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John Wilkes Booth is a well-known figure in American history. His decision to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, put paid to a promising career as a stage actor.
Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, escaped after shooting Lincoln. They were found 12 days later on a Virginia tobacco farm. Herold surrendered to Union troops, while Booth had to be forced out of the barn where he was hiding by setting it on fire. Booth was shot and killed as he tried to escape the inferno.
Mahatma Gandhi, the renowned pacifist, played a major role in India's liberation from British rule in 1947. While he was generally adored for his principles of tolerance and non-violence, Gandhi still had his enemies.
A year after India became independent from Britain, Nathuram Godse shot Gandhi three times in the chest. Godse was reportedly angered by Gandhi's teachings of acceptance and his own anti-Muslim sentiments. Gandhi, a Sanatani Hindu, was on his way to a prayer meeting when he was attacked. Although Gandhi's sons stated that their father opposed the death penalty, Godse was executed in 1949.
Mark David Chapman, the assassin of John Lennon, not only took the life of one of the most influential musicians in modern history, but also symbolically 'killed' a classic novel. After shooting Lennon outside his New York apartment, Chapman sat down on the sidewalk and began reading 'The Catcher in the Rye.'
Chapman has been denied parole several times, and he will likely die in prison. At the time of his arrest, Chapman claimed he killed Lennon because the musician had failed to lead a life of God. However, when he was denied parole for the 12th time in 2022, he stated, "I knew it was evil [...] but I wanted fame so badly that I was willing to give everything and take a human life."
Just four months into his term as the 20th president of the United States, James Garfield was shot twice in the back by Charles Guiteau, a lawyer and staunch Republican. The incident occurred as Garfield was exiting a train in Baltimore, Maryland.
Guiteau was long thought by his family to be insane, and after his hanging his brain was preserved for scientific analysis. The investigators found signs of syphilis in Guiteau, which was widely considered a cause of mental illness in the 19th century. Later psychological examinations revealed that he suffered from schizophrenia. The remains of his brain are on display at the Muetter Museum in Philadelphia.
A total of eight assassination attempts were made on Queen Victoria during her reign. Remarkably, none of these efforts were successful, and she eventually died of natural causes at the age of 81. The first attempt took place in 1840 and was orchestrated by Edward Oxford.
No one was injured in the shooting, including the monarch. Oxford, however, was arrested and charged with treason. After his trial, the jury found him "not guilty by reason of insanity" and he was institutionalized for more than 10 years. He was later sent to Australia, where he lived a quiet life until his death in 1900.
Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States, narrowly escaped death in Sacramento, California, in 1975. During one of his public appearances, 24-year-old Lynette "Squeaky" Page, a follower of Charles Manson, threatened the president with a gun. Fortunately, she was arrested by Secret Service agents before she could shoot. Nevertheless, she was later sentenced to life in prison.
Twelve years later, Fromme learned of Manson's illness and broke out of prison to visit him. Fromme didn't make it however, because she was arrested the next day, less than 25 miles (40 km) from her West Virginia prison. After serving 34 years of her life sentence, Fromme was paroled in 2009 and now lives with her partner in upstate New York.
World War I began in 1914 after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old member of the Bosnian resistance group nicknamed the Black Hand, was the assassin.
Because of Princip's young age, the courts could not hand him the death penalty. He was instead sentenced to 20 years in prison. Princip, however, died of tuberculosis only four years later, at the age of 23.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in the presidential limousine through Dallas, Texas, in front of a large crowd. The area was immediately sealed off. Later, Lee Harvey Oswald was cornered and captured in the Texas Theater.
Oswald's arrest was short-lived, literally. On November 24, just 48 hours after the assassination, Oswald himself was fatally shot by Jack Ruby, a suspected mobster, while in police custody.
James Earl Ray spent most of his life in and out of prison for robbery and minor offenses. But he also changed American history when he killed respected civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.
Ray managed to escape, and a two-month manhunt ensued. It was the most expensive investigation conducted by the FBI at the time. He was eventually caught in London, England, and sentenced to 99 years in prison. And there he died of liver failure in 1998.
In April 1926, Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini walked through the crowds in Rome after giving a speech. Hidden in the melee was Violet Gibson, an Irish Catholic who had come to Rome with the aim of assassinating the Italian dictator.
