After the recent unsuccessful assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump while he was addressing an election rally in the state of Pennsylvania. People have drawn many parallels between the assassination plot and other historical US presidents who were targeted in the past. John F.  Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have been specially compared to Trump, following the aftermath. Let us delve into a few examples of US presidents who were victims of violence.   

Abraham Lincoln 

The 16^th President of the United States. Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated, shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. The president along with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, had attended a special performance of the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer. During the performance, Booth entered the president’s box and shot Lincoln in the back of the head at point-blank range. Lincoln never regained consciousness and passed away the following morning. His death marked a significant loss for the nation, occurring just days after the end of the American Civil War. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, offering freedom to slaves within the Confederacy, during the Civil War, a conflict over slavery. 

John F. Kennedy 

The 35^th President of the United States and one of the most famous political assassinations that the world has ever witnessed. The fact that the assassination took place in front of the public was televised live. And Kennedy was accompanied by his wife and first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, which made the incident even more tragic. Kennedy was visiting Dallas in November 1963 when he was shot and killed. His assasination was by a covert assassin carrying a powerful rifle. As the president’s motorcade passed past Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, gunfire broke out. Police discovered Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper’s vantage point in the Texas School Book Depository. This was an adjacent building, hours after the killing. 

Ronald Reagan 

The 40^th President of the United States had experienced an assassination attempt on March 30, 1981. This attempt took place outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.. Here President Reagan had just delivered a speech to the AFL-CIO. While walking to his motorcade, he was shot by John Hinckley Jr., who was in the crowd. President Reagan was rushed to George Washington University Hospital. At the hospital, he underwent emergency surgery to remove the bullet and repair his lung. Despite his injuries, Reagan remained conscious and even joked with doctors and nurses before surgery.  

Theodore Roosevelt 

The assassination attempt of Roosevelt perhaps has the most similarities with Trump’s incident. Both former presidents were shot during an election campaign to return to the White House. The former president was shot in Milwaukee in 1912. The bullet struck Roosevelt in the chest but was slowed down by a folded 50-page speech and a metal eyeglass case in his breast pocket. He opened his coat to show the audience his blood-stained shirt and stated, “It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.” The would-be assassin was John Flammang Schrank, a mentally disturbed saloonkeeper.