The assassinations of US presidents had lasting impacts on American history, shaping political policies, security measures and public trust in government
It’s not every day that a sitting president gets assassinated, but when it happens, the implications are felt across the entire country, often for decades. In the United States, four sitting presidents have been killed in office, while others have survived attempts on their lives.
Who were the US presidents assassinated while serving, how did those attacks unfold, and which presidents lived through assassination attempts?
How many US presidents have been assassinated?
Four sitting US presidents have been assassinated:
- Abraham Lincoln in 1865
- James A Garfield in 1881
- William McKinley in 1901
- John F Kennedy in 1963
Each of these assassinations sent shockwaves through the nation, leading to significant political and security changes. But how did they happen?
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On 14 April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, fresh from steering the country through the Civil War, was enjoying a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. During the performance, John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathiser and well-known actor, snuck into Lincoln’s private box and shot the president in the back of the head at point-blank range.
Booth had initially planned only to kidnap Lincoln, but after the president had floated an idea to offer African-Americans the vote, he had decided upon a different, more deadly direction. What followed was a wild 12-day manhunt, ending when Booth was cornered and killed by Union soldiers in a barn in Virginia.
But why did the noted actor want to kill Lincoln?
In November 1860, Lincoln had won the presidential election with the anti-slavery Republican Party and became the 16th president of the United States. By the following year, 11 southern states had seceded to form the Confederate States of America, who wanted to preserve their slave-based economy. This kickstarted the American Civil War.
Four years of bitter fighting effectively came to an end on 9 April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered his troops to Union General Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
Booth – who was on the side of the Confederate States of America in the South – was not impressed. He believed that Lincoln had ignited the conflict by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed enslaved people in the South. He also disagreed with Lincoln’s re-election in 1864, which saw the president introduce the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery entirely.
In assassinating Lincoln, Booth sought revenge for the South’s defeat in the Civil War and believed that he could inspire a resurgence of the Confederate cause. He was part of a wider group of conspirators who had also planned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, but these attempts failed.
While Lincoln’s assassination was successful, his death did not achieve Booth’s goal of reviving the Confederate cause. It did, however, derail post-war Reconstruction efforts and delay progress on civil rights for the formerly enslaved.
The assassination of James A Garfield
Less than 20 years after the death of Lincoln, another president was assassinated. President James A Garfield was almost four months into his term when he was shot at a train station in Washington DC, on 2 July 1881. The culprit? Charles J Guiteau, a failed lawyer harbouring a hefty grudge.
Historical accounts suggest that Guiteau lived with severe mental illness, and he believed he deserved a political appointment in Garfield’s administration. When his requests were ignored, he saw assassination as a means to elevate Vice President Chester A Arthur – a staunch supporter of the ‘spoils system’, where government jobs were awarded based on political connections rather than merit – to the presidency, thinking it would benefit his own ambitions.
This thinking was in vain. After shooting Garfield, Guiteau was quickly apprehended, convicted of murder and hanged on 30 June 1882, after a highly publicised trial.
Garfield’s death led to the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883, which reduced corruption by implementing a merit-based system for government positions, rather than patronage.
The assassination of William McKinley
On 6 September 1901, President William McKinley was greeting the public at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, when self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot him twice at close range.
McKinley survived the initial shooting, but developed gangrene from his wounds and died on 14 September. Czolgosz was arrested at the scene. He was convicted of murder and executed in the electric chair on 29 October 1901.
Czolgosz’s attack had been inspired by anarchist rhetoric; he viewed McKinley as the poster boy of corporate greed and oppression. By assassinating the president, he believed he could strike a blow against both the government and capitalism as a whole.
McKinley’s assassination had an immediate political impact, in that it propelled the more moderate and reformist Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency. But it did not lead to the political upheaval or societal change that the self-confessed anarchist likely desired. After McKinley’s death, Congress was inspired to take a closer look at how presidents were protected – and assigned the Secret Service to do the job.
The assassination of John F Kennedy
Where were the Secret Service on 22 November 1963? It’s a question at the heart of one of modern history’s greatest conspiracies.
It was on this day that President John F Kennedy was shot twice, as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. He was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
Within hours of the shooting, 24-year-old former US marine Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee at the Texas School Book Depository – which overlooked Dealey Plaza – was apprehended at a nearby cinema. Witnesses had reportedly seen him fatally shoot a police officer.
Some have argued that Oswald was merely a scapegoat – a claim he himself made while in custody – or that he was not the sole assassin behind the attack on Kennedy.
The murder of Oswald two days after Kennedy’s assassination and before a trial, by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby, only intensified the rumours.
A number of conspiracy theories emerged: some suggested that the plot was orchestrated either by the mafia, angered by the Kennedy administration’s efforts to combat organised crime and its inability to topple Fidel Castro. Others pinned the crime on US intelligence and security agencies, notably the CIA and FBI, aiming to derail the president’s purported plan to withdraw America from the Vietnam War.
As investigative journalist Gerald Posner explains, Ruby’s murder of Oswald “is what really robs us of knowing what happened in detail” and is “why the case will never be closed”.
“Within 48 hours, people are wondering, ‘what happened?’,” says Posner, who was speaking to us for an episode of our History’s Greatest Conspiracies Theories podcast series. "Then the Warren Commission [established by JFK’s successor, Lyndon B Johnson, to investigate the events of 22 November 1963] comes out a year later with its massive report, and most people don’t like the idea of a government commission to decide what happened on a big controversial historical area.”
The official conclusion of the Warren Commission was that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy. However, Oswald’s motives remain the subject of intense debate.
Which US presidents have survived assassination attempts?
While four presidents were killed in office, several others came perilously close to sharing their fate. Each attempt speaks to the vulnerabilities of being elected to the world’s most visible political office.
The seven sitting US presidents who survived assassination attempts:
Andrew Jackson: An assassin attempted to shoot Jackson at point-blank range in 1835, but both of his pistols misfired. Jackson then attacked the would-be assassin with his cane.
Theodore Roosevelt: While campaigning for a third term in 1912, Roosevelt was shot in the chest.
Franklin D Roosevelt: An attempted assassination by Giuseppe Zangara in 1933 failed when his shots missed Roosevelt but killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.
Harry S Truman: In 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to storm Blair House, where Truman was staying; one was killed, and the other was arrested.
Gerald Ford: Two separate assassination attempts were made on Ford within 17 days in 1975, one by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and another by Sara Jane Moore.
Ronald Reagan: John Hinckley Jr shot Reagan in 1981, wounding him and three others. The president recovered.
More recently, Donald Trump survived assassination attempts near Butler, Pennsylvania (July 2024) and in West Palm Beach, Florida (September 2024), although these occurred in between Trump’s two presidential terms.
Authors
Rachel Dinning is digital editor (engagement and video) at HistoryExtra