From Lincoln to Kennedy: Political Assassinations (and Attempted Assassinations) in American History

The killing of Charlie Kirk is another episode of shocking gun violence in America.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Heritage Auctions
Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Heritage Auctions
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

The assassination of one of President Donald Trump's closest political allies, Charlie Kirk, is another episode of shocking gun violence in America.

And the latest in a long line of politically motivated murders.

These are some of the most famous political assassinations in US history.

Watch the moment conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot

President

  • Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

Lincoln was the first US president to be assassinated.

He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while he and his wife were attending a theater performance in Washington.

Lincoln died the next morning, April 15th.

His support for black rights was cited as a motive for his murder.

Booth was shot and killed a few days later in Virginia.

  • James Garfield, 20th President of the United States

Garfield was the second president to be assassinated in the United States.

He was walking through the Washington, D.C., train station on July 2, 1881, when he was shot by Charles Guiteau.

He died in September of that year from an infection because doctors could not find the bullet in his body.

He was in office for only a few months.

Guiteau, who was said to be mentally ill, was found guilty of murder and executed in June 1882.

  • William McKinley, 25th President of the United States

McKinley was shot during a speaking and lecturing tour in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901.

He died a few days later from complications from gunshot wounds inflicted on him by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.

Czolgosz was found guilty and executed in October 1901.

Getty Images
  • John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States

Kennedy was assassinated during a visit to Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

He was in a car with his wife, Jackie Kennedy, as they drove down a Dallas avenue and greeted crowds of people.

As the motorcade drove through downtown Dallas, shots rang out.

Kennedy was taken to the hospital where he died shortly after.

A few hours after the assassination, police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine.

Two days later, Oswald was being taken from the police station to the county jail when Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, shot and killed him.

Presidential candidates

  • Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Senator

Robert F. Kennedy was a U.S. senator from New York and the brother of President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated five years earlier.

Kennedy was running for the Democratic presidential nomination when he was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel, moments after giving a victory speech in the 1968 California primary.

The attacker, Sirhan Sirhan, was charged with first-degree murder and sentenced to death.

The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, where Sirhan remains after his final request for release in 2023 was denied.

Other prominent politicians

AFP via Getty Images
  • Martin Luther King Jr.

The leader of the black civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, where he was supposed to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting low wages and poor working conditions.

He was shot by sniper James Earl Ray from a hotel balcony.

Ray was said to be a white supremacist (people who claim that whites have more rights than blacks).

Martin Luther King died in hospital shortly after, at the age of 39.

Dr. King had previously survived several assassination attempts, including when bombs were thrown at his house in 1956.

A few days after his second presidential term began, in January 2025, Donald Trump has ordered his administration to make plans to declassify documents related to the three most important assassinations in US history. - the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.

To date, this has not happened.

  • Malcolm X

Malcolm X, charismatic advocate for black empowerment, was murdered in a New York City ballroom in front of his family in 1965.

He was 39 years old when he was killed.

For years he was a prominent spokesman for the Nation of Islam, which advocated separatism among black Americans, but his views later became more moderate.

Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam and Thomas Hagan were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aziz and Islam's convictions were overturned in 2021.

Getty Images

Recent murders and attempted murders

Two Democratic lawmakers were murdered in Minnesota on June 14, 2025.

The murders were said to be "politically motivated".

Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed in their home.

State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, who were shot several times in their home in a related incident, survived the attack.

AFP via Getty Images

Current US President Donald Trump was twice targeted for assassination in 2024.

In July 2024, he was shot while giving a speech at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The bullet grazed his ear.

This case bears striking similarities to the Utah shooting - the killing of his associate Charlie Kirk.

Both incidents took place in front of a large number of people in an open area.

In September 2024, the Secret Service allegedly prevented Another attempt to assassinate Trump at his golf club in Florida.

Watch the video about the assassination of Donald Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0_utnuUnvM

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