For everyone and about everything. Attempts on presidents: from the “Tecumseh curse” to lone psychos All assassinated presidents

Since 1789, 45 presidents have held the highest government position in the United States. The reforms, laws and transformations that were implemented by the top officials of the state did not always please the masses. Intrigues, conspiracies and political intricacies gave rise to more and more attempts at radical interventions in the life of the country's leaders. So how many US presidents have been assassinated? Let's do the math.

Abraham Lincoln

The first fatal victim was the sixteenth president, who took the highest government post back in 1861. This representative of the Republican Party experienced truly grandiose events. It was during the reign of Abraham that slavery was finally abolished throughout the country. Under Lincoln, the Civil War of 1861-1865 took place. The bloody confrontation between North and South ended in victory for the northerners. America has entered a new stage of economic development, having defeated the old and decaying foundations. But the days of the head of state were numbered.

In the Washington theater on April 14 (only five days after the end of the military events), during the production of the play “My American Cousin,” a single, but such an accurate shot rang out. The bullet hit Lincoln in the head, he was able to live another day, but never regained consciousness. So, how many US presidents have been assassinated? The score is open: “Abraham, you are first.”

Actor John Booth, who fired the fatal shot, managed to escape. However, on April 26, he was overtaken in Virginia, where he resisted arrest and was shot.

James Garfield

A short stay among the country's leaders awaited the twentieth American president, elected in March 1881. An interesting fact is that the future killer - a supporter of the ultra-right movement, a certain Charles Guiteau - actively supported Garfield during the election campaign and campaigned to vote for him.

This man clearly did not suffer from selflessness: for his participation he hoped to receive nothing less than a responsible post under the wing of the head of the country. However, unfortunately, there was no vacancy in the presidential team. And Charles, who could not cope with the insult, turned out to be a good shooter: on July 2, 1881, he seriously wounded Garfield in the back in Washington, at the railway station. Do we count how many US presidents have been assassinated? Already two. Even if the fatal shot did not claim life instantly. James died only on September 19 of the same year. The doctors here also acted completely unprofessionally. Not only did they not remove the bullet, but they also introduced an infection. Maybe deliberately... Who knows? The killer outlived Garfield, ending his days on the gallows in June 1882.

William McKinley

In answering the question of how many US presidents have been assassinated in office, we have come to the third (penultimate) fatality. Republican McKinley was a favorite of the American people. He was believed and identified with Lincoln. And their lives ended almost the same way: tragically and sadly.

During his second term in office, on September 5, 1901, William had the misfortune of attending the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo. The waiting assassin, anarchist Leon Czolgosz, shoots the president in the stomach. The beginning of the 20th century was not distinguished by any special miracles in medicine. Infection and subsequent gangrene caused the death of the head of state, who died 9 days after being wounded. The killer faced punishment in the form of the electric chair.

John Kennedy

With the question “how many were killed,” we have reached the final stage, the name of which is - But, alas, there is no end to this story.

Already the first reforms of the young president, who took the reins of power in 1961 on January 20, did not please the taste of powerful circles. By contrasting the economic course of the country's largest industrial corporations, John literally forced them to lower prices.

Among the significant events that marked his reign, it is worth noting the support of Martin King, who fought for the rights of blacks. It was Kennedy who eased military tensions by making concessions to the USSR and removing nuclear missiles from Turkey. As a result, we have an increased authority of the communist power and discontent of the Pentagon.

When discussing how many US presidents have been assassinated, one can get philosophical. Perhaps Kennedy would have lived happily if he had not run for office again. By that time, in addition to the Pentagon and the CIA, the FBI and the mafia were in a political conspiracy against him. The united powers that be were not going to tolerate the reforms of the fearless John for another 4 years.

In November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated while traveling to Dallas in front of thousands of people. The security pretended to be incompetent, since they themselves were in a conspiracy. While poor John was being shot with rifles, the “faithful” bodyguards desperately looked in some other direction.

However, they managed to shift the blame to Lee Harvey Oswald, who once lived in the USSR. According to the official version, he acted alone and shot the president from the top floor of the book depository. He himself was assassinated on November 24, two days after Kennedy's death.

Who's lucky?

But not all planned assassinations of American presidents were successful. Fortunately for the eight US political leaders, many assassination attempts were foiled due to poor preparation, security coordination, chance, or other reasons. The leader on this list was whose life was encroached upon as many as thirty times from 1993 to 1995. The detainees, numbering 95 people, according to official data, were mentally unstable people. They failed to cause significant harm to the health of the head of state. Summarizing how many US presidents have been killed, we can confidently call the number 4. The list of failed assassination attempts is twice as long. In addition to Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush and three other people's representatives were also born in the shirt, about whom we will talk in more detail.

Andrew Jackson

The seventh president became the first of those whose lives they dared to attempt. But he did a lot for this... The law he signed related to the eviction of Indians was inhumane. Liberating fertile lands from the indigenous inhabitants of the mainland, wealthy American landowners slowly seized trophy territories. Meanwhile, the displaced people died in the thousands.

A powerful financial corporation called the Second Bank of the United States was also abolished by Jackson. Instead, a chain of private credit institutions was formed.

The actual assassination attempt took place in January 1835, right in the Capitol building. Unemployed painter Richard Lawrence walked right up to the president (how could this happen?) and pulled the trigger twice. By chance, the gun misfired.

Theodore Roosevelt

Having brilliantly survived two terms in the highest government post, Roosevelt did not calm down and, after missing four years according to all the rules, began to run again.

During the election campaign in October 1912, he participated in a political rally, where he was shot in the chest during his own speech. The doctors were afraid to remove the bullet: it remained in Theodore’s body until his last days. Roosevelt died in 1919.

Ronald Reagan

In March 1981, while leaving the hotel in broad daylight, a young man jumped up to Reagan and managed to fire as many as six shots. Four were wounded then, including the head of state.

Ronald was lucky because he was wounded in the lung not directly, but by a ricochet: the bullet bounced off the window of the limousine. The successful operation allowed Reagan to return to government post.

This, perhaps, is the whole chain of successful and failed attempts to end the lives of the heads of the country. So how many times have US presidents been assassinated? Now you know.

American police have arrested a Los Angeles man on charges of threatening to kill US President George W. Bush.

