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Assassin(s) | Year (AD format) | Target | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ehud | ca. 1200 BC | Moabite king Eglon | Killed | Stabbed to death in his throne room (Judges 3:12-30). |
| Arda Mulissi | 681 BC | Assyrian king Sennacherib | Killed | Stabbed to death while at prayer in a temple, or possibly crushed under a winged bull colossus.[1] |
| Jing Ke | 227 BC | Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang | Survived | One of the earliest documented attempts. |
| A strongman hired by Zhang Liang | 218 BC | Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang | Survived | Long-distance heavy hammer (30-kg) throwing; the origin of a Chinese idiom 誤中副車 ("mistakenly hit the escort carriage"). |
| Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and others | 44 BC | Roman Dictator Julius Caesar | Killed | Resulted in Civil War and indirectly in the end of the Roman Republic |
| Fan Jiang, Zhang Da | 221 | military general of Shu Han Zhang Fei | Killed | |
| Hashshashin | 1192 | Conrad of Montferrat | Killed | |
| Pazzi Conspiracy | 1478 | Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici | See notes | Giuliano died, after being stabbed 19 times, but Lorenzo escaped. |
| Oda Nobunaga | 1557 | Sengoku period Oda Nobuyuki | Killed | |
| Balthasar Gérard | 1584 | Dutch Stadtholder William the Silent | Killed | The first assassination carried out with a firearm. |
| Jacques Clément | 1589 | King Henry III of France | Killed | Religious-political antagonism. |
| Guy Fawkes | 1605 | King James I of England, Parliament of England | Survived | See the Gunpowder Plot. |
| François Ravaillac | 1610 | King Henry IV of France | Killed | Religious-political antagonism. |
| Army officers | 1747 | King Nader Shah | Killed | He was able to kill two of the assassins before dying. |
| Jacob Johan Anckarström | 1792 | King Gustav III of Sweden | Killed | The king was shot at a masquerade ball and died two weeks later from his wounds. |
| Charlotte Corday | 1793 | French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat | Killed | Later often seen as a patriotic act. |
| François-Joseph Carbon | 1800 | French Emperor, King of italy Napoleon I of France | Survived | Detonated an explosion by the roadside in an attempt to kill Bonaparte, which he narrowly missed. The attempt is referred to as the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise. |
| John Bellingham | 1812 | UK Prime Minister Spencer Perceval | Killed | First and only U.K. Prime Minister to be assassinated. |
| Richard Lawrence | 1835 | US President Andrew Jackson | Survived | First attempt to kill a US President, Jan. 30. Both guns misfired. |
| Edward Oxford | 1840 | Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom | Survived | Oxford fired twice, but both bullets missed. |
| Unknown | 1842 | Former Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs | Survived | Orrin Porter Rockwell, a close associate of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., charged but acquitted of all charges. |
| János Libényi | 1853 | Austrian Emperor, King of Bohemia Franz Joseph I of Austria | Survived | Attacked with a dagger to the back of the neck. Survived due to the thick collar of his uniform. |
| John Wilkes Booth | 1865 | US President Abraham Lincoln | Killed | First assassination of a sitting United States President. See Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. |
| Patrick J. Whelan | 1868 | Canadian Member of Parliament Thomas D'Arcy McGee | Killed | Only Canadian victim of assassination at the federal level. |
| Charles J. Guiteau | 1881 | US President James Garfield | Killed | Died 80 days following the shooting. See James A. Garfield assassination. |
| Ignacy Hryniewiecki | 1881 | Tsar Alexander II of Russia | Killed | Assassination plot concluded with bombs. |
| Tsuda Sanzo | 1891 | Tsar Nicholas II of Russia | Survived | The Tsar was attacked with a sabre during a state visit to Japan. |
| Mirza Reza Kermani | 1896 | King Naser al-Din Shah Qajar | Killed | Ironically assassinated on the day of his fiftieth kingship ceremony. |
| Frederick Russell Burnham | 1896 | Mlimo, the Ndebele religious leader | Killed | Effectively ended the Second Matabele War. |
| Luigi Lucheni | 1898 | Empress Elisabeth of Austria | Killed | Lucheni attacked the Empress randomly on the street of Geneva, in a senseless act of violence. Elisabeth was stabbed in the heart once with a sharp needle file. Due to her extremely tight corset, she had no idea she has been wounded and collapsed suddenly two hours later due to slow internal hemorrhaging. |
| Gaetano Bresci | 1900 | King Umberto I of Italy | Killed | |
| Leon Czolgosz | 1901 | US President William McKinley | Killed | See William McKinley assassination. |
