Assassination Attempts on U.S. Presidents: From Lincoln to Kennedy, and Now Trump

Although the shooting at Donald Trump during a campaign speech caused significant shock among Americans, especially among his supporters, this is not the first time a U.S. president has been targeted. The list of U.S. presidents who have been shot at, whether while in the White House or afterward, is not small, including Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and George W. Bush. Abraham Lincoln is recorded as the first U.S. president to be assassinated. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife were shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play 'Our American Cousin' at Ford's Theatre in Washington. The injured Lincoln, with a bullet wound to the back of his head, was taken to a house across from Ford's Theatre but died the next morning. The assassin was identified and killed 12 days later after hiding in a barn in Virginia. Sixteen years after Lincoln's death, President James Garfield, who served only six months as the 20th president, was shot on July 2, 1881, at a Washington train station by Charles Guiteau. Alexander Graham Bell attempted to locate the bullet lodged in Garfield's chest with a special device he designed, but this effort failed. Garfield died about three months later after being moved to New Jersey, and Chester Arthur, his vice president, assumed the presidency. Guiteau was tried and executed 11 months after the assassination. Less than 20 years after Garfield's death, William McKinley, the 25th president, was shot on September 6, 1901, after giving a speech in Buffalo, New York, by Leon F. Czolgosz, who fired into the crowd. Although doctors hoped for McKinley's recovery, the bullet wound became gangrenous, and he died eight days later. At that time, McKinley was in his second term, and Theodore Roosevelt, his vice president, became president. The 28-year-old assassin, a jobless young man from Detroit, confessed to his crime less than two months later and was sentenced to death by electric chair. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president, was targeted in February 1933 while speaking from an open car in Miami. He survived the assassination attempt, but Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was killed in the incident. Giuseppe Zangara, the shooter, was executed after being convicted. Harry Truman, the 33rd president, faced an assassination attempt in November 1950 while at the Blair House across from the White House but was unharmed. In the exchange of gunfire between White House security and two armed men who entered the Blair House, one attacker and a police officer were killed, and two White House security members were injured. Oscar Collazo, the surviving attacker, was sentenced to death, but Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment two years later. Collazo was released in 1979, 29 years after the attempt, with the approval of then-President Jimmy Carter. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, when he was shot while riding in an open limousine with his wife Jacqueline. The assassin fired three shots from the sixth-floor window of a book depository, with the second and third shots hitting Kennedy and killing him. Oswald was killed shortly after by police while in custody. Over 60 years later, questions about Kennedy's assassination remain unanswered, and doubts about the identification of the assassin persist. Kennedy, a Democrat, served less than three years from January 1961 to November 1963, having narrowly defeated controversial Republican Richard Nixon in the 1960 election. Gerald Ford, 12 years after Kennedy's assassination and seven years after the death of his brother Robert F. Kennedy during a campaign, was targeted twice within a few weeks in 1975. In both incidents, the assailants were women, and Ford was unharmed. Lynette Fromme, a member of the Charles Manson cult, aimed her semi-automatic weapon at Ford in Sacramento, California, but it did not fire. Seventeen days later, Sarah Jane Moore shot at Ford outside a hotel in San Francisco, but missed, and was stopped by a passerby before she could fire again. Both women were sentenced to life imprisonment for their assassination attempts on Ford. Ronald Reagan, recognized as one of the most popular presidents, faced an assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, just two months after taking office. The incident occurred when he was giving a speech in Washington, D.C., and a man later described as 'mentally ill' shot at him. The shooter, John Hinckley, attempted to gain attention from actress Jodie Foster, who starred in the film 'Taxi Driver,' which dealt with a mentally disturbed individual plotting to kill a senator. Reagan was injured in the lung and hospitalized for a time but was fortunate to survive, unlike Kennedy. The assailant was sent to a mental institution and was released in 2016 after 35 years. This failed assassination attempt, however, made Reagan even more popular, allowing him to remain in the White House for eight years. George W. Bush, the 43rd president, was targeted by a grenade while attending a public event in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2005. The grenade landed 30 meters away from him and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, causing no injuries. Vladimir Arutyunyan, the assailant, was sentenced to life imprisonment in Georgia. Bush was also targeted by an Iraqi 'reporter' who threw a shoe at him during a press conference in Baghdad, but he dodged it and was unharmed. Donald Trump, who is once again a candidate for the upcoming presidential election after serving from 2017 to 2021, is the latest senior figure to be targeted. On Saturday, July 13, 2024, during a speech in Pennsylvania, Trump was suddenly shot at by an assailant reported to be a 20-year-old. According to Trump, the bullets pierced part of the upper right side of his ear. Trump left Pennsylvania hours after being treated at a medical facility. The identity and possible motive of the assailant remain unclear, but Trump was fortunate to escape with a fate similar to Reagan's and not like Kennedy's. Trump, having survived this assassination attempt, still hopes to defeat Joe Biden in the election and return to the White House.