America's long history of presidential assassinations and attempts

This weekend’s assassination attempt against former US president Donald Trump failed, with minimal injury. While it is not the first time that a US president survives an assassination, it is one of the very few for a presidential candidate. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt survived a similar attempt when campaigning to return to the White House and lived to tell the story. Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was as lucky, however; shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June 1968.

Some presidents would survive more than one attempt on their lives before being shot dead, like Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Al Majalla takes a look at the history of presidential assassinations in the United States, both the successful and the failed, from the birth of the nation until today.

Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a play with his wife at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC, on 14 April 1865. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a prominent actor and supporter of the Confederate Army that had just been defeated and disbanded by President Lincoln. His original plan was to kidnap the president and exchange him for Confederate soldiers in custody but he changed his mind and decided to kill him after hearing Lincoln promote voting rights for black people. Booth walked into the presidential quarters at the theatre and shot Lincoln in the back of his head. He was taken to hospital and died on 15 April.

James Garfield

President James Garfield was shot in the shoulder and back at the Potomac Railroad Station on 2 July 1881, barely four months after entering the White House. The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, was a well-known writer who claimed that he killed the president because Garfield didn’t name him ambassador to France. Garfield would remain bedridden for the next 75 days before succumbing to his infected wounds on 19 September 1881. Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.

William McKinley

President William McKinley was gunned down at the Temple of Music exposition in Buffalo, New York, on 6 September 1901. He was shot twice in the stomach at close range by Leon Czolgosz, a poor labourer and declared anarchist. Gangrene spread in the president’s body, and he died on 14 September 1901. Czolgosz was executed by electric chair, and after this incident, Congress asked the Secret Service to provide tightened security for all future presidents.

John F. Kennedy

President John F. Kennedy was famously assassinated while driving through Dallas, Texas, with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on 22 November 1963. The Kennedys were in a black convertible when a bullet ripped through the president’s head and came out his throat, while another pierced his back. The assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was apprehended, only to be shot dead by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who claimed revenge for the slain president. Jack Ruby would die in jail in 1967.

Before he entered the White House, Kennedy survived an assassination attempt as president-elect on 11 December 1960. Kennedy was vacationing with his family at Palm Beach, Florida, when self-proclaimed Catholic hater Richard Pavlick decided to kill him, given that JFK was the first Catholic president of the United States (and would remain the last until Joe Biden’s election in 2020). The plan was to ram a dynamite-laden Buick into Kennedy’s car, but Pavlick backed out after seeing the president-elect with his wife and children. He would soon be arrested and declared mentally unstable, confined to a hospital until 1975.

Many other presidents survived assassination attempts. Their methods varied from stabbing, shooting, and both poison and bomb letters.

Andrew Jackson

President Andrew Jackson survived an assassination attempt at the gates of the Capitol Building on 30 January 1835. The assassin, Richard Lawrence, was carrying two pistols but missed him on both accounts. The president beat him with his cane, and Lawrence was locked up at a mental asylum until his death in 1861.

President Abraham Lincoln survived an assassination attempt in Baltimore on 23 February 1861. That was after his election and right before his inauguration, and in August 1864, Lincoln suffered a second attempt, this time by a sniper who tried to take him down while leaving the White House at night, alone with no security. The third and last shooting was the one that claimed his life in 1865.

William Howard Taft

President William Howard Taft survived an assassination attempt on 16 October 1909 while preparing to meet his Mexican counterpart, Porfirio Diaz. They were to hold a summit in the Chamizal Strip, considered neutral territory between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. The assassin, Julius Bergerson, was caught red-handed with a pistol before shooting the president.

Theodore Roosevelt

President Theodore Roosevelt survived a dramatic assassination attempt with a striking resemblance to that of Donald Trump. He, too, had been out of office for three and a half years and was planning a comeback in 1912. While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 14 October 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was confronted by John Schrank—a saloon-keeper from New York—who shot him in the chest. A pile of papers in his jacket and his metal eyeglasses saved his life, but the angry crowd over-muscled the assassin and tried to lynch him on the spot.

Roosevelt stood up, said that he was fine, and asked them to spare his life. He then rose to the podium to deliver an 84-minute address before agreeing to be taken to the hospital. His supporters tried milking the assassination to win votes on election day, just like Trump’s teal will be doing between now and next November.

