Assassinations

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Assassinations
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Definition

• Assassination To murder a prominent person by
  surprise attack, often for political reasons

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Hashshashin

• Believed that the word Assassin comes from the
  Arabic word Hashshashin
• Was a militant Muslim religious sect active from
  700s 1300s in the Middle East
• According to stories
• Had base called Alamut high on a mountain
• Grew hashish plants which they smoked
• Supposedly would get high before attempting
  assassinations with daggers
• Did assassinate many Muslim Caliphs (rulers)

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Alamut
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Assassins Motives

• Attract attention to a cause
• Personal reasons
• Revenge
• Jealousy
• Money
• Political gain
• Ideology how you think government should be run
• Often to gain throne
• Military target
• Insanity or psychological problems

Can be carried out by individuals or governments
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Weapon of Choice

• In ancient times
• Stabbing
• Bludgeoning
• Strangulation
• Poison
• In modern times, technique is very regional (guns
  most common)
• In India, stabbings with swords popular
• Machete in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Explosives in Middle East and Europe
• Guns in the Americas

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Famous Assassinations in World History

• Julius Caesar on Roman Senate floor
• In Russia, 5 Tsars assassinated in 200 years
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand started WWI
• Gandhi in 1948 by Hindu extremist
• Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II
• Thousands more

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Inejiro Asanuma Japanese politician
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US Presidential Assassination Attempts

• 18 attempted assassinations
• 4 presidents killed
• Abraham Lincoln (1865)
• By John Wilkes Booth, Southern Sympathizer
• James Garfield (1881)
• By Charles J. Guiteau, man turned down for job
• William McKinley (1901)
• By Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist that hid gun in
  cast
• John Kennedy (1963)
• By Lee Harvey Oswald
• Killed by Jack Ruby, who shortly died of cancer

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Garfield died from infection 3 months later due
to bad doctors
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Kennedy The Mother of All Conspiracy Theories

• Shot by a rifle from a book depository
• Bullet holes in head, neck, and back
• Governor of Texas was also shot but survived
• Idea of the second gunman on the grassy knoll
• Some believe that the Cubans, FBI, CIA, USSR, or
  the Mafia were involved in the shooting

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Failed attempts

• Andrew Jackson (insane man missed shots)
• Teddy Roosevelt (folded speech in pocket slowed
  bullet)
• FDR (man next to him shot to death)
• Harry Truman (abushed while White House being
  renovated)
• JFK (car bomber changed mind when saw family)
• Nixon (man wanted to fly plane into white house)
• Gerald Ford (member of Manson family)
• Jimmy Carter (snipers caught at mall)
• Ronald Reagan (shot in lung but survived, man
  insane)
• George Bush Sr. (Saddam tried to have killed with
  carbomb)
• Clinton (guy shot gun at white house, another guy
  crashed plane onto white house lawn)
• George Bush Jr. (2005 Man in country of Georgia
  threw grenade)