10 US Presidential Assassination Attempts That Failed

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10 US Presidential Assassination Attempts That Failed

 

In the history of the United States, there have been a lot of presidential assassination attempts. Since John F. Kennedy, almost every president has been threatened with assassinations, except for LBJ. While most presidential assassination attempts weren’t actually carried out, there were still over 20 attempts that were. That’s quite a few considering we’re only on our 44th President.

 

Of the 22 attempts, we lost Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and JFK. But aside from the successful plots, there were also some really close calls.

 

Here are 9 presidents we almost lost:

 

PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON

 

 

On January 30, 1835, Andrew Jackson became the first victim of presidential assassination attempts. Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter, approached the President on the Capitol steps. The shot was fired as Jackson was leaving a funeral at the Capitol building. Luckily for Jackson, he had misfired.

 

A furious Stonewall Jackson confronted his attacker, clubbing him several times with his cane. During the scuffle, Lawrence drew a second pistol but again misfired. He was then dragged away by the President’s aides. Lawrence was later convicted as mentally unstable and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. Historians later found that the odds of both guns misfiring were 1 in 125,000. Lucky Jackson.

 

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

 

 

We all know that President Lincoln died at the hands of John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. But before he actually died, there were two other attempts to take his life. In February 1861, there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President on his way to the inauguration. Three years later, as Lincoln was riding alone from the White House to Soldiers’ Home, a rifle shot passed through his hat, barely missing his head.

 

PRESIDENT TEDDY ROOSEVELT

 

 

Three years after Teddy Roosevelt left office, he decided to run again as a member of the Progressive Party. During that time, a New Yorker by the name of John F. Schrankwas said to have been stalking Roosevelt for weeks. Right before a major campaign speech in Milwaukee, the saloon-keeper shot Roosevelt with a .38 caliber revolver. The bullet hit Roosevelt square in the chest.

 

But lucky for Roosevelt, the 50-page notes and metal glasses case in his pockets slowed the bullet and saved his life. Schrank was immediately disarmed and captured. Unfazed by the shooting, Roosevelt waved to the crowd and did his speech with the bullet still lodged in his chest. When he eventually went to the hospital, doctors determined it was too risky to remove the bullet, so it stayed in Roosevelt’s body for the rest of his life.

 

PRESIDENT GERALD FORD

 

 

President Gerald R. Ford survives two attempt on his life; both of the attempts took place in California within three weeks of one another and both assailants were women

 

First assassination attempt

 

The assailants, a petite, red haired, freckle-faced young woman named Lynette Fromme, approached the president while he was walking near the California Capitol and raised a .45 caliber handgun toward him. Before she was able to fire off a shot, Secret Service agents tackled her and wrestled her to the ground. 

 

Lynette Fromme, nicknamed “Squeaky,” was a member of the notorious Charles Manson family, a group of drug-addled groupies who followed cult leader Manson. Manson and other members of his “family” were convicted and sentenced to prison for murdering former actor Sharon Tate and others in 1969. Subsequently, Fromme and other female members of the cult started an order of “nuns” within a new group called the International People’s Court of Retribution. 

 

This group terrorized corporate executives who headed environmentally destructive businesses. Fromme herself was still so enamored of Manson that she devised the plot to kill President Ford in order to win Manson’s approval. She was release on parole on August 14, 2009, after serving nearly 34 years.

 

Second assassination attempt

 

Seventeen days later, another woman, Sarah Jane Moore, a mentally unstable accountant, tried to assassinate Ford while he was in San Francisco. Her attempt was thwarted by a bystander who instinctively grabbed Moore’s arm when she raised the gun. Although she fired one shot, it did not find its target. 

 

Ford’s second would-be assassin, Moore, was imprisoned in the same higher-security penitentiary as the first. Sara Jane Moore was given a life sentence for the attempted assassination and was released from prison on December 31, 2007, after serving 32 years.

 

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

 

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt hadn’t even been sworn into office yet when he was a victim of an assassination attempt. Three weeks before his inauguration, FDR was giving a speech in Miami’s Bayfront Park when a man named Giuseppe Zangara shouted, “Too many people are starving!” before firing at the President. Zangara opened fire with six rounds – five people were hit.

 

As it turns out, President Roosevelt wasn’t one of them. But Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was beside the President, was hit with a fatal wound in the stomach. Several men tackled Zangara, but the President intervened to prevent him from being beaten to death. Zangara was charged with murder and died on the electric chair. The President, on the other hand, boosted his public image as a strong leader thanks to his calm composure during the whole event.

 

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

 

 

Just 69 days into his presidency, Ronald Reagan became a victim of the many presidential assassination attempts. After speaking at the Washington Hilton in D.C., Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr, who later said he shot the President in hopes of impressing actress Jodie Foster. The photo above was taken just moments after Hinckley opened fire with his revolver.

 

 

The first bullet hit his White House Press Secretary James Brady in the head. The second hit D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty in the back. The final bullet ricocheted off the limo and hit the President under his left arm, grazing his rib and lodged in his lung. It stopped an inch from his heart. After a month at George Washington University Hospital, Reagan returned to the Oval and became the first serving U.S. President to survive being shot in an assassination attempt.

 

PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH

 

 

In April of 1993, George H.W. Bush was visiting Kuwait University. The former president had just passed the baton to President-elect Bill Clinton when his assassination attempt occurred. A total of 14 men believed to be working for Saddam Hussein smuggled car bombs into Kuwait to kill George H.W. But the plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and and arrested the suspects.

 

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON

 

 

President Bill Clinton was the target for many presidential assassination attempts. In 1994, a retired military officer and freelance writer plotted to kill President Clinton while he was out jogging. No shots were fired but Barbour was sentenced to five years in prison for scheming.

 

Later in the same year, a drunken truck driver drove onto the White House lawn with intentions of crashing into Clinton. Instead, he hit a tree and died on site. The President and his family were not home at the time. A month later, a man fired 30 rounds with a semi-automatic rifle through the White House fence. Three tourists tackled him before anyone was injured and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

 

Then in 1996, while President Clinton was in Manila, another attack was attempted. Clinton’s motorcade was rerouted right as it was about to go over a bridge as the Secret Service director was tipped off about a bomb. The bomb was later recovered from under the bridge and after much investigation, it was determined that it was plotted by a then-unknown terrorist named Osama bin Laden.

 

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

 

 

Like his father, George W. Bush was also a target of presidential assassination attempts. In 2005, while Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, a man in the crowd threw a live grenade. The explosive hit an audience member and landed just 60 feet from the President.

 

While the grenade was live, it did not explode because it was so tightly wrapped in a red scarf. The strangest part about the story is that the grenade was recovered by Georgian military but no one from the U.S. or the Secret Service knew about this attack until long after the President had returned to American soil. Months after the attempt, a man by the name of Vladimir Arutyunian confessed to the crime and was given a life sentence.