Smithsonian Museum: FOUR American Presidents assassinated, 11 attempts

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Four American Presidents were assassinated and and eleven attempts made to kill the American President. (interesting that the Smithsonian does NOT include the alleged attempt against pappa bush)....

While you're in DC, visit the Smithsonian American History Museum for the complete exhibit on Presidential Assassinations (on the second floor, near the exhibit on Presidential Campaigns).


LIFE AND DEATH IN THE WHITE HOUSE
http://americanhistory.si.edu/presidency/3_frame.html

Beginning with an attack on Andrew Jackson in 1835, there have been eleven attempts to kill the American president. Four presidents--Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy--died from assassins' bullets.


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here's another link to information on those Presidents (one died after catching pneumonia at the inaugeration)...but here's those who were assassinated

http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/hall2/index.htm

-snips-

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Sixteenth President (1861-1865)

Entrusted with guiding the nation through civil war, he was beset from the start with criticism from all sides. Some charged him with moral cowardice for initially insisting that an end to slavery was not one of his wartime goals; others accused him of overstepping his constitutional powers; still others blamed him for military reverses in the field. But as Union forces moved toward victory, Lincoln's eloquent articulation of the nation's ideals and his eventual call for an end to slavery gradually invested him with a saintly grandeur. Following his assassination in 1865, that grandeur became virtually unassailable.




James A. Garfield (1831-1881)
Twentieth President (March-September 1881)

The patronage-driven factionalism that plagued the Republican convention and ultimately led to Garfield's nomination unfortunately continued to fester following his assumption of the presidency. On July 2, 1881, angered that Garfield had not awarded him a public office, a member of the GOP's "Stalwart" faction shot him as he went to board a train. Eleven weeks later, Garfield was dead from his wound.




William McKinley (1843-1901)
Twenty-fifth President (1897-1901)

But when interventionists convinced the public that the Spanish had plotted the explosion of the American battleship Maine in Cuba's Havana Harbor, he was forced to act. The result was the Spanish-American War, which led to Cuban independence and Spain's surrender of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States. Almost despite himself, McKinley thus presided over one of the most significant phases of America's shift away from its time-honored isolationism toward greater involvement on the world stage.

In September 1901, McKinley was assassinated at Buffalo's Pan American Exposition, and it is thought that this portrait was begun shortly after his death.



John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
Thirty-fifth President (1961-1963)

When an assassin's bullet cut short John Kennedy's presidency in November 1963, the country experienced a collective sense of loss that it had not known since the death of Lincoln. But the grief was not so much inspired by a long litany of presidential accomplishments as it was an expression of what Kennedy had come to represent. To be sure, his administration could claim notable triumphs in foreign policy, including its successful face-off with the Soviets over the presence of missiles in Cuba. Its support for the civil rights movement had, moreover, contributed significantly to a climate that would soon give birth to landmark legislation promoting racial equality. The main source of grief over Kennedy's death, however, was the eloquence and idealism that he had brought to his presidency and that made him, in the eyes of many, the embodiment of this country's finest aspirations.

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1. here's the President who DIED from pneumonia shortly after inaugeration

William Henry Harrison (1773-1841)
Ninth President
(March-April 1841)



Jubilance over his victory, however, proved short-lived. Soon after delivering the longest inaugural address ever made, Harrison contracted pneumonia and, on April 4, 1841, became the first President to die in office.

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Here's another, DIED after only one year in the WH..

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)
Twelfth President (1849-1850)



Within a year of Taylor's coming to office, the country seemed to be moving toward civil war. Only after his unexpected death in July of 1850 did compromise on this divisive issue become possible.

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a reTHUGlican....scandals killed him....

Warren G. Harding (1865-1923)
Twenty-ninth President (1921-1923)



In that year's Republican presidential candidate, Warren Harding, they found what they wanted. A convivial onetime newspaper editor, Harding made "normalcy" the keynote of his campaign, and although the meaning of the newly coined term was uncertain, it at least promised no unsettling changes.

While short on reform, Harding's administration did not lack for scandals. A trusting individual, he appointed cronies to his administration who proved all too ready to use their offices for private gain. Harding, however, escaped having to face the corrupt behavior of his appointees. Just as stories of their wrongdoing were coming to light, he collapsed and died.

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http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/hall2/index.htm