| Eugen Schauman | 1904 | Governor-General of Finland Nikolai Ivanovich Bobrikov | Killed | Happens on day described in James Joyce's novel Ulysses, is briefly mentioned in the book |
| An Jung-geun | 1909 | Prime Minister of Japan Itoh Hirobumi | Killed | |
| John Schrank | 1912 | former US President Theodore Roosevelt | Survived | Shot at campaign event; Roosevelt continued with his speech. |
| Alexandros Schinas | 1913 | King George I of Greece | Killed | Possible conspiracy. |
| Gavrilo Princip | 1914 | Austro-Hungarian Archduke Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria | Killed | Considered the start of World War I. |
| Raoul Villain | 1914 | French socialist leader Jean Jaurès | Killed | The assassin was tried and acquitted in 1919. |
| Fritz Joubert Duquesne | 1916 | Lord Kitchener, British Field Marshal and Secretary of State for War | Killed | Killed on the HMS Hampshire after the cruiser struck a mine; Duquesne falsely claimed to have sabotaged Hampshire. |
| Fanny Kaplan | 1918 | Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin | Survived | Shot on factory meeting, Fanny Kaplan was captured and executed by Bolsheviks. Lenin died 6 years later due to unrelated causes, but within Russian pop culture, Kaplan is still widely considered to have killed him. |
| Unknown | 1922 | Michael Collins | Killed | Killed in an ambush firefight near the end of Irish Civil War. |
| Eligiusz Niewiadomski | 1922 | First Polish President Gabriel Narutowicz | Killed | Killed five days after his inauguration, while attending the opening of an art exhibit at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw. |
| Giuseppe Zangara | 1933 | Anton Cermak | Killed | Killed in Miami, Florida during a visit of president-elect of Franklin Roosevelt. |
| Vlado Chernozemski | 1934 | Alexander I of Yugoslavia | Killed | Killed in Marseille during a state visit. |
| Carl Weiss | 1935 | US Senator Huey Long | Killed | Shot in a Louisiana State Capitol hallway. |
| Ramón Mercader | 1940 | Lev Bronstein Trotsky | Killed | Killed by a pick-hit on head. |
| Vasil Laçi | 1941 | Victor Emmanuel III | Survived | |
| Jan Kubiš, Jozef Gabčík | 1942 | SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich | Killed | |
| Claus von Stauffenberg | 1944 | Chancellor and Führer of Germany Adolf Hitler | Survived | See the July 20 plot. |
| Nathuram Godse | 1948 | Political and Spiritual Leader Mahatma Gandhi | Killed | |
| Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola | 1950 | US President Harry S. Truman | Survived | Attempt to draw attention to the Puerto Rico independence movement, in which both attempted killers were active. See Truman assassination attempt. |
| Talduwe Somarama | 1959 | Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Solomon Bandaranaike | Killed | Assassinated by a Buddhist monk as part of a conspiracy. |
| Otoya Yamaguchi | 1960 | Inejiro Asanuma | Killed | Asanuma was pierced to assassin's bayonet while making a speech. |
| Richard Paul Pavlick | 1960 | US President-elect John F. Kennedy | Survived | Dec. 11 See: John F. Kennedy |
| Jean Bastien-Thiry and the OAS | 1962 | French President Charles de Gaulle | Survived | |
| Nguyen Van Cu and Pham Phu Quoc | 1962 | President of the Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem | Survived | See 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing |
| Byron De La Beckwith | 1963 | Medgar Evers | Killed | Evers, an African American activist and NAACP leader, was shot by De La Beckwith, a Ku Klux Klan member, who was convicted in 1994. |
| Generally believed to be Nguyen Van Nhung and Duong Hieu Nghia, on orders from Duong Van Minh | 1963 | President of the Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem | Killed | Part of the 1963 South Vietnamese coup. See Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. |
| Believed to be Lee Harvey Oswald | 1963 | US President John F. Kennedy | Killed | For general information on the incident, see John F. Kennedy assassination. The US Government's official report concluded that Oswald acted alone, however a subsequent investigation contradicted the Warren Commission's findings. See: House Select Committee on Assassinations (1979) |
| Jack Ruby | 1963 | Lee Harvey Oswald | Killed | First live murder ever seen on US television |
| Norman 3X Butler, Thomas 15X Johnson, Talmadge Hayer | 1965 | Activist Malcolm X | Killed | Tensions and departure from the Nation of Islam |
| Uncertain, believed to be James Earl Ray or Loyd Jowers | 1968 | Political activist Martin Luther King, Jr. | Killed | Ray was convicted on a guilty plea but later recanted, while a 1999 civil trial convicted Jowers and 'unknown others', while also noting that 'governmental agencies were parties' to the plot. See Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| Sirhan Sirhan | 1968 | US Senator Robert F. Kennedy | Killed | See Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. |
