By Evridiki Fatolia,
On July 13, 2024, during a campaign rally close to Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024, was shot in the upper right ear. That was the news that got the world talking about the USA, particularly its politics, and remember all those attacks that happened before to other political figures around the world.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The assassination attempt of former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt occurred on February 15, 1933. An impoverished and desperate attorney attempts to strike him, but misses. But he also murders five other people, Chicago’s mayor among them.
Charles de Gaulle
French President Charles de Gaulle was targeted multiple times. Various parties attempting to destroy the Algerian revolution were held accountable for the attacks. He survived a bombing in 1961 and a shot the following year.
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill, as Britain’s wartime commander, was an obvious target for the Nazis, during World War II. The most eye-catching plot was to assassinate the prime minister with an exploding bar of chocolate. The 1943 scheme, in which bombmakers were to coat explosive devices with a thin layer of dark chocolate, was discovered in historical documents nearly 70 years later. During the Allies’ leaders conference, in Tehran, that same year, the Nazis plotted to assassinate Russian leader Joseph Stalin, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. The plot, called Operation Long Jump, was to be conducted by Adolf Hitler’s SS, but was prevented by Russian agents.
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher narrowly avoided injury, when a bomb ripped through the Brighton Grand Hotel, where members of the government were staying, during the 1984 Conservative Party convention. The IRA attack in the early hours of the morning killed five persons, including Tory MP Sir Anthony Berry, and injured 31 others. Thatcher opened the next session of the conference the following day, as planned. In 1986, the Old Bailey sentenced bomber Patrick Magee to eight life sentences. He was released in 1999 following the Good Friday Agreement.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
In November 1963, while visiting Dallas with first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was fatally shot by a concealed assassin with a high-powered rifle. Shots broke out as the president’s motorcade passed past Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. JF Kennedy was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he died shortly thereafter. He was succeeded by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was sworn in inside a conference room on Air Force One. He is the only president who took the oath of office on a plane.
These attacks do not simply precede the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. They, more than anything, speak volumes about how the political climate can digress into a dangerous environment that completely loses its focus of protecting and caring for the people.
References
- ‘Lincoln, JFK’: List of US presidents who were assassinated or survived attacks | World News. Naishsupcenter. Available here
- ‘Death by Chocolate’ Plot to Kill Sir Winston Churchill Uncovered. International Churchill Society. Available here
- De Gaulle’s Close Call: How France’s Ugliest Car Saved Its President. HistoryNet. Available here
- The deadly hotel bombing that Margaret Thatcher survived in 1984. CBC. Available here