The first American president to be assassinated was Andrew Jackson. On January 30, 1835, in the Capitol building, 35-year-old painter Richard Lawrence approached him and, grabbing a pistol, tried to shoot twice, but the pistol misfired. The criminal was captured and stated that he was taking revenge on Jackson for being unemployed. The president himself claimed that the assassin was sent by his political opponents.

On April 14, 1865, the president was mortally wounded in a theater box in Washington and died the next day. Abraham Lincoln. US Secretary of State William Seward, who was sitting next to him, was wounded but survived. The killer was an actor, a supporter of the defeated Confederacy.

On July 2, 1881, at the Washington Station, the failed far-right politician Charles Guatier (Guiteau), suffering from a nervous breakdown, shot the president at point-blank range. James Garfield. On September 19, 1881, he died from general blood poisoning.

On September 6, 1911, the President was seriously wounded during the opening ceremony of the Pan-American Exposition in Chicago. William McKinley. Died on September 14. His killer was 28-year-old anarchist Leon Spolgots.

On October 14, 1912, an assassination attempt was made during a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Theodore Roosevelt. Despite being wounded in the chest, the president did not leave the podium and completed his speech to voters and only after that turned to the doctors. The attacker, John Schrank, was declared insane.

On February 15, 1933, shortly after winning the election but before his inauguration, an assassination attempt was made on Franklin. Delano Roosevelt. In Miami, Florida, he was shot by anarchist Giuseppe Zangarra. A woman standing nearby managed to hit the criminal in the hand at the time of the shot. Zangarra missed Roosevelt, but fatally wounded Chicago Mayor Anthony Cermak.

On November 1, 1950, an attempt was made to assassinate the President. Harry Truman at his residence on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Two Puerto Rican nationalists made an attempt on his life. There was a three-minute shootout between the guards and the attackers, as a result of which the guard and one of the attackers were killed, and the second attacker was arrested.

On November 22, 1963, the US President was assassinated in Dallas. John Kennedy. According to the official version, the lone killer was former paratrooper Lee Harvey Oswald, who lived for several years in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed in Dallas police custody by Jack Ruby as he was being taken to federal prison. This assassination attempt still remains one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century.

On February 22, 1974, an assassination attempt was made in Baltimore Richard Nixon. A gunman armed with a pistol stormed a Delta Airlines plane flying to Atlanta and, threatening to blow up the plane with all the passengers, ordered the pilots to fly towards the White House. He said he was going to kill President Nixon. After a shootout with the FBI special forces, the criminal shot himself. A homemade bomb was found in his briefcase.

In September 1975, two assassination attempts were made on the president. Gerald Ford. On September 5, in Sacramento, California, the president was shot by Lynette Fromme, a member of the Charles Manson terrorist gang. The gun was loaded, but it misfired. On September 21, as President Ford left his hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by left-wing activist Sarah Jane Moore. A bullet fired from a 38-caliber pistol flew a meter from the president.

On March 30, 1981, in Washington, twenty-five-year-old disc jockey John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, released after speaking at a construction union convention from the Washington Hilton Hotel. The bullet, having pierced the chest, passed one and a half centimeters from the president’s heart and lodged in the lung. It was only possible to remove it after a four-hour operation. In addition to Reagan, the White House press secretary, a Secret Service agent and a police officer were seriously injured. A forensic medical examination found Hinckley insane and sent him for compulsory treatment.

In April 1993, it became known about an assassination attempt planned on George H. W. Bush. American intelligence services uncovered a plot according to which the car of the then ex-president of America was to be blown up during a visit to Kuwait.

In the entire history of independent America, no president has had as many assassination attempts made as his Bill Clinton. Four attacks on the president’s life occurred only within 8 months (from September 12, 1993 to May 23, 1994). According to some sources, attempts were made on Clinton's life about 30 times; More than 80 people were detained on suspicion of attempted murder, most of them mentally ill.

Repeated assassination attempts were made on the current president George W. Bush.

On May 10, 2005, during Bush's speech on Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgian citizen Vladimir Harutyunyan threw a grenade towards the stage. It didn't explode by accident.

In March 2007, Jordanian military prosecutors announced the discovery of a plot to assassinate US President George W. Bush during his visit to the kingdom in November 2006. Three Jordanians intended to blow up the US and Danish embassies in Amman at a time when the American president would be in one of them.

In March 2007, Colombian intelligence services announced that they had information about an impending assassination attempt on George W. Bush during his visit to this country.

In June 2007, Bulgarian intelligence services reported a planned assassination attempt on the American president during his visit to the Bulgarian capital.

The directory includes information about the circumstances of the death of world leaders of the XX-XXI centuries - monarchs, presidents and prime ministers who died violent deaths in the line of duty. According to Vlast's calculations, from 1900 to 2006, a total of 94 figures in senior government positions in different countries were assassinated, died in accidents, or committed suicide. The reference book describes 60 of the most meaningful stories. Thirty-four cases are omitted, mostly involving African and Middle Eastern heads of state. The reference book does not include cases of violent deaths of heads of self-proclaimed states - only stories about the fate of leaders of countries recognized by the international community or a significant part of it are included. As appendices, information is given about some rulers who died under mysterious circumstances or were killed after losing their powers.
Compiled by Dmitry Polonsky
The author is grateful in advance for any clarifications that can be sent by email to: vlast@site.

