found him guilty but said he had mental problems. In 2022, Hinckley was released after a judge said he “no longer poses a danger to himself or others.”
George W. Bush, the forty-third president of the USA
Bush was attending a rally in Tbilisi in 2005 alongside Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili when a hand grenade was thrown at him.
The two leaders were standing in front of a bulletproof barrier when the grenade, wrapped in a cloth, fell about 30 meters away from them. The grenade did not explode and no one was injured.
Vladimir Arutyunian was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for this attack.
John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the USA
Kennedy was seeking to secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination when he was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel minutes after giving a speech after winning the party’s 1968 California primary.
Kennedy was a US senator from New York and the brother of President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated five years earlier.
Five other people were injured during the shooting.
Sirhan Sirhan was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He is still in prison after his latest appeal for release was rejected last year.
George C. Wallace, presidential candidate
Wallace was aiming to secure the Democratic presidential nomination when he was shot at a campaign rally in Maryland in 1972. The incident left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Wallace, governor of Alabama, was known for his divisive views, which he later renounced.
Arthur Bremer was found guilty of the shooting. He was released from prison in 2007.
