Trump Rally Shooting: A Look At US Presidents And Presidential Candidates Targeted By Assassins

Four American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy (JFK), who were assassinated were all shot dead.

Abraham Lincoln was the first US president who was assassinated and former president Donald Trump is the latest to be attacked (Image: X and PTI)

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Bullets were fired at a Donald Trump rally on Saturday, followed by the former US president being rushed off the stage with blood around his ear. One spectator was killed and two others were critically injured in the shooting in Pennsylvania's Butler.

Secret Service has said that its personnel have killed the suspected shooter.  

The apparent attempted assassination of Trump brought back memories of multiple instances of political violence targeting US presidents, former presidents, and major party presidential candidates.

Four US Presidents Were Assassinated In Office

Four American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy (JFK), who were assassinated were all shot dead.

Lincoln was the first US president who was assassinated. He was shot in the back of the head in 1865 during an appearance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC. His killer, John Wilkes Booth, an actor in the play that night and a Southern sympathiser, fled the scene after the shooting. Booth was shot when he was captured weeks later in Virginia.

Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau -- a disaffected former supporter with mental illness -- at a train station in Washington, DC, in July 1881. Garfield died from his wounds months later, in September, in New Jersey. Guiteau shot the President because he was angry at not getting a job in Garfield’s administration. He was convicted and hanged within the year.

William McKinley was making an appearance at the Pan-American Exposition in New York's in Buffalo in 1901 when he was shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. McKinley succumbed to his wounds days later. Czolgosz was later electrocuted for killing the President.

JFK was killed in November 1963 by a sniper, Lee Harvey Oswald, as he was driven down a parade route in an open-topped limousine. Oswald, a Soviet sympathizer, was arrested days after the shooting. He was later himself killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police station.

Killings And Attempted Assassinations Of US Politicians 

All US presidents and former presidents face threats to life and get lifetime Secret Service protection. US history is marred with instances of political violence that include attacks on senators, congressmen, and governors. 

As per a list compiled by CNN’s research library, President Andrew Jackson was shot at in the pre-Civil War era, while attending a funeral in the Capitol. The shooter fired twice, but the gun failed.

Like Trump, former President Theodore Roosevelt was also trying to get his old job back, when he was shot on the to an election rally in 1912 in Milwaukee by a saloon keeper. Roosevelt, who gave the speech despite the shooting, later said a folded-up copy of his 50-page speech slowed the bullet. That bullet stayed in his body for the rest of his life.

Franklin D Roosevelt was president-elect when he was shot at in Miami in 1933. The shooter, Guiseppe Zangara, missed Roosevelt but killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. He was put to death by electrocution, according to a CNN report.

Harry Truman, who took over the presidency after Roosevelt died, was also attacked. He was shot at from across the White House by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1950.

JFK’s brother, Robert F Kennedy, a senator from New York, was running for president when he was killed in 1968. RFK was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night he won the California Democratic primary. His killer, Sirhan Sirhan, is still in jail in California and recently had a parole request denied. 

Alabama Governor George Wallace, a segregationist who was running for president for the third time in 1972, was shot after a campaign event outside Washington, DC. The shooting left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Gerald Ford, the 38th President of America, faced two assassination attempts in quick succession in 1975.

Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 outside the Hilton in Washington, DC. His press secretary, James Brady, was more seriously wounded than Reagan in the attack. Reagan’s shooter, John Hinckley, spent decades in a mental institution and was released from court supervision in 2022.

An Idaho man was charged with the attempted assassination of Barack Obama after he fired shots at the White House in 2011.