A History of Presidential Assassination Attempts, from Andrew Jackson to Donald Trump

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Throughout American history, there have been numerous attempts to assassinate sitting presidents, as well as president-elects and presidential candidates. The most recent is former president Donald Trump, who is currently running for president. He was shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania then targeted at a Florida golf course.

This list is based on Congressional Research Service’s report (which can be read here). In total, four American presidents have been assassinated—Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy—and there have been fourteen other attempted assassinations (two of which were on Gerald Ford, within weeks of each other). In chronological order, here’s an in-depth look at the history of presidential assassination attempts in the United States:

January 30, 1835: Andrew Jackson

Assailant: Richard Lawrence
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Washington D.C.

What happened: The first presidential assassination attempt took place in January 1835, when Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter, hid behind a pillar near the entrance of the Capitol and fired at Andrew Jackson. The pistol misfired, and when Lawrence tried again, bystanders tackled him to the floor. He was declared insane during his trial; per the U.S. Senate, “Lawrence was convinced that he was the rightful King of England and that ‘King Andrew’ alone stood in the way of his claiming his crown.”

April 14, 1865: Abraham Lincoln

Assailant: John Wilkes Booth
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Washington D.C.

What happened: Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theater. He died of his wounds the following day, making him the first president to be assassinated. (The 2024 show Manhunt details the search for Booth in the aftermath of the assassination.) After the Confederate sympathizer shot Lincoln, he leapt to the stage, reportedly shouting, “The South is avenged!”

July 2, 1881: James A. Garfield

Assailant: Charles Guiteau
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Washington D.C.

What happened: James Garfield was the second president to be assassinated, just months after he took office. He was shot by Charles Guiteau at the Baltimore & Potomac train station. He initially survived the shooting but eventually succumbed to his wounds on September 19. Guiteau was a “disgruntled office-seeker and supporter of opposition faction in Republican Party.” An upcoming Netflix drama, Death by Lightning, will tell the tale of Garfield’s assassination.

September 6, 1901: William McKinley

Assailant: Leon F. Czolgosz
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Buffalo, New York

What happened: Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot William McKinley in the chest at point-blank range after the president gave a speech in Buffalo. McKinley died a week later. Czolgosz was found guilty and executed by New York State in October 1901.

October 14, 1912: Theodore Roosevelt

Assailant: John Schrank
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

What happened: John Schrank attempted to kill former president Theodore Roosevelt when he was campaigning in Milwaukee. As he began to speak, Schrank shot him, and the bullet lodged in his 50-page speech and his metal eyeglasses case in his breast pocket.

“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible,” Roosevelt said. “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.” He unbuttoned his shirt, pulling out his speech. “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose! Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet—there is where the bullet went through—and it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

February 15, 1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Assailant: Giuseppe Zangara (pictured)
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Miami, Florida

What happened: Three weeks before Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration, an Italian man named Giuseppe Zangara attempted to kill FDR during a speech in Miami. He got off five shots—missing Roosevelt but killing Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and injuring five bystanders.

Zangara gave his motive to officials as hatred for “all officials and everybody who is rich.” He was tried for the murder of Cermak, found guilty, and executed in March.

November 1, 1950: Harry S. Truman

Assailants: Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola
Method of attack: Automatic weapons fired at Blair House (temporary residence of Truman at the time)
Location: Washington D.C.

What happened: Harry S. Truman, who was staying across the street from the White House, was at home when two gunmen broke in. The president was uninjured, but a White House policeman and assailant Griselio Torresola were killed in the gunfire. Callazo was arrested and sentenced to death, but Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. Collazo and Torresola were Puerto Rican pro-independence activists.

November 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy

Assailant: Lee Harvey Oswald
Method of attack: Rifle
Location: Dallas, Texas

What happened: While riding in a motorcade in Dallas, John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. Two days after Oswald was arrested, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed him. Oswald’s motive remains unknown and in the decades since, conspiracy theories have swirled around the assassination.

Related: Why Jackie Kennedy Kept Wearing Her Blood-Stained Pink Suit

June 5, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy

Assailant: Sirhan Sirhan
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Los Angeles, California

What happened: Robert Kennedy, who was running for president, was at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning California’s democratic primary. RFK was shot and killed by 24-year-old Palestinian refugee Sirhan Sirhan, who says he acted due to Kennedy’s politics regarding Israel. He was sentenced to death, but that sentence was commuted to life in prison. His applications for parole over the years have been denied.