Although Gibson fired her pistol at close range, the first shot only grazed Il Duce's nose, while the second shot backfired. Despite this direct and premeditated attempt on Mussolini's life, Gibson was not punished and was released into the care of an English mental institution.
William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was shot in the abdomen during a public appearance in Buffalo, New York, in the fall of 1901. While McKinley took several weeks to die from an infection of the wounds, his assailant was immediately arrested and sentenced to death.
Leon Czolgosz, a steelworker involved in the New York anarchist movement, was executed in the electric chair shortly after McKinley's death. Legend has it that Thomas Edison attended the execution and recorded the events to gather evidence that Tesla's alternating current method used in the execution was more dangerous than his own direct-current method.
This is one of the most famous assassinations in history. Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by his close friend and advisor Marcus Junius Brutus with the help of other Roman senators. This fateful day in 44 BCE later became known as the Ides of March.
Brutus was quickly banished from Rome by Augustus Caesar, Julius' successor. Despite several attempts to regain some sort of power and perhaps because of two crushing defeats at the hands of Mark Antony, Brutus chose to end his life in 42 BCE.
In February 1933, Giuseppe Zangara, a bricklayer from Italy, tried to assassinate President Franklin Roosevelt. Zangara shot five times, but although Roosevelt was unhurt, the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was with him, was injured.
A year before Hitler took his own life, the Führer's reign of terror almost ended in a very different way. In 1944, a high-ranking German officer, General Claus von Stauffenberg, made an attempt on the dictator's life. During an SS meeting, Stauffenberg placed a suitcase prepared with explosives next to Hitler and quickly excused himself from the room. But before the bomb detonated, the suitcase was absentmindedly pushed behind a table leg by another officer, and Hitler was only slightly injured in the explosion.
Stauffenberg could have changed the course of World War II, but he and his co-conspirators were caught and immediately put on trial. Stauffenberg and the other cohorts involved in the '20 July plot' were executed by firing squad.
John Hinckley Jr. came from a wealthy family but was unemployed for most of his adult years. During this time, he focused on his obsession with Jodie Foster, whom he began stalking after seeing her in the movie 'Taxi Driver' (1976).
In an attempt to impress the actress, Hinckley tried to shoot President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington, D.C. hotel on March 30, 1981, but failed, and was immediately arrested. The jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2022, he publicly apologized to Jodie Foster and the families of the shooting victims and has since embarked on a career as a songwriter.
Sources: (History) (Britannica) (BBC) (The Washington Post)
See also: Common myths about serial killers
This law student dramatically changed the course of Israeli history when he shot Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. A staunch right-wing extremist, Amir was vehemently against the Oslo Accords, which began the peace process between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Amir is still behind bars, serving a life sentence plus six years for injuring Rabin's bodyguard. His son's circumcision ceremony took place behind prison walls in 2007, on the anniversary of Rabin's assassination. To this day, Yigal Amir is considered a threat to national security.
Zangara was immediately arrested and sentenced to death after Mayor Cermak died from his injuries. When questioned about the assassination attempt, Zangara simply stated, "I like Roosevelt personally, but I don't like presidents."
History is an unpredictable beast. It can pivot faster than a New York minute, and often does. The world's movers and shakers, the 'decision makers', have sometimes found their journeys abruptly halted or shaken at the zenith of their influence.
We all know the stories of these historical heavyweights. But what about the people who pulled the proverbial rug from under them—their murderers, or those who attempted to end their lives? These killers invariably changed the course of history. But what happened to them, then and now?
Click through and find out the fates of the most notorious assassins in history.
What was the fate of history's most infamous assassins?
What happened after the shots were fired and the smoke cleared?
LIFESTYLE Crime
History is an unpredictable beast. It can pivot faster than a New York minute, and often does. The world's movers and shakers, the 'decision makers', have sometimes found their journeys abruptly halted or shaken at the zenith of their influence.
We all know the stories of these historical heavyweights. But what about the people who pulled the proverbial rug from under them—their murderers, or those who attempted to end their lives? These killers invariably changed the course of history. But what happened to them, then and now?
Click through and find out the fates of the most notorious assassins in history.