Here are assassinations that changed the world!
James Garfield
Of the four American Presidents to be assassinated, James Garfield, was maybe the least remembered.
But it's probably the weirdest of the bunch.
Garfield was the 20th US president, having won the 1880 election.
As the Republican nominee, he won his party's nomination, even though his party was divided
between the establishment and a faction known as Stalwarts.
A member of that faction was a crazy man named Charles J. Guiteau.
Convinced that by giving a poorly attended speech, Guiteau, who had a history of mental
illness, figured he should be appointed as an ambassador.
Garfield and his cabinet saw things differently and denied him any such post.
In a measure of revenge, Guiteau set about to kill President Garfield.
He stalked him for weeks and finally put his plan into action on July 2, 1881, when he
shot Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington D.C.
President Garfield died on September 19th because of complications with his gunshot
wound.
His Vice President, Chester A. Arthur became president, and Guiteau, obviously still insane,
thought that Arthur, a fellow Stalwart, would reward him for killing the President.
Unfortunately for him, it panned out a bit differently.
He was tried during November of 1881, in a bizarre spectacle.
During his trial he would recite long, nonsensical poems as his defense and would solicit legal
advice from bewildered spectators.
His defense argued, probably correctly, that he was mentally insane, but he was still sentenced
to die.
He was hung on June 30, 1882, allegedly dancing his way to the gallows.
William McKinley
The 25th U.S President isn't talked about all that much.
But his presidency was pretty important, if only for his assassination in 1901, which
led to Teddy Roosevelt becoming President.
The Newly elected Mckinley was six months into his second term when he made a visit
to the Pan-American Expo in Buffalo, New York.
While stopping in the Temple of Music, he was shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz.
McKinley died six days later from gangrene.
Czolgosz had lost his job during the economic panic of 1893, which he apparently blamed
on McKinley.
The assassination was done in front of a crowd of people, and Czolgosz was sentenced to death,
via the electric chair.
It was significant in that it led to Teddy Roosevelt, one of the most influential presidents
ever, taking office AND it led congress to officially establish the Secret Service to
protect the President.
Ironically, McKinley's Secretary of State knew something was fishy at the Expo and tried
to cancel the President's visit to the Temple of Music, twice.
McKinley overruled him, twice.
Martin Luther King Jr.
No one was more iconic during the 1960's Civil Rights movement than Martin Luther King
Jr.
His death in 1968 had a huge impact on the movement, the decade, and arguably, American
History.
His accolades during the late 50's and 60;s are numerous, and by now we're all very
aware of his impact.
As a vocal and proactive leader of civil rights, he was an inspiration to people of every race.
His advocacy for nonviolence and civil disobedience won him a nobel peace prize in 1964.
But he also made more than a few enemies along the way.
On April 4, 1968, King was staying at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, he was
shot and killed by a man named James Earl Ray.
Ray was seen fleeing the scene and evidence was later recovered with his fingerprints.
But Ray managed to escape to Canada and hid out for over a month.
When he was finally arrested in London in March of 1969, he confessed to the killing.
Though he later recanted the confession, he was sentenced to 99 years in prison, where
he died in 1998.
However, questions remain as to if he was the actual killer, or if it were part of a
larger conspiracy.
The impact of the death heightened racial tensions in the country.
King is rightfully remembered as a martyr and as an American Hero.
John F Kennedy
To date, JFK is the fourth and most recent President to be assassinated.
When he was shot in Dealey Plaza in November of '63, it set in motion a series of events
that we still haven't wrapped our minds around more than 50 years later.
To this day conspiracy theories are still out of control.
It was the CIA, some say, or the FBI.
Maybe it was even a power grab by his successor, Lyndon.
B Johnson.
While the Warren Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone killer, most people
at least believe there was a second shooter.
Regardless of who killed him and why it completely unraveled things for a long time.
America was already divided on Kennedy, given his stance on Civil Rights and for the fact
that he was Catholic, plus there was the whole Vietnam issue, which was handled quite poorly
by Johnson in the years after Kennedy's death.
It was one of the most significant events of the 20th century, and even American History.
Whether we'll ever get the full story remains to be seen.
Robert F Kennedy
Soon after the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy was killed as
well.
As a Senator from New York, Kennedy had set his sights on the White House, just as his
brother had eight years earlier.
Sadly he met a similar deadly fate.
During the Democratic primaries, he was campaigning in Los Angeles.
After giving a speech at the Ambassador Hotel, he was shot by a Jordanian immigrant named
Sirhan Sirhan.
He died the next day.
Much like with his brother's killing, conspiracy theories ran amuck, with people suggesting
CIA involvement, and of course the second gunmen theory!
Today, Sirhan Sirhan is still blamed as the lone killer and is serving a life sentence.
The assassination had a giant impact on America and the world.
The 60's were a crazy time in America, and many people saw Robert as a beacon of optimism.
