1901: President McKinley's Killer Sentenced to Death After Jury Deliberates Barely an Hour

Leon Czolgosz shot President William McKinley on 6 September 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, firing two shots from a revolver he had concealed inside a handkerchief. McKinley lingered for eight days before dying of his wounds on 14 September.

Czolgosz's trial opened on 23 September. The jury took less than an hour to find him guilty, and on 26 September he was sentenced to death. He was executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison on 29 October 1901, and prison officials later poured acid into his coffin to prevent the grave becoming a shrine.

Czolgosz showed no remorse for the killing. From the scaffold he declared, "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people, the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime."

Leon F Czolgosz in Jail
Leon F Czolgosz in Jail

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1975: The Bystander Who Saved a President: Second Failed Attempt on Gerald Ford in San Francisco

Just seventeen days after Lynette Fromme aimed a pistol at Gerald Ford in Sacramento, a second attempt on the president's life unfolded outside a hotel in San Francisco on September 22, 1975. Sarah Jane Moore, a 45-year-old activist and FBI informant, fired a single shot from a .38 revolver at Ford as he left the St. Francis Hotel, missing him by only a few feet.

The shot went wide largely because of a bystander, former Marine Oliver Sipple, who was standing nearby and grabbed Moore's arm as she fired, deflecting her aim. Moore was wrestled to the ground and arrested at the scene.

She pleaded guilty to attempted assassination of a president and was sentenced to life in prison. Moore later expressed regret over the attempt, and she was eventually paroled in 2007 after more than three decades behind bars.

Gerald Ford portrait in the Michigan State Capitol at 100 N Capitol Avenue in Lansing, Michigan | ID 103716497 © Glenn Nagel | Dreamstime.com
ID 103716497 © Glenn Nagel | Dreamstime.com

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1881: President James A. Garfield Dies 79 Days After an Assassin's Bullet, Washington D.C.

James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot on July 2, 1881 at a Washington D.C. railway station by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled and mentally unstable office seeker who had been refused a political appointment.

The wound itself was not immediately fatal, but the president lingered for 79 days as infection set in, worsened by doctors repeatedly probing the injury with unsterilised fingers and instruments in the years before antiseptic surgery was widely practised in America. Garfield died on September 19, 1881, becoming the second American president assassinated in office after Abraham Lincoln.

Guiteau stood trial and was hanged the following year, reportedly declaring at his execution that he had acted for the good of the nation and that his death would be a great loss to politics.

Engraving of the assassination of President Garfield
Engraving of the assassination of President Garfield

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1901: Shot Eight Days Earlier: Theodore Roosevelt Sworn In After the Death of William McKinley

Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States on September 14, 1901, hours after President William McKinley died from gunshot wounds inflicted eight days earlier by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

McKinley had been shaking hands with the public when Czolgosz approached with a concealed revolver wrapped in a handkerchief and fired twice at close range. Roosevelt, then just 42, became the youngest man to assume the presidency, taking the oath in a private Buffalo residence rather than the traditional halls of power in Washington.

McKinley last photo
McKinley last photo

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On This Day in True Crime History

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