The 6 most infamous political assassinations in American history

In most cases, political assassinations in the United States have arisen from a belief that violence could resolve political or ideological conflict.

Some individuals acted from extreme beliefs, seeing their targets as foes of their beliefs or threats to national unity.

Others operated from a desire for revenge, often interpreting government actions as personal betrayal. 

In other examples, some very personal grievances and mental instability motivated the decision to kill.

Certain assassins believed they had been wronged or ignored, while others suffered from false beliefs that cast their victim as a symbol of a greater wrong.

In several incidents, the act of killing was an expression of desperation rather than a calculated political strategy. 

Abraham Lincoln was shot on 14 April 1865 while attending a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, stepped into the presidential box, aimed a pistol at the back of Lincoln’s head, and fired at close range.

Lincoln died the following morning, after he received immediate attention from Dr. Charles Leale who was the first physician to reach him 

As a Southern sympathiser and supporter of the Confederate cause, Booth believed Lincoln’s re-election and the defeat of the South had destroyed the American republic.

He viewed emancipation and Reconstruction as acts of tyranny and saw himself as a liberator who could revive Southern honour.

Originally, Booth intended to kidnap the president and trade him for captured Confederate soldiers.

However, after the fall of Richmond and General Lee’s surrender, he revised his plan and set out to kill the president instead.

That same night, Booth's co-conspirators attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward in a planned attack, and another conspirator was assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson but failed to act. 

In the days following the assassination, federal authorities launched a manhunt across the country.

Booth was tracked to a barn in Virginia and killed after refusing to surrender. His accomplice, David Herold, surrendered before the barn was set on fire.

The remaining conspirators faced trial before a military commission and several were hanged.

Lincoln’s death cast a shadow over the country’s efforts at postwar reunification and made Northern views towards the defeated Confederacy more severe. 

James A. Garfield was shot on 2 July 1881 as he entered the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C.

The attacker, Charles J. Guiteau, approached the president and fired two rounds at close range.

Although Garfield survived the shooting, his health declined due to infections caused by unclean medical treatment.

Dr. D. Willard Bliss, who led the medical team, probed the wound repeatedly with unwashed instruments, which only worsened the infection.

At the same time the doctors searched only one side of his body based on a false assumption which delayed finding the bullet.

Garfield died on 19 September. 

Guiteau believed he deserved a government position for his self-proclaimed support during the 1880 election campaign.

After repeated rejections, he convinced himself that Garfield’s removal would benefit the nation and unify the Republican Party.

He claimed that God had instructed him and insisted that the assassination was politically necessary.

Guiteau’s delusions made him believe that Garfield’s death would elevate Chester A. Arthur and bring political balance.

After he fired the shots he reportedly shouted, "I am a Stalwart and Arthur is president now!" 

Following Garfield’s death, public anger focused on Guiteau and the spoils system that had allowed unqualified individuals to pursue government appointments as rewards.

During the trial, Guiteau gave long, disjointed speeches and demanded credit for Arthur’s presidency.

He was sentenced to death and hanged in June 1882. Notably, Alexander Graham Bell attempted to locate the bullet using a metal detector of his own invention, but the device failed because doctors restricted its use to the incorrect side of the president's body. 

In response, Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883. The legislation introduced merit-based standards for federal jobs and began to dismantle the systems of favouritism that had dominated American politics throughout the nineteenth century. 

William McKinley was shot on 6 September 1901 while when he greeted members of the public at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

His assassin, Leon Czolgosz, who approached after McKinley extended his hand and then fired two shots from a concealed revolver wrapped in a handkerchief.

Members of the crowd and local guards immediately tackled the attacker.

McKinley died eight days later from gangrene that developed in the wound. 

Having adopted anarchist beliefs, Czolgosz viewed McKinley as a servant of rich people and an oppressor of the working class.

He had become became an extremist in his thinking after reading speeches and writings by leading anarchists such as Emma Goldman and saw violence as a means of resistance.

He later claimed that McKinley had begun wars and enabled exploitation, and therefore deserved death. 

