There have been 4 Presidents of the USA assassinated in office - Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. There have been numerous other attempts, but these 4 were the only successes. Two of the assassins are quite famous, John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln) and Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK). The other two, like the presidents they assassinated, are more obscure references.
Charles Guiteau is one of the obscure assassins, and in some ways he is considered to not be the actual assassin - he just shot the President. The doctors who tended to Garfield were clumsy, and did horrible work at trying to help the shot President. Guiteau himself said "The doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him".
Guiteau was an unstable sort from Illinois, although he had a lot of exposure to a religious sect in Oneida, NY through his father's involvement. The instability led him to over imagine his own sense of importance, and believed that some political work he had done had helped win Garfield the election in 1880. When Guiteau was turned down for a cabinet post or an ambassadorship, his instability led him to shoot Garfield in revenge.
Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881 but did not die until September 19th of that year. Guiteau was tried and found guilty, and was hung on June 30, 1882.
No comments:
Post a Comment