When I heard of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, I mentally ticked off the same list many others did - Lincoln, JFK, RFK Jr., Reagan.
Then I heard a news report about an attempt on former President Teddy Roosevelt's life as he sought another term. I was surprised to hear about an assassination attempt that I didn't remember learning about in school.
Then I did a little research online and discovered the list of assassination attempts on presidents and would be presidents in this country is long. Saturday's shooting marks the 20th time someone has killed or tried to kill a president or presidential candidate, with the first incident dating back 189 years.
Jan. 30, 1835 - Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot President Andrew Jackson at the Capitol. Both of his pistols misfire.
April 14, 1865 - John Wilkes Booth assassinates President Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C.
July 2, 1881 - President James Garfield is shot by Charles Guiteau at a train station in Washington. He dies in September, likely due to poor medical care.
Sept. 6, 1901 - President William McKinley is shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo and dies of gangrene eight days later.
Oct. 14, 1912 - former President Theodore Roosevelt is shot on the campaign trail by John Schrank. He gives his speech - with the bullet lodged in his chest - before seeking treatment.
Feb. 15, 1933 - Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt but misses.
Sept. 8, 1935 - Carl Weiss shoots at Huey Long, a senator from Louisiana who was expected to run for president in 1936. Long is killed, most likely by accident from his bodyguards' return fire.
Nov. 1, 1950 - Puerto Rican nationals try to kill president Harry Truman, who is staying at Blair House during White House renovations.
Dec. 11, 1960 - Richard Pavlick plans to crash into the car of President-elect John F. Kennedy and blow it up with dynamite but doesn't carry out his plan when he sees the president's wife and children with him. He is arrested before he can try again.
Nov. 22, 1963 - Lee Harvey Oswald shoots and kills Kennedy during a motorcade in downtown Dallas.
June 5, 1968 - Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles after winning the California primary.
March 15, 1972 - Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace is left paralyzed after he is shot in Maryland.
Feb. 22, 1974 - Samuel Byck hijacks a DC-9 in order to crash it into the White House to kill Nixon, but he is fatally shot by police before he can do so.
Sept. 5, 1975 - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a supporter of mass murderer Charles Manson, tries to shoot President Gerald Ford in Sacramento. Her gun misfires.
Sept. 22, 1975 - Sara Jane Moore shoots at Ford in San Francisco. She misses.
March 30, 1981 - President Ronald Reagan is shot by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington and suffers a serious wound.
1993: A plot by employees of Iraqi President Sadam Hussein to blow up President George H.W. Bush by car bomb is foiled in Kuwait.
Nov. 11, 2011 - Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez fires multiple shots at the White House, striking the building. No one - including President Barack Obama and his family - is injured.
2005 - President George W. Bush faced a failed assassination attempt by a man with a grenade while visiting the country Georgia.
The number of assassination attempts doesn't minimize what happened Saturday. And I certainly support a move away from heated political rhetoric and toward unity, as many have called for. But I do think it's important for us to acknowledge that assassination attempts have occurred more often than most of us realize - and that we as a country have not crossed some line from which there is no going back.
Restoring civility is not that difficult. Be kind. Respect others' opinions. And maybe turn off the TV if the program hosts are screaming at one another or their guests.
- Pamela Lannom is editor of The Hinsdalean. Readers can email her at [email protected].
