Found an error?
Report now
1865: Abraham Lincoln - killed: Abraham Lincoln was the first US president to be killed by assassination. While attending a special performance of the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., he is shot in the back. The perpetrator is John Wilkes Booth, an actor and fanatical supporter of the Confederates, who had been defeated in the Civil War two days earlier. Booth shoots the president in the head at close range with his single-shot pistol. Lincoln is brought unconscious into a neighboring building and given medical treatment. The next morning, Lincoln is dead. As it turns out, the assassination is part of a conspiracy against several members of the US government. Lincoln's assassin Booth is later shot dead, four co-conspirators, including a woman, are hanged three months later.
Image: Imago/Kena Images
It was a shock for the whole world: on November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the USA since January 1961, was fatally shot by two rifle shots during an election campaign parade. The images and video sequences of the attack became part of the collective memory, and the date of the attack marked a crossroads - not only for Americans - between the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Even if the Kennedy assassination still has an impact and stands out today, the assassination of JFK is not an isolated case in the history of the United States: twelve other presidents and presidential candidates have already been victims of assassination attempts. And not all of them were as lucky as Donald Trump.
You can find out how life-threatening the office of the American president and his presidential candidates can be in the blue News picture gallery.
The failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump is just the latest in a long line of attacks on US presidents and presidential candidates. Not all of them escaped with their lives.
