From Lincoln to Trump, America’s dark history of presidential assassination attempts

The assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday has shocked the world. The former president was bundled bloodied from the stage by secret service agents after a bullet clipped his ear.

The gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crookes, was killed at the scene, while one other person was killed.

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The former president was treated and later described feeling the bullet “ripping through the skin”. His rival, President Joe Biden, condemned the attack and warned there was “no place in America for this kind of violence”.

The attack is the latest in a list of political violence targeting presidents, former presidents and major party presidential candidates since the nation’s founding in 1776:

Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated, shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, as he and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, attended a special performance of the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington.

Lincoln was taken to a house across the street from the theater for medical treatment after he was shot in the back of the head. He died the next morning. His support for Black rights has been cited as a motive behind his killing.

Two years before the assassination, during the Civil War, which was fought over slavery, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation granting freedom to slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Booth was shot and killed on April 26, 1865, after he was found hiding in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia.

Garfield was the second president to be assassinated, six months after taking office. He