July 29, 1900 gunned down King of Italy Umberto I. He became the last autocrat to die a violent death in the 19th century. During the reign of Umberto I, Italy suffered enormous human and economic losses in the colonial wars in Somalia and Ethiopia and a debilitating customs war with France, and a crop failure in 1898 forced Italian peasants to starve. An attempt by peasants who arrived in Milan from all over the country to present a petition to the monarch asking for help grew into a demonstration, which, with the sanction of Umberto I, ended with the shooting of the protesters. Having learned about the shooting of demonstrators and the king’s awarding of the general responsible for it, an Italian emigrant of anarchist convictions, Gaetano Bresci, who lived in the United States, decided to kill the monarch. Having fraudulently received $150 for travel from the Social Question newspaper, where he worked, Breschi arrived in Italy. During Umberto I's trip to the city of Monza, an anarchist in the crowd approached the king and fired three bullets at point-blank range. The 56-year-old monarch died on the spot. Bresci was sentenced to life in hard labor in the Santo Stefano prison on the island of Ventotene, where he died less than a year later. According to the prison administration, it was suicide.
September 14, 1901 died from a serious wound US President William McKinley. His foreign policy was distinguished by active expansion and the struggle for the former Spanish colonies: a US protectorate was established in Cuba, and a government-general headed by an American official was introduced in the Philippines. Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico were involved in the US sphere of influence. According to historians, it was under McKinley that the United States became a world power, and his reign is characterized as the beginning of “new imperialism.” This aroused hatred of the president among anarchists, to whom his killer Leon Czolgosz, a Pole born in the USA, belonged. On September 6, 1901, McKinley arrived at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, to perform at the Temple of Music pavilion. There were about 80 guards inside and outside the pavilion. Czolgosz managed to hide the .32-caliber revolver under a bandage that simulated a fracture of his right arm. After standing in line for many hours, he entered the hall with the crowd. To the sounds of a Bach sonata, the president came out to the public and began shaking hands with his followers. Being left-handed, McKinley extended his left hand to Czolgosz, the terrorist raised his right hand and fired twice from under the bandage. The first bullet hit McKinley in the chest, the second pierced the stomach. Czolgosz was captured on the spot and severely beaten. When arrested, he stated that as an anarchist he was “simply doing his duty.” The President was transported to the exhibition hospital, where an emergency operation had to be performed by a gynecologist who was unable to remove the bullet from the abdominal cavity. Five days later, McKinley's condition deteriorated sharply, and two days later he died of gangrene. The trial of Czolgosz took place in the same month and lasted 8 hours and 25 minutes. In his last words, the terrorist said: “I killed the President because he was the enemy of all good working people. I do not regret my crime.” On October 29, 1901, Leon Czolgosz was executed in the electric chair. The execution was turned into torture, periodically changing the tension. The coffin containing Czolgosz's remains was then covered with quicklime and destroyed within 12 hours.
30 May 1903 killed by a group of conspiratorial officers King of Serbia Alexander I Obrenovic. During his reign, the constitution was abolished, parliament was dissolved, and opposition speeches were banned. The dissatisfaction of government circles and senior officers intensified after the marriage of King Alexander to a lady of dubious reputation, Dragoy Mashin, who brought numerous relatives closer to the court. The immediate reason for the officers' conspiracy was the king's demand to them to recognize his brother-in-law Nikodim Lunievits as heir to the throne. On the night of June 30, the conspirators, led by the captain of the Serbian General Staff, Dragutin Dimitrijevic, nicknamed Apis (Bull), broke into the Obrenovic chambers in the Belgrade palace and demanded that the king abdicate the throne in favor of the head of the ancient dynasty of Serbian princes, Petr Karadjordjevic. After the refusal of the king, who wounded Dimitrievich and shot one of the conspirators, the attackers opened fire with revolvers, then sabers were used. Later, 6 bullet wounds and 40 marks of saber blows were counted on the king’s body, and two wounds, 63 saber blows and numerous heel marks on the queen’s body. The queen's brothers Nicodemus and Nikola were also killed. The corpses of the king and queen were thrown out of the windows onto the palace square, where they lay for more than a day while public festivities took place in Belgrade. The Obrenovich dynasty ceased to exist, and the Karageorgievic dynasty came to power. Dimitrievich, in whose body three bullets fired by the king remained until the end of his life, rose to the rank of colonel and the position of chief of military intelligence. For organizing the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in June 1914, which became the reason for the First World War, Dimitrievich was shot on July 27, 1917 on charges of treason against Serbia.
February 1, 1908 gunned down King Carlos I of Portugal. Having suppressed republican uprisings in the army in 1902 and in the navy in 1906, Carlos I appointed General João Franco as prime minister, effectively giving him the powers of a military dictator. At Franco's insistence, in 1907 the king authorized the dissolution of parliament. On the day of his death, Carlos I and his family left the Lisbon residence in Terreiro do Paço in an open carriage, heading to a winter resort in the province of Vila Viçosa. In the crowd of mourners were two armed anarchists: office worker Alfredo Costa and schoolteacher Manuel Buisa. Approaching the carriage, Costa shot the monarch at point-blank range with a revolver, and Buisa, snatching a gun from under his cloak, shot Crown Prince Louis Philippe in the face. Both anarchists were killed on the spot: Costa was trampled by the crowd, and Buisa was hacked to death by a guard officer. After the death of Carlos I and the Infante, Franco resigned. The youngest son of the deceased king, Manuel II, was proclaimed monarch. He became the last Portuguese autocrat: on the night of October 5, 1910, when Lisbon was engulfed in revolution, Manuel fled to Great Britain, where he died without leaving any offspring.
September 18, 1911 Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia Pyotr Stolypin. Four days before his death, Stolypin attended the performance of “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” at the Kiev Opera House. Emperor Nicholas II and his family and many courtiers came to the premiere. There were reinforced police squads on Theater Square and the surrounding streets, and police officials at the outer doors of the theater. According to the memoirs of the Kyiv governor Alexei Girs, on the eve of the performance, the head of the city security department, Nikolai Kulyabko, informed him that “at night a woman arrived in Kiev, who was entrusted by the fighting squad with carrying out a terrorist act in Kyiv; the intended victim was, apparently, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, but not an attempt at regicide is also excluded." Stolypin was warned about a possible assassination attempt, and Kulyabko promised the governor that “he will always keep his agent-informant, who knows the terrorist by sight, close to the sovereign and ministers.” During the intermission before the start of the second act, this agent, Kyiv secret police informant Dmitry Bogrov (later referred to in the investigation materials as Mordko Gershovich Bogrov), approached Stolypin, who was sitting in the front row, and fired two shots at point-blank range from a Browning. The bullet with intersecting cuts acted as an explosive. According to the memoirs of the governor of Kiev, Stolypin “was saved from instant death by the cross of St. Vladimir, which was hit by a bullet and, shattering it, changed its direct direction to the heart. This bullet pierced the chest, pleura, thoraco-abdominal barrier and liver. Another bullet pierced the hand thoroughly left hand." No political organization claimed responsibility for the murder, but most researchers were inclined to believe that Bogrov acted on instructions from the Social Revolutionaries. Later, Bogrov’s brother Vladimir, in his book, argued that Stolypin’s killer acted as a lone terrorist, deciding to take revenge on the head of government for the fact that “punitive expeditions drenched the entire country in workers’ and peasants’ blood.” The Senate commission that investigated the circumstances of the assassination did not come to a single version regarding the motives for the murder. According to the verdict of the military district court, Bogrov was hanged on the night of September 25, 1911.