Coming on the heels of the King assassination, this came as another gut punch to progressives,
who believed in each of their messages.
As he was probably gonna win the Democratic nomination, the Democrats had to quickly nominate
Hubert Humphrey, who of course lost out to Republican Richard Nixon that November.
Nixon is remembered as the most corrupt person ever to occupy the White House, and had he
lost to another Kennedy, who knows?
Maybe things would have turned out much better.
Julius Caesar
We're throwing it back to ancient times for this one.
Julius Caesar was a key figure in the rise of the Roman Empire, and during his rule,
he centralised a lot of power, essentially making himself a dictator.
In doing so, he angered the Senate, who feared he would strip them all of their power.
In what became known as the Ides of March in 44 B.C, a group of Senators brutally assassinated
him.
When he appeared before the Senate on March 15, he was ambushed by a group of about 60
senators, and stabbed 23 times.
The ring leader was a guy named Brutus, who was Caesar's right hand man prompting Caesar's
alleged last words, "Y tu Brutus?" or "You too my child?"
according to some accounts.
However, the Roman Republic could not be saved.
Caesar left his adopted son, Octavian in charge, who rallied his armies against the Republic's.
When Octavian prevailed, many of the assassins including Brutus, committed suicide.
Octavian became known as Augustus and ruled the Roman Empire until his death in 14 AD.
Andrey Karlov
This is easily the most recent political assassination, and since it's still a developing story
at the release of this video, we don't know all the details and ramifications.
But what is publicly known is that Mr. Karlov was the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, a post
he had held since 2013.
Before serving in Turkey, he was the Ambassador to North Korea.
The assassination was incredibly brazen, as Karlov was shot at point blank range in a
crowded art gallery.
The gunmen was a 22 year old off duty Turkish Police Officer who shouted "don't Forget
Aleppo, Don't Forget Syria," except he said it in Turkish.
This assassination, while terrible in and of itself, will no doubt further strain relations
between Turkey and Russia.
Turkey and Russia have been at odds over Russia's role in the Syrian civil war, which has left
thousands of Syrians dead and has scattered refugees all over Europe.
According to the New York Times, Russian forces backing Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad had
targeted Turkmen fighting with rebel forces against the Syrian government.
Turkey shot down a Russian jet last year, after Russia continued to invade Turkish airspace.
So with tensions between the countries already pretty intense, it's not clear how this assassination
of a Russian diplomat, whose job was to ease tensions, will play out.
Our guess is it's not gonna be good.
Ghandi
As a late leader of the Indian Independence movement, Gandhi's use of non violence and
civil disobedience led India gaining independence from Great Britain in 1946.
His efforts earned him the nickname "Father of the Nation."
However, he was brutally assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu Nationalist named Nathuram Godse,
who was convinced that the movement spearheaded by Ghandi was hurting Hindus all over India
and Pakistan.
He was supposedly part of a Nationalist movement that blamed Gandhi for the partitioning of
India and Pakistan.
Godse was later executed and many of his conspirators were either sentenced or executed as well.
Gandhi was the inspiration for civil rights movements all over the world.
India's Prime Minister said it best when he told the country "Light has gone out
of the world."
Franz Ferdinand
It only seems fitting that the assassination that started WWI should be included on the
list.
I'll spare you the extensive backstory, but here's the basic gist of what went down.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a guy named Gavrilo Princip, a 19 year
old who was part of the Young Bosnia, a group of revolutionaries.
The Archduke was on his way to tour an area damaged by a bomb.
When their driver got lost, they happened to encounter Princip by chance.
Seeing an opportunity to carry out the assassination, he shot both Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.
As the story goes, the Archduke's dying words were, "Don't die darling, live for
our children."
Both the Archduke and Sophie died that day.
As a result, Germany and Austria along with their allies declared war on Serbia and her
allies, setting up WWI, a war in which more than 16 million people were killed worldwide.
Abraham Lincoln
The assassination of Lincoln was the first of four US Presidential Assassinations.
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, American was more divided than it had ever been, and
it was up to Lincoln to the nation together.
Anyway, you know the saga.
The North and South fought in a brutal war with the North prevailing, slavery ending,
and the South rejoining America.
But some Southerners were still bitter over things, and a group of them hatched a scheme.
Things came to a head on April 14, 1865, when Lincoln attended Ford's Theatre to catch
a play called Our American Cousin.
An actor named John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head and leapt off the
balcony crying out "Sic sempre Tyrannis" which means "death to tyrants."
Booth was later tracked down and killed after a lengthy manhunt.
The killing was part of a larger plot to reinstate the Confederacy, but it ultimately failed.
In the years following Lincoln's death, reconstruction proved difficult, and his successor,
Andrew Johnson proved to be a rather ineffectual leader, and eventually became the first President
to become impeached.
Here's what's next!
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