Four US presidents who were assassinated were all shot

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to die by assassination. He was shot in the back of the head in 1865 during an appearance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, by John Wilkes Booth, an actor in the play that night and Southern sympathizer. Booth fled the scene and was shot when he was captured weeks later in Virginia.

James Garfield was shot at a train station in Washington, DC, in July 1881. He died from his wounds months later, in September, in New Jersey. Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a disaffected former supporter with mental illness who was angry at not getting a job in Garfield’s administration. Guiteau was convicted and hanged within the year.

William McKinley was shot in September 1901 in Buffalo, New York, by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. McKinley was making an appearance at the Pan-American Exposition. He lingered for days in Buffalo before dying from his wounds. Czolgosz was later electrocuted.

John F. Kennedy was killed by a sniper, Lee Harvey Oswald, in Dallas in November 1963 as he was driven down a parade route in an open-topped limousine. Oswald, a Soviet sympathizer, was arrested days after the shooting. Oswald was himself killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police station.

JFK’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was a senator from New York when he was running for president in 1968. RFK was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night he won the California Democratic primary. His killer, Sirhan Sirhan, is still in jail in California and recently had a parole request denied. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an independent candidate for president this year.