March 18, 1913 in the city of Thessaloniki, shortly before recaptured by Greek troops during the war against the Ottoman Empire, shot dead King George I of Greece. The king was taking a traditional walk through the city center. The killer, the Greek Alexander Schinas, was waiting for him at the corner of Agestrias and Dacampagne streets, a few steps from the police commissariat. Approaching the king, from a distance of two steps, he fired a single shot from a large-caliber revolver. The equestrian who accompanied the king managed to detain the killer. 67-year-old George I died on the way to the clinic. The terrorist refused to answer police questions and said that he would talk about his motives in court. During a search, Schinas was found to have a letter in which he declared himself an anarchist and communicated his desire to kill the King of Greece and commit suicide. On the morning of March 23, Schinas was transported from prison to the investigator’s cell, where his hand shackles were removed. Having managed to distract the warden, he broke the window and threw himself down from a height of 10 m. After the death of Schinas, the investigation was unable to establish those who ordered the murder of the monarch.
May 21, 1920 killed Mexican President Venustiano Carranza de la Garza. In the spring of 1920, a former supporter of the president, General Alvaro Obregon, launched an armed uprising. Carranza fled from the capital to Veracruz by train, seizing the state treasury, but Obregon's troops cut the road and attacked the train. With several supporters, Carranza fled on horseback into the mountains and found refuge in a village near the city of Tlaxcalantongo. On the night of May 21, he was shot in his sleep. Carranza's killers have not been identified. According to one version, his own people shot him, realizing that the 60-year-old president, who had lost his treasury, was no longer capable of organizing armed resistance. According to another version, the president was killed by the head of the village commune, Rodolfo Herrero, who hoped to curry favor with Obregon. But after seizing power, Obregón put Herrero on trial, where he was acquitted.
December 16, 1922 shot first President of Poland Gabriel Jozef Narutowicz. Before the introduction of the presidency, the head of the executive branch of Poland, according to the constitution of 1919, was the “chief of state,” who was assigned the role of “the chief executor of the decisions of the Sejm in civil and military affairs.” This post was held by the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, Jozef Pilsudski. The new constitution, adopted in March 1921, introduced the institution of the presidency instead of the “chief of state.” But due to the “Transitional Law” adopted in May of the same year, the post of chief lasted until December 14, 1922. On December 9, 1922, the Sejm elected Narutowicz as president on the fifth attempt. This was opposed by the National Democratic Party (Endeks), whose members declared Narutowicz the “president of the Jews” and a “freemason.” On December 14, Piłsudski transferred power to the elected president. On December 16, Narutowicz visited an exhibition at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw. There, the 57-year-old president was shot dead with three shots from a revolver by the artist Eligiusz Niewiadomski. On December 30, the killer was sentenced to death and a month later he was shot in the Warsaw Citadel prison.
May 7, 193O died from bullet wounds French President Paul Doumer. The popular 75-year-old president, who lost four sons in World War I, served in office for less than a year. The killer was 39-year-old emigrant from Russia Pavel Gorgulov, a writer. Under the pseudonym Pavel Brad, he published a collection of poems in Paris, “The Secret of the Life of the Scythians.” He also wrote novels about the life of the Cossacks, most of which were rejected by publishers. In poetry and prose, Gorgulov propagated the idea of ​​“Scythianism,” according to which Russia, as the center of spirituality, must defeat the West. On May 6, 1932, Gorgulov, with an invitation card in the name of “veteran writer Paul Breda,” went to the book fair, which was opened by the president. He shot Doumer several times at close range with a revolver and was detained on the spot, shouting a slogan from his collection “The Secret of the Life of the Scythians”: “The violet will defeat the machine!” The unconscious Doumer was taken to the hospital, where during the operation he came to his senses and asked: “What happened to me?” - “You were in a car accident.” “Wow, I didn’t notice anything,” said Doumer, fell into oblivion again and died at 4 o’clock in the morning on May 7. During interrogation, his killer stated that the president’s death corresponded to the ideals of white emigration, and reported belonging to the “green fascist party.” However, both Russian emigrants and fascists represented by Mussolini dissociated themselves from Gorgulov. The version about the involvement of the OGPU in the assassination attempt has not been confirmed. The trial took place at the end of July 1932. Lawyers insisted on Gorgulov’s insanity, but the prosecutor said: “The impression of a madman made by the accused is explained by his nationality.” After hearing the death sentence, Gorgulov tore his shirt collar shouting: “France refused me a residence permit!” On September 14, 1932 he was executed by guillotine. On the way to the scaffold, Gorgulov sang “Hostile whirlwinds are blowing over us,” and his last words were: “Russia, my country!”
December 29, 1933 gunned down Prime Minister of Romania Ion Gheorghe Duca. The reason for the murder was the Prime Minister’s ban on participation in parliamentary and local elections of the nationalist party “Legion of the Archangel Michael”. Three terrorists from the military wing of the “legion” - the Iron Guard - shot Dooku with revolvers on the platform of the railway station in the resort town of Sinaia. Immediately after the murder, the militants surrendered to the police. Romanian nationalists still honor the killers of Ion Duca under the common name Nicadori, made up of syllables of their names. The court sentenced the attackers to life imprisonment, but acquitted the leader of the Iron Guard, Corneliu Codreanu, who was accused of conspiracy. Five years after the murder of Duca, when the political popularity of Codreanu, who was actively supported by Hitler, began to pose a real threat to the power of King Carol II of Romania, the leader of the Iron Guard was arrested again. On November 30, 1938, he, three Nicadoris and ten other Guard militants were shot without trial by the police in a forest near Bucharest. Authorities said the terrorists were killed while trying to escape.
July 25, 1934 died from a gunshot wound Chancellor of Austria Engelbert Dollfuss. He was an active opponent of the annexation of Austria to Germany (Anschluss), which Hitler insisted on. In foreign policy, Dollfuss focused on Italy, and the Italian dictator Mussolini was his personal friend. On July 25, 1934, an attempt at a fascist putsch initiated by Hitler took place in Vienna. A detachment of 150 SS members dressed in Austrian military uniform, including the future head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Ernst Kaltenbrunner and the future chief of the RSHA military department Otto Skorzeny, burst into the federal office of the head of government. In the shootout, Dolfuss was wounded in the throat. The attackers prevented staff from providing medical assistance to Dolphus and left him bleeding on the sofa. The head of the Austrian Ministry of Justice, Kurt von Schuschnigg, managed to mobilize government troops and drive the SS detachment out of the office, but most of the putschists were able to escape. Mussolini, in accordance with the mutual assistance agreement with Austria, hastily sent four divisions to the Italian-Austrian border. Hitler had to abandon plans for an immediate Anschluss. On July 28, 1934, Mussolini said on the radio that Hitler “cynically trampled upon the elementary laws of decency.” So the murder of the Chancellor of Austria became the cause of the conflict between Hitler and Mussolini for several years. Dollfuss's successor as Federal Chancellor, von Schuschnigg, did not find Mussolini's support, and in March 1938 Austria became part of the Third Reich.
