Four. That is the short answer. In the entire span of American history, exactly four sitting presidents have been murdered while in office.
It feels like more, doesn't it? Maybe because the near-misses are so frequent and so terrifyingly close. But when you look at the cold, hard records, only four men have actually died at the hands of an assassin. We’re talking about Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.
Honestly, the frequency is kind of startling when you realize these four deaths all happened within a single century. From 1865 to 1963, the American presidency was arguably one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. One out of every nine presidents died because someone decided to pick up a gun.
The Four Men Who Didn't Come Home
Most people can name Lincoln and JFK without blinking. They are the bookends of this tragic list. But the two in the middle? They often get lost in the shuffle of high school history books.
Abraham Lincoln (1865)
The first was Lincoln. It happened on Good Friday, April 14, 1865. The Civil War was basically over. Robert E. Lee had surrendered just days before. Lincoln was at Ford’s Theatre watching a comedy called Our American Cousin.
John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, crept into the presidential box and shot him in the back of the head. Lincoln died the next morning. It wasn't just a murder; it was a decapitation strike. Booth had co-conspirators planning to kill the Vice President and the Secretary of State at the same time. They failed, but the damage to the nation was done.
James A. Garfield (1881)
Then there’s James Garfield. Poor Garfield. He had only been in office for four months. On July 2, 1881, he was walking through a train station in Washington, D.C., when a guy named Charles Guiteau shot him.
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Here’s the kicker: the bullet didn't kill him. Not directly. Garfield lived for 80 days after the shooting. He actually died from his doctors. They kept poking around in his back with unwashed fingers and dirty instruments, trying to find the bullet. They turned a non-lethal wound into a massive, agonizing infection. He literally rotted from the inside out because 19th-century medicine hadn't quite caught up to the "wash your hands" memo.
William McKinley (1901)
Next up was William McKinley in 1901. He was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. An anarchist named Leon Czolgosz approached him in a receiving line with a gun hidden under a handkerchief.
He shot McKinley twice at point-blank range. Like Garfield, McKinley survived the initial attack. Doctors thought he was recovering, but gangrene set in. He died eight days later. This was the turning point. After McKinley, the government finally got serious. They officially tasked the Secret Service with protecting the president full-time.
John F. Kennedy (1963)
The last one—the one that still fuels a million conspiracy theories—was JFK. November 22, 1963. Dallas, Texas. We've all seen the grainy Zapruder film. Lee Harvey Oswald fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital shortly after. It was the first (and only) assassination of the television age, and it changed the American psyche forever.
The Near Misses That Almost Changed the Count
If we’re talking about how many presidents of the us have been assassinated, we also have to talk about the ones who got lucky. Because, frankly, the list should be a lot longer.
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Andrew Jackson was the first to face an armed assassin in 1835. A house painter named Richard Lawrence approached him with two pistols. Both misfired. Both of them. The odds of that happening were calculated at about 125,000 to 1. Jackson, who was 67 and carrying a cane, proceeded to beat the man nearly senseless until his aides pulled him off.
Then you've got Teddy Roosevelt. He was technically a former president running for a third term in 1912 when he was shot in the chest. The bullet passed through his steel eyeglass case and a 50-page speech folded in his pocket. He realized he wasn't coughing up blood, so he figured his lung wasn't hit. He then went on stage and gave an 84-minute speech before going to the hospital. "It takes more than one shot to kill a Bull Moose," he told the crowd. Legend.
Ronald Reagan came the closest to dying without actually dying. In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots. One ricocheted off the limo and hit Reagan in the chest, puncturing a lung and stopping just an inch from his heart. If he hadn't been rushed to the hospital so fast, he wouldn't have made it.
Why Does This Keep Happening?
It’s easy to think there’s some grand political motive behind every pull of the trigger. Sometimes there is. Booth wanted to avenge the South. Czolgosz wanted to topple the government.
But honestly? A lot of it is just mental illness and a weird desire for fame. Charles Guiteau (the Garfield assassin) was a "disgruntled office seeker" who thought God told him to kill the president so the Vice President would give him a job. John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan because he had a delusional obsession with actress Jodie Foster and thought it would impress her.
It’s often less about the "why" and more about the "who."
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The Real-World Legacy of These Deaths
Assassinations aren't just tragedies; they are massive shifts in policy.
- The Secret Service: They didn't protect the president until McKinley died. Before that, you could basically just walk up to the White House front door.
- The 25th Amendment: Garfield’s 80-day decline created a massive constitutional crisis. Who was in charge while he was dying? Nobody knew. This eventually led to the 25th Amendment, which clarifies what happens when a president is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."
- The Rise of Modern Security: After JFK, the idea of an open-top limousine became a relic of the past.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you want to understand the true impact of these events beyond just a number, you should look at the primary sources.
First, read the Warren Commission Report or the subsequent House Select Committee on Assassinations findings. They offer a deep dive into the JFK forensics that YouTube videos usually skip.
Second, if you're ever in D.C., visit the National Museum of Health and Medicine. They actually have the bullet that killed Lincoln and pieces of Garfield’s spine. It’s grisly, sure, but it puts the physical reality of these events into a perspective that a textbook never can.
Lastly, keep an eye on how the Secret Service updates its protocols today. History shows that every major security failure leads to a complete overhaul of how the most powerful person in the world is kept alive.
The number of presidents assassinated is four, but the number of times history nearly veered off a cliff is much, much higher.
Next Steps for Deep Learning:
- Examine the Medical Records: Look into the 19th-century autopsy reports of Garfield to see how "modern" medicine actually caused his death.
- Study the 25th Amendment: Research how the gap in power during the Garfield and Wilson administrations led to the current line of succession laws.
- Visit the Sites: Ford's Theatre (D.C.) and Dealey Plaza (Dallas) remain remarkably preserved for those who want to see the geography of these events firsthand.