May 15, 1972: George C. Wallace

Assailant: Arthur Bremer
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Laurel, Maryland

What happened: While campaigning, presidential candidate George C. Wallace, then the governor of Alabama, was shot at a shopping center by Arthur Bremer. Wallace was hit four times, including in the abdomen and the chest, and paralyzed from the waist down. Although Wallace went on to win the Maryland primary, the injuries effectively ended his campaign for president.

September 5, 1975: Gerald R. Ford

Assailant: Lynette Fromme
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Sacramento, California

What happened: In the span of just a few weeks, President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts. The first, in Sacramento, was by Lynette Fromme, a Charles Manson follower. Her pistol misfired, and Fromme was convicted and imprisoned.

September 22, 1975: Gerald R. Ford

Assailant: Sara Jane Moore (pictured)
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: San Francisco, California

What happened: Seventeen days after Lynette Fromme tried to assassinate President Ford, Sara Moore tried in San Francisco. Her shot narrowly missed. In 2009, Moore shared, “We were saying the country needed to change. The only way it was going to change was a violent revolution. I genuinely thought that (shooting Ford) might trigger that new revolution in this country.”

March 30, 1981: Ronald Reagan

Assailant: John Hinckley Jr.
Method of attack: Pistol
Location: Washington D.C.

What happened: President Ronald Reagan was leaving the Washington Hilton (pictured) after giving a speech when John Hinckley Jr. opened fire. According to the Associated Press, the 25-year-old wanted to kill the president to “impress actress Jodie Foster.” Reagan was struck in his side and hospitalized for 13 days before he returned to the White House. Hinckley was later found not guilty on account of insanity.

Octobre 29, 1994: Bill Clinton

Assailant: Francisco M. Duran
Method of attack: Semi-automatic assault rifle
Location: Washington D.C.

What Happened: Francisco Duran shot 29 rounds at the White House before he was arrested by Secret Service. Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton was inside and unharmed. Duran was lated convicted of attempting to assassinate the president and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He is still serving his sentence at a federal prison, USP Lee.

May 10, 2005: George W. Bush

Assailant: Vladimir Arutyunian
Method of attack: Grenade
Location: Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

What happened: Vladimir Arutyunian threw a grenade at President George W. Bush and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. The grenade, which landed around 61 feet from the presidents, didn’t detonate. Arutyunian was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Bush and Saakashvili didn’t learn of the incident until the rally was over.

November 11, 2011: Barack Obama

Assailant: Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez
Method of attack: Semi-automatic assault rifle
Location: Washington D.C.

What happened: Oscar Ortega-Hernandez fired at least eight rounds into the White House before he was caught. President Barack Obama wasn’t home at the time. Per court documents from his trial, Ortega-Hernandez “believed the federal government was conspiring against him and that Obama is ‘the devil.’” He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for terrorism and weapons offenses.

Other attempts were made on Obama’s life during his tenure, including in 2018, when Secret Service intercepted a pipe bomb sent to him.

July 13, 2024: Donald Trump

Assailant: Thomas Matthew Crooks
Method of attack: AR-15 style rifle
Location: Butler, Pennsylvania

What happened: As former President Donald Trump was speaking at a campaign rally, Thomas Crooks fired from a nearby roof, killing an attendee and critically injuring two others. Crooks was killed, and Trump was wounded in his ear. Six days later, Trump officially became the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee. Investigations into the attempted assassination are still ongoing.

September 15, 2024: Donald Trump

Assailant: Ryan Wesley Routh
Method of attack: AK-style rifle
Location: West Palm Beach, Florida

What happened: Nine weeks after former President Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt, the 2024 presidential nominee was targeted again while golfing at Trump International Golf Club in Florida. A Secret Service agent spotted suspect Ryan Routh in the brush near the sixth hole with rifle barrel and shot at him. Routh fled but was arrested later that day; Trump was unharmed. The 58-year-old gunman is awaiting trial on five federal charges, including attempted assassination.

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