Ahead of the U.S. presidential elections, which is slated to take place on November 5, 2024, the recent assassination attempt on former U.S. President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump brought back the memories of past assassination attempts on US political leaders. Mr. Trump is not the first former president to survive an assassination attempt, and the events of the last few months find echoes in American history.
Mentioned below are political history of other leaders, which is peppered with incidents of assassination attempts on presidents or candidates.
Donald Trump
The latest assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump in September is something which is not new to him as he was targeted in July as well this year. Reportedly, on September 15, 2024, Mr. Trump was the target of “what appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, the FBI said. The incident was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. Nine weeks prior, the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life on July 13 when he was shot during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. The accused, Ryan Routh, involved in the September assassination bid, was apprehended, and another accused Thomas Crooks, who shot Trump in his ear at a rally in 2024, was killed by the Secret Service. July 13 was not the first time that the 78-year-old‘s life was under threat. Similar attempts have been made as far back as in 2016 when he ran for President for the first time.
Ronald Reagan
The then President of United States Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded on March 30, 1981 by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as he was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton. It was by the quick actions of his lead Secret Service agent and hospital personnel that his life was saved. Reagan’s courage over those tense hours further when he was shot cemented his relationship — and political standing —with the people of America and also changed the way he approached the job over the next eight years.
Gerald Ford
In September 1975, former U.S. President Gerard Ford faced two assassination attempts in one month. The attempts were made within just 17 days — both occurring in California and carried out by women. The first happened on September 5, 1975, and the assassin, Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, was tried and convicted. The second assassination attempt on September 22, 1975, took place when he was out in California again, this time to speak at an annual convention at the AFL-CIO. The assassin was identified as Sara Jane Moore. Meanwhile, following both attempts, a bulletproof trench coat was given to Ford the following month, in October 1975.
Robert F. Kennedy
The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, which came several years after the assassination of Kennedy’s brother John in 1963 and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Robert Francis Kennedy was 42 when he was shot down in Los Angeles on 5 June 1968. A United States senator and candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Kennedy won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4, and he addressed his campaign supporters after leaving the podium and exiting through a kitchen hallway; he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan following which he died 25 hours later.
John F. Kennedy
On November 22, 1963. John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting. He was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. Oswald never stood murder trial, because, while being transferred after having been taken into custody, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a distraught Dallas nightclub owner.
Theodore Roosevelt
On October 14, 1912, former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was shot just before he was scheduled to go onstage at a campaign event. Roosevelt, who survived an assassination attempt by John Schrank, went ahead to give his speech anyway with a bullet in his chest. The incident stands as one of the most sensational yet largely forgotten events in American political history. He stoically went on to deliver an 84-minute campaign speech that night with the round from a .38 revolver lodged inside the cavity of his chest.
William McKinley
William McKinley, was the 25th president of the United States. He died on September 14, 1901, of complications from bullet wounds inflicted by Leon Czolgosz. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot the President during one of his public appearances when he was shaking hands with the public and was shot twice in the abdomen. He was the third American president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James A. Garfield in 1881.
James Garfield
James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1881. He died in Elberon, New Jersey, two and a half months later on September 19, 1881. The shooting occurred less than four months into his term as president. Charles J. Guiteau was convicted of Garfield’s murder and executed by hanging one year after the shooting.
Abraham Lincoln
The 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head, Lincoln died the next morning. Lincoln’s death plunged much of the country into despair, and the search for Booth and his accomplices was the largest manhunt in American history to that date.
Published – October 29, 2024 12:37 pm IST