Roosevelt would lose against Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson; as for Schrank, he confessed that President William McKinley had visited him in a dream and ordered him to kill the former president. Doctors said that he was mentally unstable and locked him up at a mental asylum until his death in 1943.

Herbert Hoover

President Herbert Hoover survived an assassination while touring South America attempt on 19 November 1928. An Argentinian rebel had plans to blow up his train but was arrested before carrying out the operation. Hoover, then president-elect, reportedly tore the front page of the papers carrying the story in order not to disturb his wife.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

President Franklin D. Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt just seventeen days before his inauguration on 15 February 1933. Rumour had it that the Nazis were behind the attempted murder when an assassin shot him and missed him in Miami, Florida. Identified as Italian emigrant Giuseppe Zangara, he was electrocuted to death on 20 March 1933.

Harry Truman

President Harry Truman survived an assassination attempt when hardline Zionists sent him a letter bomb in mid-1947. They were unimpressed by Truman’s mild approach towards the Arabs despite his unwavering support for the establishment of the State of Israel.

The letter bomb was intercepted and destroyed at the White House Mail Room. On 1 November 1950, Truman would survive a second attempt on his life—this time by two militants from Puerto Rico. They attacked Blair House, where he stayed while the White House was being renovated. One of them was killed, and the other was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.

Richard Nixon

President Richard Nixon survived an assassination attempt on 13 April 1972, but his motorcade was faster than the assassin could shoot. He would suffer a second attempt on 22 February 1974, when Samuel Byck hijacked an aeroplane with the aim of crashing it into the White House. He shot two pilots but was wounded before take-off and took his own life before he was arrested.

Gerald Ford

President Gerald Ford suffered an assassination attempt in California on 5 September 1975, when a woman took out a gun to shoot him as he extended a friendly arm to shake her hand. Although the gun was loaded, it didn’t fire, and she was locked up until 2009. Days after the incident, another woman, Sara Moore, fired at Ford in San Francisco on 22 September 1975. She also missed and was convicted to life imprisonment until her release in 2007.

Jimmy Carter

President Jimmy Carter survived a failed assassination on 9 October 1980, when his would-be assassin lost his nerve and failed to shoot. Earlier on 5 May 1979, the US announced that it had arrested a Mexican emigrant planning to assassinate the president during a speaking engagement in Los Angeles.

Ronald Reagan

President Ronald Reagan survived an assignation attempt at the doors of the Washington Hilton Hotel on 30 March 1981. The would-be assassin fired six bullets at the president, hitting his left arm and lung. Reagan was taken to George Washington University Hospital in critical condition but, after undergoing surgery, survived.

The White House Press Secretary James Brady was wounded with a brain injury and left permanently disabled. The assassin, John Hinckley Jr., claimed that he shot Reagan to attract the attention of American actress Jodie Foster after seeing her perform in the film “Taxi Driver.” He, too, would be confined to a mental hospital, only to be discharged on account of good behaviour and artistic talent. He is presently at large and has his own YouTube channel.

George HW Bush

President George HW Bush survived an attempted assassination while on a post-White House visit to Kuwait in 1993. It was claimed that Saddam Hussein had ordered the operation in revenge for the 1991 Gulf War launched by Bush for the liberation of Kuwait. The Clinton Administration retaliated by bombing Baghdad, striking at an Iraqi intelligence building.

Bill Clinton

President Bill Clinton survived an assassination attempt on 29 October 1994, when a man climbed the White House fence and fired at the president and his guests. He was taken down by ordinary passersby and sentenced to 40 years in jail. That November, it was announced that Osama Bin Laden was planning to assassinate Clinton, and two years later, an attempt on his life was thwarted during a visit to Manila, also believed to have been the doing of Al Qaeda. More recently, a letter bomb was sent to his wife, former presidential candidate and ex-secretary of state Hillary Clinton, but the Secret Service destroyed it before causing any damage.

George W. Bush

President George W. Bush survived an assassination attempt in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, on 10 May 2005. A hand grenade was hurled at him, but it failed to explode. Most recently, in 2022, an Iraqi national was arrested in the US on charges of planning to assassinate the former president.

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama survived an assassination attempt after leaving the White House in April 2013. A poisoned letter was sent to him, which was subsequently destroyed. During his tenure, it was reported that an armed Arab male was planning to assassinate him during a visit to Turkey and in October 2012, an American citizen was arrested after confession to his psychiatrist that he had plans to kill him.