October 9, 1934 gunned down King of Yugoslavia Alexander I Karageorgievich. After a series of terrorist attacks organized by Croat separatists, the king dissolved parliament in January 1929 and banned the activities of all parties based on religious, regional or ethnic principles. But the leading positions in the state were occupied by the Serbs. The leader of the Croatian nationalists, Ante Pavelić, and his associates fled to Italy and Hungary, forming the “Insurgent Croatian Revolutionary Organization” (in short, “Ustasha”, i.e. rebels). The radicals did the same, uniting into the “Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization” (IMRO) under the leadership of Ivan Mikhailov, which found refuge in Bulgaria. The Constitution of Yugoslavia, approved by the king in 1931, established a regime unique to Europe: a military-monarchical Orthodox dictatorship. At the same time, in foreign policy, Alexander was guided by France, and the head of the French Foreign Ministry, Jean-Louis Barthou, defended the idea of ​​a defensive bloc against Germany with the participation of France, Yugoslavia and the USSR. On October 9, 1934, Alexander arrived in Marseille on the cruiser Dubrovnik to negotiate a military alliance. Bartu met the king at the port, and both leaders got into a limousine. The car, accompanied by a horse-drawn motorcade, reached Exchange Square when VMRO militant Vlado Chernozemsky (real name Kerin Velichko Georgiev), running out of the crowd, jumped on the step of the car and shot several times at the king and the minister with a pistol. The police opened fire, killing three women and a child in the crowd. Chernozemsky was wounded by two saber blows from a security officer and shot dead by the police. The 45-year-old king was carried to the prefecture building, where he died, having managed to whisper: “Save Yugoslavia!” Bartu, 72, died in hospital hours later. Representatives from many countries arrived at the funeral of Alexander I in Belgrade. On the wreath from Hermann Goering it was written: “To our former heroic enemy with deep sorrow.” The investigation in France found that VMRO worked closely with the Ustasha of Ante Pavelic. French police arrested three Croatian conspirators, who on February 12, 1936 were sentenced to life hard labor, and Pavelic and two other Ustashas were sentenced to death in absentia. But Italy did not extradite Pavelić to France. In the 1950-1960s, historians of the USSR and the GDR argued that the operation to eliminate Alexander I and Barthu, called “Teutonic Sword,” was organized by the Ustasha and VMRO under the leadership of the intelligence services of the Third Reich. The action was supervised by Hermann Goering, and the main person responsible for Germany was the assistant to the German military attache in Paris, Hans Speidel, who later successfully served in the German army, and in 1957-1963 became the commander-in-chief of NATO ground forces in Central Europe. German historians claimed that agents of the USSR NKVD were behind the murder. The authors of independent studies in recent years, Mitre Stamenov (Sofia, 1993), Kate Brown (Oxford, 2004) and Jovan Kaciaki (Belgrade, 2004), are inclined to the version of historians of the USSR and the GDR.
April 28, 1945 shot head of the government of the Republic of Salo, former dictator (Il Duce) of Italy Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini. After the signing of the act of surrender of the country by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy on September 3, 1943, Mussolini fled north to Lombardy, controlled by Wehrmacht units. After 20 days in the city of Salo, he proclaimed the creation of the “Italian Social Republic” (Republic of Salo) and formed a government. King Mussolini was accused of defeatism and organizing a coup. On September 28-29, 1943, the Republic of Salo was recognized by Germany, Japan, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia. On April 21, 1945, when Anglo-American troops advanced to northern Italy, Wehrmacht units began evacuating, and on April 25, the partisan committee for the national liberation of Northern Italy announced the beginning of an anti-fascist uprising. On the same day, Mussolini ordered the troops of the Republic of Salo to lay down their arms “to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.” Together with his mistress Clara Petacci and a group of associates, Mussolini tried to make his way to the town of Menaggio, from where the road led to neutral Switzerland. On the night of April 27, the fugitives joined a detachment of 200 Wehrmacht troops. Near the village of Musso, the column was stopped by a partisan detachment, whose commander declared that only the Germans would be allowed through. A German lieutenant, putting a soldier's overcoat on Mussolini, hid him in the back of a truck, but when inspecting the car, the partisans recognized the Duce and arrested him. The Allied command received information about Mussolini's arrest, and the secret services of Great Britain and the United States, competing, tried to kidnap him. But from the partisan command - the Freedom Volunteer Corps (VVC) - an order was received to liquidate him. On April 28 at 16.10, a KDS detachment led by Colonel Valerio (Walter Audisio) shot Mussolini and his mistress on the outskirts of the village of Mezzagra. Five bullets were later found in Mussolini's body. The bodies of the Duce, his mistress and six other fascist leaders were transported by the partisans to Milan, where they were hung by their feet from the ceilings of a gas station in Piazza Loreto. With their death, the Salo Republic ceased to exist.
November 13, 1950 killed Chairman of the Venezuelan military junta Carlos Roman Delgado Chalbo Gomez. He came to power in November 1948 as a result of a military coup, overthrowing President Ramulo Gallegos, in whose government he served as Minister of Defense. The junta led by Delgado dissolved the National Congress, abrogated the constitution and outlawed liberal parties. Delgado, 41, was kidnapped and killed under unclear circumstances. It is assumed that he was eliminated by his rival in the military leadership, Perez Geminez, who after the death of Delgado became the de facto head of government, and from December 1952, the president of Venezuela.
July 20, 1951 gunned down King of Jordan Abdullah I (Abdallah bin Hussein). The 69-year-old monarch, the only Arab politician of his generation, was an active supporter of rapprochement with Western countries. He intended to sign a separate peace with Israel, but, angering the leaders of other Arab countries, abandoned this plan. Abdullah opposed the formation of a single Arab state, including Syria, Iraq and Jordan. The king died in Jerusalem at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque from three bullets in the head and chest fired by Palestinian Mustafa Shakri Asho, a tailor who was part of the underground group "Arab Dynamite". The terrorist, captured by the king's guards, said that he killed Abdullah for betraying national interests. The murderer and his five accomplices, all residents of Jerusalem, were executed.
October 16, 1951 shot first Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan. The prime minister, who played a leading role in recognizing Pakistan's independence after the British occupation, has earned the unofficial title of "father of the nation" in society. He achieved an end to the war with India, concluded a treaty with the United States that was beneficial for Pakistan, and established relations with Western countries, while maintaining the support of Islamic leaders within the country. The 55-year-old prime minister was killed with two bullets in the chest at a rally in a park in Rawalpindi. The terrorist, an Afghan by birth, Shaad Akbar, was shot dead on the spot by Ali Khan's guards. After the killer's death, the investigation was unable to identify his motives and accomplices.

