Famous Assassinations in History
Victim↕ | Year↕ | Location↕ | Assassin↕ | Method↕ | Known For↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Julius Caesar | 44 BC | Rome, Roman Republic | Brutus, Cassius & senators | Stabbing (23 wounds) | Triggered fall of Roman Republic; immortalized by Shakespeare's 'Et tu, Brute?' |
Abraham Lincoln | 1865 | Washington, D.C., USA | John Wilkes Booth | Gunshot | First US president assassinated; shot at Ford's Theatre during the Civil War's end |
Archduke Franz Ferdinand | 1914 | Sarajevo, Bosnia | Gavrilo Princip | Gunshot | Triggered World War I; most consequential assassination in modern history |
Mahatma Gandhi | 1948 | New Delhi, India | Nathuram Godse | Gunshot | Father of Indian independence; killed by Hindu nationalist extremist |
John F. Kennedy | 1963 | Dallas, Texas, USA | Lee Harvey Oswald | Gunshot (rifle) | 35th US president; spawned decades of conspiracy theories; Zapruder film |
Martin Luther King Jr. | 1968 | Memphis, Tennessee, USA | James Earl Ray | Gunshot (rifle) | Civil rights leader; assassination sparked riots across 100+ US cities |
Robert F. Kennedy | 1968 | Los Angeles, California, USA | Sirhan Sirhan | Gunshot | Presidential candidate and brother of JFK; killed during campaign |
Anwar Sadat | 1981 | Cairo, Egypt | Khalid Islambouli | Gunshot | Egyptian president killed during military parade; peace with Israel angered extremists |
Indira Gandhi | 1984 | New Delhi, India | Satwant Singh & Beant Singh (bodyguards) | Gunshot | Indian PM killed by Sikh bodyguards after Operation Blue Star; triggered anti-Sikh riots |
Olof Palme | 1986 | Stockholm, Sweden | Unknown (case closed 2020) | Gunshot | Swedish PM shot walking home from cinema; one of the most famous unsolved cases |
Yitzhak Rabin | 1995 | Tel Aviv, Israel | Yigal Amir | Gunshot | Israeli PM killed for signing Oslo Accords; derailed Middle East peace process |
Benazir Bhutto | 2007 | Rawalpindi, Pakistan | Suicide bomber (al-Qaeda linked) | Gunshot and bombing | First female PM of a Muslim-majority country; killed during election rally |
Philip II of Macedon | 336 BC | Aegae, Macedon | Pausanias of Orestis | Stabbing | Father of Alexander the Great; assassination enabled Alexander's rise to power |
Thomas Becket | 1170 | Canterbury Cathedral, England | Four knights of Henry II | Sword | Archbishop murdered in cathedral; became saint; Henry II did public penance |
William the Silent | 1584 | Delft, Netherlands | Balthasar Gerard | Gunshot (pistol) | First head of state assassinated by handgun; leader of Dutch independence |
Jean-Paul Marat | 1793 | Paris, France | Charlotte Corday | Stabbing | French Revolution radical killed in his bathtub; immortalized in Jacques-Louis David painting |
Alexander II of Russia | 1881 | St. Petersburg, Russia | Ignacy Hryniewiecki (Narodnaya Volya) | Bomb | Tsar who freed the serfs; killed by anarchist bomb after surviving first blast |
Leon Trotsky | 1940 | Mexico City, Mexico | Ramon Mercader (Soviet agent) | Ice axe | Bolshevik revolutionary; killed on Stalin's orders while in exile |
Park Chung-hee | 1979 | Seoul, South Korea | Kim Jae-gyu (intelligence chief) | Gunshot | South Korean president killed by his own spy chief at a private dinner |
Rajiv Gandhi | 1991 | Sriperumbudur, India | Thenmozhi Rajaratnam (LTTE) | Suicide bombing | Former Indian PM killed during election campaign by Tamil Tigers suicide bomber |
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