So far, there have been 7 serious, major scandals and assassination attempts against U.S. presidents that resulted in severe consequences.
The presidents and presidential candidates who were targeted in these assassination attempts are: Abraham Lincoln (16th president), James Garfield (20th), William McKinley (25th), Theodore Roosevelt (26th), John Kennedy (35th), Robert Kennedy (the main candidate to become the 37th president), Ronald Reagan (40th), Donald Trump (45th-47th).
Among them, Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump survived. In the other assassination attempts, the attackers achieved their goals.
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The assassination attempt on A. Lincoln took place on April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington. The president came to watch the play "Our American Cousin" with his wife and friends. During the performance, 26-year-old actor John Wilkes Booth approached the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the head. The politician died the next day, April 15, 1865, from his wounds. The police set fire to the building to catch the assassin hiding in a warehouse, but he came out and was shot dead.
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James Garfield, who was president for only four months, faced an assassination attempt on July 2, 1881, in Washington at a train station. Planning to vacation with his family in New Jersey, Garfield was attacked by politician and lawyer Charles Guiteau, who persistently wanted a consul position. He fired twice at the president. The bullet did not hit Garfield's vital organs, but doctors extracted the bullet without gloves and disinfection, causing Garfield to die of blood poisoning two and a half months later, on September 19, 1881. The assassin Guiteau suffered from mental illness but was executed on June 30, 1882.
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The assassination attempt on William McKinley took place on September 6, 1901, during the opening ceremony of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
Leon Czolgosz, 28, who lost his job and joined anarchists, approached McKinley with a revolver hidden inside a handkerchief and shot at him twice. The first bullet glanced off the president's waistcoat button, the second hit his abdomen — doctors could not find the bullet immediately. McKinley died eight days later, on September 14, 1901, from gangrene caused by the wound. Czolgosz was caught at the scene, confessed his crime, and stated that he considered McKinley "an enemy of all good, hardworking men." He was executed in the electric chair on October 29, 1901.
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The assassination attempt on the 26th president of the U.S., Theodore Roosevelt, occurred on October 14, 1912, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At an election rally in the city, he was nominated for president for a third term. While preparing to go to another rally, 36-year-old poet John Schrank, suffering from mental illness, approached him and shot him in the chest. The bullet pierced through Roosevelt's jacket's inner pocket, which held a 50-page speech manuscript and a metal eyeglass case. The items in his pocket slowed the bullet so much that it could not penetrate Roosevelt's lung and lodged in his chest. With the medical tools available then, removing the bullet was too dangerous, so it was left inside, and Roosevelt carried the bullet in his chest for the rest of his life. Schrank was declared insane and sentenced to compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital, dying at the age of 67.
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Thousands of articles and hundreds of books have been written about the assassination of the 35th president, John Kennedy. Many people have knowledge about it. However, mysteries still remain. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. According to official information, he was shot with a sniper rifle by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former marine who had previously lived in the USSR, in Minsk. The politician was mortally wounded and died shortly after the assassination attempt in the hospital.
Oswald was arrested but was shot and killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transferred from one police station to another two days later.
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Lee Harvey Oswald
U.S. special services and intelligence agencies have prohibited the release of documents about this. The main mystery is that the assassin's assassin also died in prison. Witnesses of the incident died in various accidents some time after the assassination. Robert Kennedy—John's younger brother, former attorney general, and presidential candidate who vowed to uncover the truth—was killed on the day he announced his candidacy. All this indicates that there were those trying to keep this assassination covered up. The then president Lyndon Johnson and CIA director Edgar Hoover took their knowledge of this murder to the grave. When Trump first came to power, he announced he would declassify all documents related to Kennedy's assassination. After threats from the CIA and FBI, he backed down, and only insignificant parts of these documents were released.
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The 40th president Ronald Reagan also survived an assassination attempt. The attempt took place on March 30, 1981, at the "Hilton" hotel following a speech at the convention of the building workers' union. As the president was leaving the hotel, 26-year-old John Hinckley fired at him. Bullets hit the White House press secretary James Brady, a police officer, and a secret service agent; one stray bullet hit the politician’s chest and lodged in his lung. The president, like the other victims of the shooting, later fully recovered. Hinckley was declared mentally ill and committed to a psychiatric hospital. After doctors considered him fully recovered and no longer a danger to society, he was released from compulsory treatment in 2016.
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The 45th president Donald Trump was targeted in assassination attempts three times. The first time was in June 2016 during his election campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada, when a 20-year-old British citizen, Michael Sandford, seized a police officer’s gun while listening to the politician’s speech and attempted to shoot Trump. Trump was unharmed. Sandford was arrested at the scene. Later it was determined that he had a mental disorder. The court sentenced him to one year in prison and a $200 fine. In May 2017, Sandford was deported to Great Britain.
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On July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump was again targeted during an election campaign. A bullet grazed the president's ear and hit 50-year-old rally participant Corey Kempter. Kempter died at the scene, and two others were hospitalized in serious condition. An FBI agent killed the 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks with precise shooting.
Just the day before yesterday, a shooting occurred in the hall where Trump was present at the "Hilton" hotel, where Reagan had previously been shot, and this act is also considered an assassination attempt against Trump.
Secret service officers immediately neutralized the attacker. This person is 31-year-old Cole Allender from California, who also has a mental illness.
Thus, it appears that psychopath killers are a nightmare for U.S. presidents. They act as soon as they see any gaps in security.
Khalid KAZIMLI