January 2, 1955 died from his wounds President of Panama José Antonio Remon Cantera. On January 1, while the 47-year-old president was attending the hippodrome, he was machine-gunned by an unknown assailant. The murder weapon was not found. To assist in the investigation, the authorities invited US FBI specialists, who discovered that the Panamanians made many gross mistakes during the investigation and did not even fingerprint the sniper’s hideout. First, US citizen Martin Lipstein was accused of murder, who was identified by several witnesses. But then lawyer Ruben Miro confessed to the crime, identifying himself as the executor of the conspiracy, behind which stood the vice-president of the country and the successor of the murdered man, Jose Ramon Guisado Valdez. Lipstein was released, left Panama and soon died in the United States from a gangster's bullet. In April 1955, Guisado was put on trial and then imprisoned, but the investigation established that Miro had lied to both himself and Guisado. In December 1957, Guisado was released, but never returned to the leadership of Panama. The murder remained unsolved. Observers linked Remon's death to his successful negotiations with the US administration on increasing the annual rent for using the Panama Canal from $430 thousand to $1.9 million. This, analysts believed, could be the reason for the removal of Remon by order of American businessmen and politicians close to them .
July 26, 1957 gunned down President of Guatemala Carlos Castillo Armas. The military junta he led seized power on July 8, 1954 as a result of a military coup prepared by the US CIA, forcing President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman to flee the country. Once in power, Armas created the Committee for the Defense against Communism, which could, without the right of appeal, declare any Guatemalan a communist or communist sympathizer and arrest the suspect for six months. The junta has registered over 70 thousand such persons. Under Armas, the capital of Guatemala became a center for the legalization of criminal proceeds: a casino was built, the co-owners of which were senior junta officers and American gangsters. In July 1957, Armas closed the casino, according to one version, under pressure from the US administration. On July 26, the dictator was killed several times in the chest by palace guard Romeo Valdez Sanchez. After the murder, Sanchez shot himself. Armas' successors did not investigate. The media and historians named both Armas' opponents in the junta leadership and pro-communist supporters of the ousted President Arbenz Guzmán as the masterminds of the murder.
July 14, 1958 the last one was killed during the Republican Revolution Monarch of Iraq Faisal II. After Egypt and Syria agreed to create a United Arab Republic in February 1958, the Iraqi and Jordanian monarchs decided to create an alternative entity: the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan, led by 23-year-old Faisal, as the senior member of the Hashemite dynasty. His reign in his new capacity lasted five months. When Faisal, fearing a threat from Syria, requested military assistance from Jordan, his army general Abdel Kerim Qassem used military maneuvers to stage a coup. Qasem's units entered Baghdad and stormed the king's residence. Faisal and Crown Prince Abdul were killed. Prime Minister Nuri al-Said tried to hide in a woman's dress, but was discovered and killed a day later. Qassem, having proclaimed Iraq a republic, headed the new government.
September 26, 1959 died from his wounds Prime Minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), leader of the Freedom Party Solomon Bandaranaike. Having come to power in 1956, he deprived English and Tamil of the status of state languages, proclaiming Sinhala as the only official language of the country under the slogan “One nation, one language.” However, in 1958, the prime minister compromised with the Tamil minority, expanding its rights: he supported a law that allowed partial recognition of the Tamil language in commerce. This has angered extremists among the ethnic Sinhalese who make up the majority of the population. The assassination attempt, which took place on September 25, was carried out by a Sinhalese Buddhist monk, Talduve Somarama, who, as a clergyman, could enter the prime minister’s residence without a search. The monk, who was concealing a revolver under his clothes, shot 60-year-old Bandaranaike several times at point-blank range before being captured by security. The prime minister managed to demand that the terrorist not be sentenced to death, but after his death the judges unanimously approved the death sentence. Somarama, who converted to Christianity in prison, was hanged. The widow of Prime Minister Sirimavo, after his death, headed the Freedom Party, and in 1960 - the government of the country, becoming the world's first female prime minister.
August 29, 1960 killed Prime Minister of Jordan Hazza al-Majali. A supporter of Jordan's foreign policy rapprochement with the United States and Great Britain, he was killed when a time bomb planted in his desk exploded. Ten people from his entourage also became victims of the explosion. The Jordanian authorities accused four Palestinian Arabs of the assassination attempt. The investigation considered that they were carrying out the order of the head of the Syrian intelligence services, Abd al-Hamid al-Sarraj, with the participation of the Egyptian intelligence services. According to analysts, the conspirators expected that the murder of al-Majali would provoke an uprising in Jordan against the country's king, Hussein. But the uprising did not occur, and the king, having received the investigation data, in September 1960 moved troops to the border with Syria and prepared to launch an invasion. Hussein was persuaded to abandon these plans by American-British pressure. On December 31, 1960, the accused in the bombing case were publicly hanged in Amman.
May 30, 1961 gunned down President of the Dominican Republic, Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina. Since 1930, when Trujillo removed President Horacio Vázquez, with a four-year break, he periodically was either the official or the de facto head of the country. Trujillo managed to attract foreign capital to the republic, but established a dictatorial regime. He was officially titled as "honorary president, benefactor of the nation and creator of an independent economy." Towards the end of his reign, Trujillo tried to organize a coup, which spoiled relations with the United States and most Latin American leaders and caused discontent in his army. His car was shot up near San Cristobal. According to the official version, the assassination attempt was organized by General Juan Tomas Diaz, who was soon killed in a shootout with the police. However, according to another version, repeatedly voiced in the media and political detectives, Trujillo was killed during an operation by US intelligence services.
November 2, 1963 killed President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem. A Vietnamese nationalist and anti-communist, he came to power in 1955 with US support. A Catholic by upbringing, Diem was actively involved in the propagation of Catholicism. This caused massive public protests organized by Buddhist leaders. Along with this, partisans supported by the pro-communist authorities of North Vietnam were active in the country. In May 1963, protests and guerrilla activity reached such a scale that the US leadership considered Diem's ​​regime ineffective and stopped its financial support. In 1981, former CIA planning director William Colby admitted that preparations for Diem's ​​removal were authorized by US President John Kennedy. The military coup was led by Vietnamese Army General Dieng Van Minh, who maintained active contacts with the US Ambassador. All senior military officers loyal to Diem were isolated or killed a day before his death. On November 2, upon returning from an evening church service, the 62-year-old president was captured by the Ming putschists, transported to the basement of the army general headquarters and shot in the back of the head. Along with Diem, his younger brother and chief political adviser Ngo Dinh Nu was shot. The coup caused chaos in the military leadership of South Vietnam, which was unable to cope with the guerrillas. In August 1964, the United States began hostilities against North Vietnam, which escalated into a war that lasted until 1975 and led to the elimination of South Vietnam as a state.
