Assassinations And Attempted Assassinations Of US Presidents

There's a wide range of potential candidates vying for the White House in 2012, but only one can prevail.  So, to buck up the spirits of those who will run and lose the 2012 election (Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself, but the candidates are all starting early, so what the heck.) here's a short list of famous unfortunate exits and almost-exits from the Oval Office.  Sure,  you will probably never get elected, and in some cases - never elected again, but at least none of these have happened to you!

Assassinations of US Presidents:

A lots been written about both Lincoln's and Kennedy's assassinations, so we'll pass on them and move on to the two lesser-known, which are: James Garfield and William McKinley.

Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, by Charles J. Guiteau.  He was caught, tried, and hanged. There's no doubt that Guiteau was a nutcase. He originally wrote a speech in support of Ulysses S. Grant, and hastily changed it to support Garfield after Garfield won the Republican nomination.

He delivered the speech, then sought to be hired as an ambassador by Garfield in repayment for his service. Garfield's staff repeatedly threw him out.  So, then Guiteau decided that God wanted him to kill Garfield.  Next, he bought a gun for fifteen dollars, stalked the President to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, where Garfield was going to embark on a vacation, and picked him off.

McKinley's killer was more straight-forward. McKinley was shot on September 5, 1901,  at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where he was greeting the public at one of the exhibits.  Leon Czolgosz, a political anarchist, simply stepped out from the crowd and shot McKinley.   He was immediately captured and beaten by the crowd, arrested, tried, and electrocuted. His motives were purely political, as he stated at his trial that he believed he'd killed an enemy of the people.

Attempted Assassinations:

We all know about the attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan, so we're skipping this one, as well.  So, here's the other serious attempts at picking off former Presidents.

Richard Lawrence tried to shoot Andrew Jackson at a funeral on January 30, 1835.   Lawrence was also a nutcase, which was blamed on his having worked at a paint factory and  inhaling fumes. He whipped out not just one, but TWO pistols to shoot Jackson.  Luckily for Jackson, both misfired. Jackson responded by beating Lawrence with his cane, and the crowd subdued Lawrence and carried him off.   Lawrence lived out the rest of his life in an institution.

On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican Nationalists by the names of Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo got really close to assassinating Harry S. Truman.   They made it as far as the outside of his home, where they shot one police officer before being overpowered.   Torresola and Collazo served life in prison.   The attack was politically motivated over anger with the treatment of Puerto Rico.

As if Gerald Ford didn't have enough problems already, there were two assassination attempts on his life within seventeen days of each other!  The first was on September 5, 1975, when Ford was making a public appearance in Sacramento, California.   A member of the infamous Charles Manson cult, named Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, pointed a gun at Ford, but before she could fire, a Secret Service agent did one of their famous dives and grabbed the gun.

The second was September 22, 1975.  Ford was making a public appearance in San Francisco, California,  when Sara Jane Moore fired a shot at Ford and missed.   She was subdued before she could fire off another shot. 

Moore was believed to be unrelated to the Manson gang,  and was apparently motivated by an obsession over the Patty Hearst kidnapping, the news events at the time, and a conviction that Ford was bad for the country. Both women are currently serving life in prison.