In the aftermath of the killing, Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency and began reshaping the office with a more energetic and approach focused on change.

Czolgosz was quickly tried and sentenced to death by electric chair at Auburn Prison, receiving no support from the public and little help from anarchist groups, many of whom distanced themselves from his actions. 

Public fear of anarchism increased after the assassination. Lawmakers created new rules to stop anarchist actions, and immigration controls were tightened to exclude those suspected of holding radical beliefs.

McKinley’s death signalled the end of an era and sped up the federal government’s willingness to confront seen threats with legal and police power. 

John F. Kennedy was killed on 22 November 1963 while when he travelled through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top car.

He was struck twice, once in the neck and once in the head, and declared dead shortly afterward.

The shooting took place in Dealey Plaza, and the deadly shots were believed to have been fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Texas Governor John Connally, who rode with Kennedy, was also wounded. 

Lee Harvey Oswald was a former Marine and known Marxist and was arrested for the crime ,but was killed two days later while in police custody.

Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 and returned to the United States with strong political views but no clear direction.

He expressed dissatisfaction with capitalism and had made previous attempts to commit politically motivated violence.

Investigators concluded that he acted alone, though his motives never became fully understood.

The public execution of Oswald by Jack Ruby, broadcast live on television, increased confusion and sparked immediate rumours of conspiracy. 

The Warren Commission was appointed to investigate the assassination, and published its final report in 1964.

It declared Oswald the lone gunman and found no evidence of a second shooter or wider plot.

However, alternative theories persisted, and later inquiries, including the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." 

Kennedy’s assassination destroyed the country's sense of stability and began a period defined by political unrest, protest, and scepticism toward official narratives.

For many Americans, the event signalled the end of postwar optimism and the beginning of a new era of distrust. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on 4 April 1968 while while he stood on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

He had travelled to support striking sanitation workers and had planned to lead a major march.

A single rifle shot struck him in the jaw and neck, killing him within the hour. 

James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had escaped from prison, was captured at Heathrow Airport in London two months later.

After extradition to the United States, he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty but later retracted his confession.

His story shifted repeatedly, and questions surrounding the planning and execution of the assassination remain unresolved. 

King had become increasingly outspoken on civil rights and other issues, including the Vietnam War and poverty.

His final years brought growing surveillance and hostility from the FBI, which regarded him as a dangerous figure and even sent him an anonymous letter encouraging him to commit suicide.

His death sparked widespread riots in more than 100 American cities and prompted the rapid passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. 

King’s funeral drew tens of thousands, and his voice remained central to American political memory.

His assassination exposed the risks of confronting entrenched systems of inequality and illustrated the cost of public leadership during a period of rapid social change. 

Malcolm X was gunned down on 21 February 1965 as he addressed the crowd in New York’s Audubon Ballroom.

He had just begun his speech when three men rushed the stage and opened fire.

He was hit multiple times and died before reaching the hospital.

After he had broken from the Nation of Islam the previous year, Malcolm had founded the Organisation of Afro-American Unity and adopted a more inclusive political vision.

Tensions between him and the Nation escalated after he began criticising its leadership.

His house was firebombed one week before the assassination, and he had received repeated death threats. 

Three men were arrested and convicted for the murder: Talmadge Hayer (also known as Thomas Hagan), Norman 3X Butler (later Muhammad Abdul Aziz), and Thomas 15X Johnson (later Khalil Islam).

Hayer confessed to the killing but insisted that the other two men were innocent.

Renewed interest in the case led to a re-examination of the evidence decades later.

In 2021, Aziz and Islam were cleared after prosecutors admitted that authorities had withheld evidence that would have cast doubt on their guilt. 

During his final months, Malcolm X travelled extensively, met with world leaders, and began connecting the struggle of African Americans with broader global movements for justice.

His assassination silenced a figure who had grown more politically sophisticated and internationally minded.

His writings and speeches continued to influence Black activism in the decades that followed and had been a rallying point for new generations of political thinkers.