The Presidential Assassins

To date, only four American Presidents have been murdered--Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Were it not for the murderous acts of four men, Ford's Theater, the Baltimore & Potomac Depot, the Temple of Music, and the Texas School Book Depository would have never gained the attention of historians. Presidential assassins, John Wilkes Booth, Charles Julius Guiteau, Leon Frank Czolgosz, and Lee Harvey Oswald left indelible stains on those buildings, as well as the annals of history. On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth fired a derringer into the back of Abraham Lincoln's head while the President was attending a performance at Washington D.C.'s Ford's Theater. Lincoln survived only nine hours; Booth was tracked down and killed 12 days later. Charles Julius Guiteau shot James Garfield in the back with a revolver on July 2, 1881, as the President prepared to board a train at the capitol city's Baltimore & Potomac Depot. Garfield suffered for 80 agonizing days, before succumbing to complications arising from his bullet wound. Guiteau was executed almost a year to the day after he shot Garfield. On September 6, 1901, Leon Frank Czolgosz shot William McKinley twice with his revolver, once in the chest and the other in the abdomen, during a public reception at the Pan-American Exposition's Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York. McKinley lived for eight days; Czolgosz was executed less than two months after the shooting. Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle on November 22, 1963 during a presidential motorcade in downtown Dallas, Texas. Firing from a self-constructed sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, Oswald wounded President Kennedy in the neck and head, and seriously injured Texas Governor, John Connally. Kennedy was killed almost instantly from the gunshot wound to his head, even though physicians at Parkland Hospital did not officially pronounce him dead until a half-hour after the shooting. Two days later, Oswald was fatally shot by Jack Ruby, a mentally unstable strip club manager, who sought revenge on behalf of the Kennedy family and a grieving nation. "The Presidential Assassins: John Wilkes Booth, Charles Julius Guiteau, Leon Frank Czolgosz, and Lee Harvey Oswald" recounts the lives of four men, who forever changed history. Did they seek notoriety? Were their violent acts personally or politically motivated? Were they mentally unstable? Those questions and many others are addressed in each of their compelling stories.