Complete list of US presidents and presidential candidates involved in assassinations or attempted assassinations

The subject of discussion was former US President Donald Trump. attempted murder July 13, 2024as the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election campaigned at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump was wounded when the shooter, identified as Thomas Matthew Brooks, opened fire. from what the U.S. Secret Service called “an elevated position outside the rally site.” A bullet grazed Trump’s right ear, killing one spectator and seriously injuring two others. Reacting to the attack, incumbent President Joe Biden, who faces Trump in the November election, called the shooting “disgusting.” “We can’t let this happen,” Biden said. “We can’t be like that. We cannot accept this.”

Below we will look other US presidents and presidential candidates who have been the target of assassination attempts – both successful and unsuccessful.

Assassinations of US presidents and attempts on their lives

• 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth.
• 1881 President James A. Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau.
• 1901 President William McKinley was shot and killed by Leon Czolgosz.
• 1963 President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
• In 1981, President Ronald Reign was shot and killed by John Hinckley Jr. and subsequently survived an attempt on his life.

Theodore Roosevelt is shot and killed during the 1912 campaign.

In 1912 he was a candidate of the Progressive Party. Theodore Roosevelt was shot and killed while campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a month before that year’s presidential election.. Roosevelt, who had previously served as US president from 1901 to 1909, was shot and killed by John Schrank, a German-American tavern owner. Schrank’s bullet struck Roosevelt in the chest, but slowed as it passed through the candidate’s steel eyeglass case and a thick stack of papers in his coat.

Even though the bullet was stuck in his chest, Roosevelt insisted on delivering the planned speech at the Milwaukee Auditorium.. “This may be my last conversation with our people on this matter,” he said, according to the Library of Congress. Referring to the progressives’ nickname, he also stated, “It takes more than that to kill a bull elk.”

Roosevelt was later taken to a hospital in Milwaukee, where he was followed for a week before he was released and continued his presidential campaign. In November he lost the election to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson. Schrank was declared insane and placed in a psychiatric hospital. He died in September 1943.

RFK killed on the eve of the 1968 elections

Fifty six years ago Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy was shot and killed in California while trying to become the party’s nominee in the 1968 presidential election.. Five years after his older brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, RFK was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the Democratic primaries in California and South Dakota.

Sirhan Sirhan is a 24-year-old Palestinian of Jordanian descent. who has since stated that he was upset with Robert Kennedy for his support of Israel, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Sirhan Sirhan, who claims to have no memory of the murder, was released on parole in 2021.

After the assassination of Robert Kennedy Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination in 1968.but lost the election to Republican Richard Nixon.

George Wallace paralyzed by fame-seeking criminal

Four years later another Democratic candidate, George Wallace, was shot and killed while campaigning. in Laurel, Maryland. Wallace, who served three terms as governor of Alabama, survived an assassination attempt in May 1972 but was left paralyzed from the waist down. Two months after the attack, he withdrew from the race for the Democratic nomination, which ultimately went to George McGovern. McGovern was later defeated by Nixon in the 1972 presidential election.

Wallace’s attacker, an unemployed waiter named Arthur Bremer, later said in his book: Diary of a Killer What he made an attempt on the candidate’s life not for ideological reasons, but because he wanted to become famous. Bremer also said he was considering attacking Nixon.

After being convicted of attempted murder in August 1972. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison, but the sentence was reduced to 53 years on appeal.. He was released in 2007.