November 22, 1963 gunned down US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Kennedy, 46, was killed by a sniper at 12:30 p.m. while driving through Dealey Plaza in Dallas in an open car. The alleged killer, 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested an hour and a half later. On November 24, he was shot and killed by businessman and former gangster Jack Ruby in the Dallas Police Department building, motivated by a desire to take revenge on the killer. Therefore, the only accused did not appear in court and did not have time to give detailed testimony. This gave rise to many versions of the murder, set out in dozens of books and films, from a KGB action to a US intelligence conspiracy. The official version, announced in September 1964, is based on the report of a commission chaired by Chief Justice Ergie Warren and claims that Oswald was a lone killer. A special congressional commission that conducted a new investigation in 1976-1979 concluded that Oswald acted “probably as a result of a conspiracy,” but was unable to identify those responsible. Many independent researchers believe that there was another shooter in addition to Oswald. By decision of the US Congress, all documents in the murder case must be made public by 2017, but, according to the will of the widow of the President, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, her 500-page testimony will not be released until 2044.
January 27, 1965 gunned down Iranian Prime Minister Hassan al-Mansour. As a pro-Western politician, he was appointed by the Shah of Iran under direct pressure from US President Lyndon Johnson. His reign was accompanied by the suppression of the Shiite radical movement. When, at an audience with the Shah and the Prime Minister, the spiritual leader of the Shiites, Ayatollah Khomeini, refused to stop criticizing the regime, Mansour slapped him in the face. Khomeini was then placed under house arrest and expelled from Iran. Deciding to take revenge for the insult and repression against their leader, members of the organization “Fedayan Islam” (“Sacrificing themselves for Islam”) Bokharay, Harandi and Niknejad shot 32-year-old Mansour almost point-blank in Tehran on Bokharestan Square. The killers were captured and executed along with 10 organizers of the attack.
September 6, 1966 stabbed to death Prime Minister of South Africa Hendrik France Verwoerd. The 64-year-old politician, considered the “architect of the apartheid regime,” was killed in the State Assembly building by a parliamentary courier, mulatto Dimitrio Tsafendas. The 48-year-old killer escaped the death penalty because he was declared insane: he claimed that a large worm that had settled in his stomach ordered him to kill the head of government. In 1999, Tsafendas died in a psychiatric clinic.
November 28, 1971 killed Prime Minister of Jordan Wasfi Tell (al-Tal). In September 1970, Tell became one of those responsible for the liquidation of Palestinian partisan bases in Jordan. The PLO under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, relying on thousands of Palestinian refugees who settled in Jordan after the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, tried to use this territory as a springboard for armed attacks on Israel. Over the course of three years, the PLO effectively created Palestinian autonomy in Jordan, and its leadership tried to take control of the local oil business and call on Jordanians for civil disobedience. During September 17-27, 1970, the 40th brigade of the Jordanian army, with the support of tanks, expelled Palestinian Arabs led by the PLO leadership from the country. Several hundred Palestinians died in the process, and Tell became the target of revenge. On November 28, 1971, the Jordanian prime minister was machine-gunned by four gunmen at the entrance to the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo, where Tell had arrived for an inter-Arab summit. The Jordanian authorities considered the leaders of the Palestinian groups "Detachment 17" and "Black September" Abu Hassan (Ali Hassan Salameh) and Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf) to be the organizers of the terrorist attack. On January 22, 1979, Abu Hassan, also responsible for terrorist attacks against Israelis, was killed in a car bomb in Beirut. The PLO blamed Israeli intelligence for his death. On January 14, 1991, Abu Iyad, who in the last years of his life was in conflict with the leader of the PLO, was killed by an Arafat militant in Tunisia.
September 11, 1973 died as a result of a military coup President of Chile Salvador Isabelino del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Allende Gossens. Elected on September 5, 1970 as the candidate of the Popular Unity bloc, which included the Democratic, Socialist and Communist parties, Allende became the first Marxist on the continent to come to power through legal means. The Soviet press called his victory in the elections “a revolutionary blow to imperialism in Latin America.” Allende's government nationalized copper mines and other natural resources, angering businessmen and military allies. In March 1973, the pro-presidential coalition lost the support of Congress, where the opposition majority led by the Christian Democratic Party blocked Allende's economic reforms. On the morning of September 11, 1973, the command of the Chilean fleet began a mutiny. The coup, the first stage of which was the seizure of a television center and the bombing of independent radio stations, was led by Chief of the General Staff Augusto Pinochet. He suggested that Allende and his family and closest associates leave Chile by plane, but the president refused. At 11.00 motorized infantry began the assault on the presidential palace La Moneda. Allende and his supporters were defended by about 70 soldiers and officers. From the besieged palace, the president addressed his fellow citizens on the radio. In a final speech amid gunfire, Allende urged civilians not to take to the streets and “not sacrifice themselves” to protect his life. “I have one thing left to say to the workers: I will not resign. At this crossroads of history, I am ready to pay with my life for the trust of the people,” Allende said, after which the radio went silent. When tanks and aircraft entered the battle on the side of the putschists and the attackers occupied the first floor, Allende ordered his comrades to stop resisting and shot himself with a machine gun with gold inlay, donated by Fidel Castro. The putschists shot the already dead Allende, in whom an autopsy revealed 13 bullets. The death of the Chilean leader was announced a day after the assault. For more than 17 years, until the Pinochet regime ceased to exist, the world adhered to two different versions of Allende’s death. In the USSR, as well as among Allende’s relatives, it was believed that the president was killed by the putschists. On March 5, 1991, the Chilean government released the results of the nine-month work of the truth and reconciliation commission, which came to the unequivocal conclusion that Allende committed suicide.
