Four American presidents and one candidate have been assassinated since the country's founding.
Former US President Donald Trump was injured in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
Trump, who was wounded in the right ear, is “safe.” He was escorted off the stage with blood on his ear and cheek after the shooting at the rally.
One spectator was killed and two others were seriously injured in the attack, which took place at the Butler Farm Show in Butler City.
The Secret Service says its personnel killed the suspected gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Pennsylvania.
Since the founding of the United States, four presidents and one presidential candidate have been assassinated.
These are some cases in which American presidents and prominent presidential candidates were targeted in assassination attempts.
- 1865, Abraham Lincoln (16th president) – Killed while watching a play with his wife in Washington, D.C. He was shot and given medical treatment by John Wilkes Booth, but died the next morning. Booth was found hiding in a barn in Virginia 12 days later, where he was shot to death.
- 1881, James Garfield (20th President) – He was shot while walking through a train station in Washington, D.C., six months after taking office. He died from his wounds a few weeks later. Charles Guiteau, his assassin, was convicted and executed the following year.
- 1901, William McKinley (25th President) – McKinley was shot at point-blank range after giving a speech in New York. He was expected to recover, but gangrene developed around the gunshot wounds and he died eight days later. A 28-year-old Detroit man, Leon F. Czolgosz, admitted to the shooting. He was executed a few weeks after the assassination.
- 1912, Theodore Roosevelt (candidate) – Roosevelt was running for the White House as a former president when he was shot in Milwaukee. He survived the shooting, but the bullet remained in his chest for the rest of his life.
- 1933, Franklin Roosevelt (32nd President) – He was the target of an assassination attempt in Miami by an Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Zangara. Roosevelt was unharmed, but Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, was killed in the attack.
- 1963, John F. Kennedy (35th President) – Kennedy was fatally shot while driving his motorcade through downtown Dallas. He was hit by a high-powered rifle from a distance and died in the hospital a few hours later. Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. Two days after the arrest, as Oswald was being taken to prison, he was shot dead by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.
- 1968, Robert F. Kennedy (candidate) – John F. Kennedy's younger brother was campaigning for the Democratic nomination and had just won the 1968 California primary. Just after delivering his victory speech, he was shot dead by Sirhan Sirhan. The assassin was arrested and sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment, and his petition for release in 2023 was denied.
- 1972, George Wallace (candidate) – Wallace was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination when he was shot during a campaign stop in Maryland. He was shot four times and one of the bullets lodged in his spine. That left him paralyzed for the rest of his life. The man who shot him was Arthur Bremer. He was convicted and sentenced to prison. He was released in 2007.
- 1975, Gerald Ford (38th President) – He escaped two murder attempts in 17 days, both in California (in Sacramento and San Francisco) and both carried out by women: Lynette Fromme and Sarah Jane Moore. They were sentenced to life imprisonment.
- 1981, Ronald Reagan (40th President) – Reagan was leaving a speech in Washington, D.C., when he was shot by John Hinckley Jr. The bullet passed through his left lung and narrowly missed his heart. Reagan survived the attack. Hinckley was arrested and found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was committed to a mental hospital.
- 1994, Bill Clinton (42nd President) – Clinton was inside the White House when Francisco Martin Duran fired a semi-automatic rifle into the building. Clinton was unharmed. Duran was convicted of attempted assassination of the president and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
- 2005, George W. Bush (43rd President) – Bush was attending a rally in Tbilisi with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili when a man named Vladimir Arutyunian threw a hand grenade toward the podium. The grenade did not explode and no one was injured. Arutyunian was sentenced to life in prison.
