Four U.S. presidents have been murdered while in office – all were brought down by gunfire. And each of these presidential assassinations helped usher in a wave of important reforms and a new political era. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination dramatically changed the Reconstruction ...read more
Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition boasted everything from a nine-ton elephant to a 389-foot “Electric Tower” powered by nearby Niagara Falls, but few attractions had generated as much excitement as the two-day visit of President William McKinley. The 58-year-old was fresh off of ...read more
On the morning of July 2, 1881, James A. Garfield arrived at the Baltimore and Potomac train station for a much-needed holiday. Just four months had passed since the former Union general and Ohio congressman had been sworn in as the nation’s 20th president, but his term had ...read more
1. Booth initially planned to kidnap Lincoln. After meeting with Confederate spies in the summer of 1864, Booth spearheaded a plot to abduct Lincoln, bring him to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of rebel ...read more
Before a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, is shot at close range by saloonkeeper John Schrank while greeting the public in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel. Schrank’s .32-caliber bullet, aimed directly ...read more
Eighty days after a failed office seeker shot him in Washington, D.C., President James A. Garfield dies of complications from his wounds. Born in a log cabin in Ohio, Garfield was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives while serving as a Union colonel in the Civil War. He ...read more
John W. Hinckley, Jr., who on March 30, 1981, shot President Ronald Reagan and three others outside a Washington, D.C., hotel, was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity. In the trial, Hinckley’s defense attorneys argued that their client was ill with ...read more
On this day in1981, President Ronald Reagan is shot while leaving the Washington Union Hotel in Washington, D.C. Reagan’s assailant, later identified as 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr., approached the president as he left the hotel after speaking to a union convention, and fired ...read more
On this day in 1901, President William McKinley succumbs to gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin on September 6. According to witnesses, McKinley’s last words were those of the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” McKinley was shaking hands in a long reception line at the ...read more
On this day in 1881, President James A. Garfield, who had been in office just under four months, succumbs to wounds inflicted by an assassin 80 days earlier, on July 2. Garfield’s assassin was an attorney and political office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Guiteau was a relative ...read more
On this day in 1881, President James A. Garfield, who had been in office just under four months, is shot by an assassin. Garfield lingered for 80 days before dying of complications from the shooting. Garfield’s assassin was an attorney and political office-seeker named Charles ...read more
On this day in 1975, Sarah Jane Moore aims a gun at President Gerald Ford as he leaves the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California. The attempt on the president’s life came only 17 days after another woman had tried to assassinate Ford while he was on his way to give a ...read more
On this day in 1901, President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in New York. Czolgosz had shot McKinley on September 6, 1901; the president succumbed to his wounds eight days later. McKinley was shaking hands in a long ...read more
On this day in 1963, the nation is shocked by the assassination of its president, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was riding in an open car in Dallas, Texas, when a gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots at him from an upper-level window of a nearby building. Kennedy was ...read more
On this day in 1975, President Gerald R. Ford survives an attempt on his life in Sacramento, California. The assailant, a petite, red haired, freckle-faced young woman named Lynette Fromme, approached the president while he was walking near the California Capitol and raised a .45 ...read more
On this day in 2000, the bones of President James Garfield’s spine are on display for a final day as part of the Out of the Blue Closets exhibit at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. The exhibit featured medical oddities from the museum’s archives. ...read more
On this day in 1933, a deranged, unemployed brick layer named Giuseppe Zangara shouts Too many people are starving! and fires a gun at America’s president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt had just delivered a speech in Miami’s Bayfront Park from the back seat of his open ...read more
On this day in 1835, Andrew Jackson becomes the first American president to experience an assassination attempt. Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter, approached Jackson as he left a congressional funeral held in the House chamber of the Capitol building and shot at ...read more
On this day in 1981, John Hinckley Jr. attempts to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in a crowd of onlookers and security personnel–including police and Secret Service officers–outside a Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C. When asked about his motive for shooting the president, ...read more
John Hinckley, Jr.shoots President Ronald Reagan outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. just after the president had addressed the Building and Construction Workers Union of the AFL-CIO. Hinckley was armed with a .22 revolver with exploding bullets and was only ten feet away ...read more
Only four months into his administration, President James A. Garfield is shot as he walks through a railroad waiting room in Washington, D.C. His assailant, Charles J. Guiteau, was a disgruntled and perhaps insane office seeker who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the ...read more
Mary Surratt is executed by the U.S. governmentfor her role as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Surratt, who owned a tavern in Surrattsville (now Clinton), Maryland, had to convert her row house in Washington, D.C., into a boardinghouse as a result of financial ...read more
On this day, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at the Blair House in Washington, D.C. Truman escaped unscathed. In the autumn of 1950, the White House was being renovated and President Truman and his family were living in the ...read more
On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at ...read more