 "Trump assassination bid: Ex-US presidents, world leaders who were targeted")
Donald Trump assassination attempt latest: The shocking assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump on Saturday has brought back the spotlight on the past killings of high-profile world leaders who were targeted throughout history and how that has impacted the course of the world.
Trump survived a bullet injury to his right ear after a 20-year-old shooter, identified as Mathew Thomas Crooks, fired eight rounds at him from a rooftop, close to his Pennsylvania election rally.
Prior to Trump, there were four major instances of political violence targeting the US presidents, which resulted in their deaths.
Additionally, multiple US leaders have survived assassination attempts, including former Presidents Franklin D Roosevelt and his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, who was also attacked as a presidential candidate whiling seeking re-election.
List of former US presidents assassinated
1) Abraham Lincoln: The 16th US president became the first president to be assassinated. He was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865 while attending a performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington.
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2) Ames Garfield: The 20th US president was targeted in an assassination plot, six months after assuming office. He was headed to board a train to New England when the leader was fatally shot by Charles Guiteau at a train station in Washington in 1881.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, unsuccessfully attempted to use a device he designed to locate the bullet in President Garfield’s chest.
3) William Mckinley: About 20 years after Garfield’s killing, the 25th US president Mckinley was killed after being shot at a point-blank range in New York in 1901. He was shaking hands with the public after giving a speech in Buffalo when the incident occurred.
4) John F Kennedy: He was assassinated after being shot by a hidden assassin in November 1963 after he visited Dallas with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. At 44, he was the youngest president in US history, and the youngest to die while in office.
List of US leaders who survived an assassination plot
5) Like Trump, Franklin Roosevelt, the then president-elect, was targeted while he was giving a speech in Miami from the back of an open car. After his speech, he slid down to his seat when a man, Guiseppe Zangara, fired five bullets at the former president from a close range.
“I’m all right…,” he had shouted to the shocked crowd after the incident.
Despite surviving an assassination attempt, Roosevelt’s display of courage in the wake of the episode made a very powerful impression in the minds of the people.
Notably, Trump, after ducking from the shooter for his safety, appeared defiant when he raised his fist shortly after, videos and photos of which are now viral on social media.
6) The 33rd US President Harry Truman survived an assassination attempt in 1950 when he was at Blair House, across the street from the White House.
7) The 38th US President Gerald Ford faced two assassination attempts within weeks in 1975 but was not injured in either.
8) The 40th US President Ronald Reagan was walking towards his motorcade after a speech in 1981 in Washington when he got injured in a shooting carried out by John Hinckley Jr, a person in the crowd.
9) In the 21st century, George Bush became the first US president to have faced and survived an assassination bid. Bush was at a rally in Tbilisi in 2005 when a hand grenade was thrown toward him.
10) Theodore Roosevelt, the former president and fifth cousin of Franklin Roosevelt, was shot as a presidential candidate in Milwaukee in 1912.
11) Robert F Kennedy, who was John F Kennedy’s brother, US senator and a Democratic presidential candidate, was killed in 1968 in Los Angeles. His son Robert Kennedy Jr is running as an independent candidate for the office against Trump and Biden this time.
Indian PMs who were assassinated
1) Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: Gandhi was assassinated on October 31, 1984, by two of her bodyguards at her residence in New Delhi.
2) Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv Gandhi was also targeted in an assassination plot in Tamil Nadu in 1991. Rajiv Gandhi and 14 others including the suicide bomber had died in the incident.
World leaders who were assassinated
3) One of the most recent assassinations of a global leader that rocked the world was of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe who was shot while giving a speech on a street in the city of Nara in 2022.
4) Other world leaders to have been killed in assassination plots are the death of King Birendra of Nepal, targeted by his son and crown Prince Dipendra in 2001; Pakistan’s first woman leader Benazir Bhutto murdered in 2007; Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shot in 1995; Swedish PM Olaf Palme shot dead on February 28, 1986; Egypt's President Anwar al-Sadat killed in 1981 among others.