US presidential assassinations and attempts

On July 13, gunshots rang out at a campaign rally for Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. One of the shots grazed the former president's right ear but did not seriously injure him. Two attendees at the rally were seriously wounded, and one was killed. Secret Service agents shot and killed the gunman.

US investigators at the FBI have not released details on what they believe may have motivated the 20-year-old man to shoot at the former president during a campaign rally . US media reports suggest the suspect, who was killed at the scene, was a Republican, although he once donated money to a Democratic fundraising platform.

The attack is being treated as an "assassination attempt," the FBI said. For many Americans, the shooting recalls similar attempts in US history, such as the shooting of Ronald Reagan and the Kennedys. 

1981: Ronald Reagan

A lone gunman shot President Ronald Regan as he was leaving a speaking engagement at the Hilton hotel in Washington. The gunman, John Hinckley, Jr., fired from the crowd around Reagan's limousine. Hinckley was 25 at the time and was suffering from acute psychosis. He thought if he shot Reagan, actress Jodie Foster might notice him. In 1982, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered to undergo treatment at a psychiatric hospital.

Reagan spent almost two weeks in the hospital after one of Hinckley's bullets ricocheted off the presidential limousine and hit him. It grazed a rib and narrowly missed his heart. Reagan's public approval ratings went up after the assassination attempt.

Hinckley was freed from psychiatric supervision in 2022 and has been trying to establish himself as a painter and folk singer. However, he is still associated with the assassination attempt, and several of his concerts have been canceled.

"I know I'm known for an act of violence," Hinckley told a Connecticut news station WTNH earlier this year. "But I'm a completely different person than in 1981. I stand for peace now."

The shooting was the last time a current or former president was wounded in an assassination attempt until the July 13 attack on Trump.

1975: Gerald Ford

Two different women tried to kill US President Gerald Ford in separate attempts just 17 days apart. They are the only two female assailants ever to try and kill a US president.

The first attempt was by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the notorious Charles Manson family. Fromme pulled a gun on Ford on September 5, 1975, as he was walking in Sacramento, California. She was immediately tackled to the ground by Secret Service agents and the gun didn't go off. Fromme was apparently trying to plead with Ford about the plight of California redwood trees and to win approval of cult leader Charles Manson, with whom she was obsessed.

Fromme was released from prison in 2009.

The second attempt on Ford's life was by Sara Jane Moore outside a San Francisco Hotel on September 22. Moore also tried to shoot Ford and said she wanted the assassination to spark a violent revolution in the United States. But she missed it, and her second attempt was interrupted by a passerby.

Moore spent most of her life in prison and upon her release after 32 years, at the age of 77, said she had been "blinded by her radical political views."

1972: George Wallace

A governor of Alabama, George Wallace, was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in a Maryland shopping mall when he was shot five times by Arthur Bremer.

Wallace was a well-known segregationist, populist and racist. During his speech, he spoke about how white Americans were being "forgotten." Bremer shot Wallace after the speech. The assassination attempt paralyzed Wallace from the waist down.

Bremer had written a violently descriptive diary about his desire to kill either Wallace or Richard Nixon and was supposedly motivated by the fame such a murder would bring him. He was released from prison in 2007.

As for Wallace, he carried on in state politics and ended up seeking forgiveness from Black Americans for the division he had sewn. 

1968: Robert Kennedy

While campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Robert Kennedy was shot three times at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, on June 5 by Sirhan Sirhan and died the following day. Sirhan was subdued by several people in the ballroom where the shooting took place. Five other people were also shot at the event, however all of them recovered.

The assassination had a major impact on the 1968 presidential race and occurred just two months after the killing of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., adding to the political turmoil of the late 1960s.

Sirhan, a Palestinian, said the conflict in the Middle East motivated him to shoot Robert Kennedy, particularly because of Kennedy's support for Israel and a campaign promise to send 50 fighter jets to Israel if elected president. Sirhan was convicted on April 17, 1969, and was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. That sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

1963: John F. Kennedy

President Kennedy was assassinated in downtown Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a motorcade with his wife, Jacqueline, on November 22. Kennedy was immediately brought to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he died.

Shortly after the assassination, police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald after finding a sniper's perch in the Texas School Book Depository.

The Warren Commission investigating the assassination concluded in 1964 that Oswald, a former marine who had lived in the Soviet Union, had acted alone. Oswald maintained his innocence when arrested, stating he was a "patsy" and only taken into custody because he had lived in the Soviet Union.

Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, while being brought from the police headquarters to a country jail two days after John F. Kennedy's assassination.

The Kennedy assassination launched a spate of conspiracy theories and remains a topic of widespread debate.

Kennedy was the fourth US president to be assassinated and the most recent to have died while in office. The three other assassinated presidents were: Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901).

Edited by: Kristin Zeier