Trump shooting just the latest in a 160-year American tradition

White House secretary Jim Brady was shot in the head and paralysed during in the attack. He would live the rest of his life in a wheelchair, with slurred speech and difficulty controlling his emotions.

Reagan was hit by another bullet that ricocheted off the limousine, striking him under the left armpit and lodging near his heart. Before he went into surgery, the president jokingly told his wife Nancy: "Honey, I forgot to duck."

His distinctive sense of humour was a hit with the American public and his approval rating soared. It was also ultimately responsible for the passing of the Brady Act, which was finally agreed by Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993.

Trump might not be blessed with the same wit and charisma as Reagan, but he is likely to enjoy a similar bounce in the aftermath of the shooting.

Those less lucky

In a country where the threat of assassination has been a constant theme in American politics for nearly two centuries, both Reagan and Trump can count themselves lucky that they managed to survive.

Four US presidents (Abraham Lincoln, James A Garfield, William McKinley and John F Kennedy) have not been so lucky. Three more, including Trump, were injured in attacks.

Presidential candidates have also been assassinated, most memorably JFK's brother Bobby, killed on the campaign trail in Los Angeles in 1968.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, was the first to be assassinated, shot by John Wilkes Booth on 14 April 1865, as he and his wife attended a theatre performance in Washington. He died the next morning.

His support for Black rights was cited as a motive. Two years earlier, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to slaves within the Confederacy.

James Garfield, the 20th president, was assassinated six months after taking office. He was walking through a train station in Washington on 2 July 1881, when he was shot by Charles Guiteau.

Mortally wounded, Garfield went to the White House but died from his injuries several weeks later. Guiteau was found guilty and executed in June 1882.

William McKinley, the 25th president, was shot twice at point blank range after giving a speech in Buffalo, New York, on 6 September 1901.

Doctors thought he would recover but gangrene set in and he died a few days later, six months into his second term. Leon F. Czolgosz, 28, an unemployed man from Detroit, was found guilty and electrocuted on 29 October 1901.

JFK, the 35th president, was fatally shot with a high-powered rifle in Dallas in November 1963 as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza.

Hours after the assassination, police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald after finding a sniper's lair in a nearby building. Oswald denied that he was the killer. Two days later, Oswald was gunned down by a Dallas nightclub owner, Jack Ruby.

The survivors

Some sitting US presidents have been targeted by assassins and survived. In February 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had just given a speech in Miami from the back of an open car when gunshots rang out.

He was not hit, but Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was killed. Guiseppe Zangara was convicted in the shooting and sentenced to death.

Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president, was staying at Blair House, near the White House, in November 1950 when two gunmen broke in. A policeman and an assailant were killed, two other policemen were wounded, but Truman survived.

Oscar Callazo was arrested and sentenced to death. In 1952, Truman commuted the sentence to life in prison. He was freed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.

Gerald Ford, the 38th president, faced two assassination attempts within weeks in 1975 and was not hurt in either incident.

In the first attempt, Ford was on his way to meet California's governor in Sacramento when Charles Manson disciple Lynette Fromme pointed a semi-automatic pistol at him. The gun did not fire. Fromme was sentenced to prison and released in 2009.

Another woman, Sara Jane Moore, confronted Ford 17 days later outside a hotel in San Francisco. Moore fired one shot and missed. She was apprehended trying to shoot again and sent to prison, before being released in 2007.

George W. Bush, the 43rd president, was at a rally in Tbilisi in 2005 with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili when a hand grenade was thrown toward him.

Both men were behind a bulletproof barrier. The grenade landed 100ft away but did not explode and no one was hurt. Vladimir Arutyunian was sentenced to life in prison.

Candidates too

Political assassination attempts are not an American phenomenon. France's General Charles de Gaulle survived 30 attempts on his life, the kind of good luck that defies probability. Even Adolf Hitler survived a bomb blast intended to kill him in 1944.

Presidential candidates, like Trump, have also survived assassination attempts. Former president Theodore Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee in 1912 while campaigning for the White House, having previously served two terms as president.

Folded papers and a metal glasses case in his pocket apparently blunted the bullet's impact and he escaped serious injury. John Schrank was arrested and spent the remainder of his life in mental hospitals.

Seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Bobby Kennedy was killed just moments after giving a victory speech having won the 1968 California primary.

Sirhan Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death. That was commuted to life in prison, where Sirhan remains. His latest petition for release was denied last year.

George C. Wallace was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination when he was shot during a campaign stop in Maryland in 1972. It left him paralysed from the waist down. Arthur Bremer was convicted and sentenced, being released in 2007.

The attempt on Trump's life, which ended with a supporter and the attacker being killed, brings security concerns sharply into focus. This latest attempt on a president's life is just the latest in a long and awful line. It is unlikely to be the last.