American Assassinations
Four deaths, two critical injuries, and three hairbreadth escapes. Not the best odds in a field of 46 presidents, so when one dodges a bullet, we’ve all been lucky.
Killing the right person can change history. Even scholars with a disciplinary commitment to the idea that technological determinants, Marxist dialectics, and other impersonal forces inexorably shape the course of human events have to reckon with the transformative impact of a single life that, once snuffed out, derails a timeline and leaves the survivors to ponder the might-have-beens. Would the better angels of our nature have prevailed had the derringer of John Wilkes Booth jammed? Would a wall with over 58,000 names stand on the Washington Mall if Lee Harvey Oswald had been a worse marksman with that piece-of-crap Italian carbine?
America has lost four presidents to assassinations; four have escaped attempted hits, not counting plots foiled or never executed. As of 13 July 2024, the list of lucky near misses includes the once and possibly future president Donald Trump, whose call was the closest of all.
Few Americans are so history impaired as not to know the crime scene, the name of the assassin, and the forensic details of the two most famous presidential assassinations in American history. In each case, the inherent drama and symbolic power of the event created an unforgettable chapter in the collective memory of the nation.