| Huang Wen-hsiung | 1970 | Vice Prime Minister of Republic of China Chiang Ching-kuo | Survived | |
| Members of the Front de libération du Québec | 1970 | Vice Premier of Quebec Pierre Laporte | Killed | Kidnapped and later killed. One of only two political assassinations in Canadian history. |
| Arthur Bremer | 1972 | US Presidential candidate George Wallace | Survived | Wallace was paralyzed for life |
| ETA | 1973 | President of the Government of Spain Luis Carrero Blanco | Killed | The murder of Luis Carrero Blanco was, according to ETA, then to intensify existing divisions within the Franco regime between the "openness" and "purists". |
| Samuel Byck | 1974 | US President Richard Nixon | Survived | Attempted to hijack a commercial jet with the intention of crashing it into the White House. |
| Prince Faisal bin Musa'id | 1975 | Saudi King Faisal | Killed | |
| Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad and coup | 1975 | First Bangladeshi President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman | Killed | The coup was planned by disgruntled Awami League colleagues and military officers who were led by Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, and they targeted to exterminate his entire family. |
| Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme | 1975 | US President Gerald Ford | Survived | |
| Sara Jane Moore | 1975 | US President Gerald Ford | Survived | |
| Chilean DINA agents | 1976 | Orlando Letelier | Killed | Killed by a car bomb, September 21, 1976, along with his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt. |
| Dan White | 1978 | San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk | Killed | Killed over not reappointing Dan White supervisor. See Moscone–Milk assassinations. |
| Larry Layton and other members of the Peoples Temple | 1978 | Leo Ryan, Congressman from California | Killed | Killed in Guyana during an official visit to investigate allegations of abuse of American citizens at the Jonestown compound of the Peoples Temple religious organization. See Leo_Ryan#Jungle_ambush. |
| Kim Jae-kyu | 1979 | South Korean President Park Chung-hee | Killed | See Park Chung-hee assassination. |
| Thomas McMahon | 1979 | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Killed | Killed along with three others while on a fishing trip with his family by a bomb planted onto his boat by McMahon. McMahon was a member of the Irish Republican Army, who claimed responsibility for the attack. |
| Mark David Chapman | 1980 | John Lennon | Killed | Obsession with The Catcher in the Rye. See Assassination of John Lennon. |
| John Hinckley, Jr. | 1981 | US President Ronald Reagan | Survived | To impress actress Jodie Foster. See Reagan assassination attempt. |
| Khalid Islambouli | 1981 | Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat | Killed | Rare attack carried out by a group. |
| Mehmet Ali Ağca | 1981 | Catholic Pope John Paul II | Survived | See Pope John Paul II assassination attempt. |
| Group of army officers | 1981 | Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman | Killed | Plotted by a faction of officers of Bangladesh Army led by General Abul Monjur. |
| Habib Tanious Shartouni | 1982 | Lebanese President Bachir Gemayel | Killed | Bomb explosion in the Phalange's Beirut headquarters. |
| Uncertain believed to be Rogelio Moreno instead of Rolando Galman | 1983 | Philippine Senator Ninoy Aquino | Killed | Believed to have been ordered by then President Ferdinand Marcos. |
| Satwant Singh and Beant Singh | 1984 | Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi | Killed | Assassinated by personal bodyguards. |
| Provisional Irish Republican Army | 1984 | British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher | Survived | Detonated a bomb at the Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton. |
| Unknown | 1986 | Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme | Killed | Shot on his way home from a cinema on a street in central Stockholm. See Assassination of Olof Palme. |
| Dieter Kaufmann | 1990 | German Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble | Survived | Shot in back and face after an election campaign event in Oppenau. Has been paralysed and confined to a wheelchair ever since. |
| Provisional Irish Republican Army | 1991 | British Prime Minister John Major | Survived | Mortar attack during a meeting at 10 Downing Street |
| Thenmuli Rajaratnam | 1991 | Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi | Killed | Killed in an explosion triggered by a LTTE suicide bomber. See Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. |
| Janusz Walus | 1993 | South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani | Killed | Anti-Communist killing |
| Unknown | 1993 | Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa | Killed | Attack carried out by an LTTE suicide bomber on May Day parade. |
| Mario Aburto | 1994 | Mexican Candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio | Killed | |
