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Timeline: A History Of Assassination Attempts On US Presidents And Candidates
An attempt by a lone gunman to assassinate former president Donald Trump is just the latest in a long string of violent incidents aimed at United States politicians.
Since the early 1800s, people have attempted to kill a number of sitting presidents, as well as one president-elect.
Four presidents have been shot dead while in office.
30 January 1835: House painter Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson outside the United States Capitol. Both of his pistols misfired and he was arrested. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity (historians have theorised that his mental health was affected by toxic chemicals found in house paint) and he was confined to insane asylums until his death in 1861.
14 April 1865: Actor John Wilkes Booth shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. A Confederate sympathiser, Booth was opposed to Lincoln's actions during the Civil War and his abolition of slavery. After the shooting, Booth evaded capture for 12 days before being fatally shot in a stand-off with Union soldiers.
2 July 1881: Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield at a Washington DC train station. The wound was not immediately fatal, but later became infected and Garfield died 11 weeks later. Guiteau - who falsely believed he deserved credit for Garfield's election and had several times sought a consulship as a reward - was found guilty of murder, and was executed by hanging in 1882.
6 September 1901: Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in New York, after waiting to meet him in a receiving line. McKinley died of an infection eight days later. Czolgosz, who was said to have been motivated by his radical views, was found guilty of murder and executed by electrocution in October.
14 October 1912: Bar owner John Flammang Schrank shot President Theodore Roosevelt outside a Milwaukee hotel. The bullet broke one of Roosevelt's ribs, but was stopped by his spectacle case and a 50-page speech that was inside his jacket. Following the shooting, Roosevelt went on to make the speech, showing the crowd his wound and talking for nearly an hour before seeking medical attention. Schrank - who claimed to have had visions telling him to kill Roosevelt - was found insane and committed to a mental asylum, where he died in 1943.
15 February 1933: Bricklayer Guiseppe Zangara shot at president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt's distant relative) during a speech in Florida. None of the bullets hit Roosevelt and instead killed Chicago mayor Anton Cermak and injured four bystanders. Roosevelt was inaugurated as president 17 days later, while Zangara was executed for Cermak's murder on 20 March.
1 November 1950: Puerto Rican pro-independence activists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola tried to enter Blair House in Washington DC, where President Harry S. Truman was staying while the White House was being renovated, but were stopped by White House police. Torresola mortally wounded officer Leslie Coffelt, who returned fire and killed Torresola. Collazo was sentenced to death, which Truman - who was uninjured - commuted to a life sentence.
22 November 1963: US Marine veteran Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy while the president travelled in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas. Oswald then killed police officer J. D. Tippit before being arrested. Two days later, Oswald was himself shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby on live television.
5 June 1968: Pro-Palestinian activist Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries and John F. Kennedy's brother, at a California hotel. Kennedy was pronounced dead the next day. Sirhan was sentenced to death, but that was later commuted to life in prison.
5 September 1975: Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of Charles Manson's 'Family' cult, tried to shoot President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California. She was intercepted by the Secret Service before she could pull the trigger. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison but paroled in 2009.
22 September 1975: Two weeks after Fromme's assassination attempt, Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot Ford in San Francisco. Her first shot missed and she was tackled by a former Marine before she could fire again. Moore, who was sentenced to life in prison, later said she had wanted to kill Ford to spark a violent revolution. She was released in 2019.
30 March 1981: John Hinckley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan outside a hotel in Washington DC. Reagan nearly died and spent 12 days in hospital, but survived. White House press secretary James Brady was also wounded and left paralysed. Hinckley Jr. was found not guilty of the attempted assassination by reason of insanity. He was placed in psychiatric care and released in 2016.
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