| Uncertain; see main article for theories | 1994 | Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira | Killed | Plane carrying the two leaders shot down by unknown attackers with a surface-to-air missile. The attack was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. See Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira. |
| Yigal Amir | 1995 | Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin | Killed | Attack carried out by Israeli opposed to Oslo Accords. See Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. |
| Michael Abram | 1999 | George Harrison | Survived | Abram broke into Harrison's house and repeatedly stabbed him. |
| ETA | 2000 | Member of the Basque Parliament Fernando Buesa | Killed | Car bombing |
| Dipendra | 2001 | King Birendra of Nepal and other royal family members of same country | Killed | See Nepalese royal massacre. |
| Volkert van der Graaf | 2002 | Dutch Election Candidate Pim Fortuyn | Killed | The attack took place in a parking lot outside a radio studio in Hilversum, where Fortuyn had just given an interview. |
| Maxime Brunerie | 2002 | French President Jacques Chirac | Survived | Brunerie attempted to shoot the President during the Bastille Day Military Parade. |
| Mijailo Mijailović | 2003 | Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh | Killed | Lindh was stabbed while visiting a shopping centre in Stockholm. She died the following morning. |
| Zvezdan Jovanović | 2003 | Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić | Killed | Jovanović killed his victim with a sniper rifle (a relatively rare type of assassination); he is suspected to have acted for organized crime backers. See Assassination of Zoran Đinđić. |
| Chen Yi-hsiung | 2004 | President of Republic of China Chen Shui-bian | Survived | See 3-19 shooting incident. |
| Unknown | 2005 | Former Lebanese Prime Minister and billionaire Rafik Hariri | Killed | Assassination via car bomb in Beirut. |
| Vladimir Arutyunian | 2005 | U.S. President George W. Bush and Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili | Survived | Threw a hand grenade at Bush, which failed to detonate. |
| Unknown; many theories | 2006 | Journalist Anna Politkovskaya | Killed | Shot in the elevator block of her apartment in Moscow. See Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. |
| Unknown, though believed to be figures within the government of Russia | 2006 | Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko | Killed | Acute radiation syndrome via ingestion of polonium-210. See Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. |
| Unknown, widely believed to be Islamic militants | 2007 | Former Prime Minister of Pakistan and Pakistan Peoples Party Chair and Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto | Killed | Killed while entering a vehicle upon leaving a political rally for the Pakistan People's Party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. See Assassination of Benazir Bhutto. |
| Soldiers | 2009 | President of Guinea-Bissau João Bernardo Vieira | Killed | Hacked to death during armed attack on his residence in Bissau. |
| Karst Tates | 2009 | Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and royal family | Survived | Attempted to ram the Queen's bus with his car. See 2009 attack on the Dutch Royal Family. |
| Men under his aide de camp | 2009 | President of Guinea Moussa Dadis Camara | Survived | Currently in Burkina Faso |
| Unknown, widely believed to be Mossad agents | 2010 | Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, senior Hamas military commander | Killed | Exact cause unknown; possibilities include suffocation, strangulation, and electrocution. See Assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. |
| Casey Brezik | 2010 | Missouri Governor Jay Nixon | Survived | Mistakenly stabbed a college dean in a hallway by a lectern where Nixon was to speak. Brezik told police that he thought he had stabbed Nixon. |
| Unknown, believed to be two ranch workers | 2010 | Eugène Terre'Blanche, founder of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging in South Africa | Killed | He was found hacked and beaten to death at his farm, allegedly killed by two of his workers. |
| Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri | 2011 | Salmaan Taseer, 26th Governor of Punjab | Killed | |
| Jared Lee Loughner | 2011 | Gabrielle Giffords, U.S. Representative from Arizona | Survived | Shot, along with several staffers and U.S. District Judge John Roll (killed), at a constituent event in her district. There were a total of at least 6 deaths and 12 injured. |
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/murderersennacherib.htm Parpola, Simo, "The Murderer of Sennacherib", from Alster, Bendt (ed.), "Death in Mesopotamia", XXVIème Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Akademisk Forlag, 1980.