December 20, 1973 died in an explosion in Madrid Prime Minister of Spain Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. The bomb was planted where the car of the 70-year-old prime minister, who was considered the successor to the 80-year-old dictator (caudillo) of Spain, Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde, was parked. The explosive device under Blanco's armored limousine was so powerful that the car flew through the Church of St. Francis, where the prime minister had arrived for Mass, and fell on the roof of a two-story building. The killers were not found. The Basque separatist organization ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna - "Basque Country and Freedom") claimed responsibility for the explosion. During Franco's reign in Spain, from 1939, political speeches by separatists were punishable by death, Basques' access to civil service was difficult, and the Basque language was prohibited even in private communication. Blanco's murder was one of ETA's most successful actions. Caudillo, who had to personally lead the government, died two years after the death of Blanco, leaving no successor. In November 1975, King Juan Carlos of Spain was proclaimed head of state. Two years later, the government approved the Statute of Guernica, according to which Basque autonomy was formed in Spain, the equality of the Basque and Spanish languages, and the right of the Basques to their own parliament and government were recognized.
March 25, 1975 gunned down King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia. The killer was his nephew and namesake, 31-year-old Prince Faisal bin Musad. At a reception in honor of a delegation from Kuwait, the prince suddenly pulled out a pistol, shot the 72-year-old king three times in the face and was captured by security. The killer declared that he was carrying out the will of Allah, and was declared mentally ill by the judges. This did not stop the authorities from publicly beheading bin Musad in Riyadh in June 1975.
August 15, 1975 killed first President of Bangladesh, leader of the Bengali national movement Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He came to power in 1971 during the war of independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan. Contrary to the interests of the top military leadership, Rahman began to form parallel structures of “security troops” personally loyal to him. A group of officers focused on returning Bangladesh to Pakistan's jurisdiction attempted a coup, killing Rahman, his wife and five children. The rebellion was suppressed, but Rahman's successors did not investigate the circumstances of the death of the first president.
March 18, 1977 shot at his residence in Brazzaville President of the Congo, head of the Congolese Labor Party (CPT) Marien Ngouabi. He came to power in 1968 in a coup, overthrowing the regime of Alphonse Massamba-Debe. Ngouabi, who proclaimed Congo a “people's republic” and “the first Marxist-Leninist state in Africa,” is known for active contacts with China and the signing of an economic assistance agreement with the USSR. The assassination of the 38-year-old president was carried out by four militants led by Congolese army captain Barthalamew Kikadidi. Three militants were shot by security guards, but Kikadidi managed to escape. Official radio called the attackers "a group of imperialist suicides." Ngouabi's death prompted a large-scale investigation by the CPT military committee. Dozens of people were repressed. According to the verdict of the tribunal, ex-president Massamba-Deba was executed, whom the authorities considered one of the leaders of the conspirators, despite the lack of direct evidence.
April 27, 1978 killed Afghan President Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan. He died five years after declaring Afghanistan a republic, deposing his cousin king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Towards the end of Daoud's reign, USSR-backed figures of the banned People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) became more active in the country, and managed to find supporters in the army. The uprising was provoked by police operations that began on April 24 against the leaders of the PDPA: according to Soviet intelligence, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan insisted on them. PDPA leaders Nur Mohammed Taraki, Hafizullah Amin, Babrak Karmal and others were arrested on charges of violating the constitution. However, before his arrest, Amin, with the help of his son, managed to convey to the military units loyal to the PDPA the order prepared back in March to start the uprising. Government troops were deployed to Kabul, but tank units were on the side of the rebels. By April 26, the army began to come under the leadership of a quickly created military revolutionary council led by Abdul Kadir. By the morning of April 27, a group of rebels, supported by tanks and aircraft, broke the resistance of the guards defending the presidential palace of Arc. During the assault and missile and bomb attack on the palace, Daoud and his family were killed. On the afternoon of April 27, the arrested PDPA leaders were released. The leaders of the military-revolutionary council read out an appeal to the people on the radio about the victory of the April (Saur) Revolution and transferred power in the country to the new governing body of Afghanistan - the Revolutionary Council, headed by Nur Mohammed Taraki.
October 26, 1979 gunned down South Korean President Park Chung Hee. Having come to power in 1961 as the leader of the military junta, he was then re-elected three times to the first post in the country, introducing amendments to the constitution and establishing a dictatorial regime in the country. The killer of the 62-year-old president was his longtime friend, Korean CIA chief Kim Ye-joo. According to official media, during lunch at his residence, Kim started an argument with the chief of the presidential security service and, in the heat of the moment, shot him. When Park tried to intervene, Kim shot him twice. According to the unofficial version, under the influence of alcohol, the Korean leaders quarreled over two girls who accompanied the dinner with singing and dancing. The man's associates arrested Kim, who said he shot the dictator as a patriot because Park had become a threat to democracy. Authorities found no evidence of a conspiracy and considered Kim to have acted as an impulsive loner. In May 1980, the killer was executed.
December 27, 1979 Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (RS DRA), Secretary General of the Central Committee of the PDPA Hafizullah Amin was killed. Three months before his death, Amin overthrew his predecessor Nur Muhammad Taraki from his post, and on October 8 ordered his death. The leadership of the USSR considered Amin a usurper. KGB officers assigned to his security service reported to Moscow that Amin, “without security and in violation of diplomatic etiquette,” regularly visited the CIA station at the US Embassy. One of the reports spoke of “Amin’s agreement to allow the deployment of American technical reconnaissance assets in the Afghan provinces bordering the USSR instead of the partially reduced installations in Pakistan and Turkey.” On December 12, Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev, KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko decided to send Soviet troops into the DRA. This was done in violation of the Constitution of the USSR, in secret from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Central Committee of the CPSU and members of the Politburo. The military action was motivated by the need to protect the “socialist ideals of the April Revolution of 1978”, numerous requests from the previous leadership of the DRA for direct military assistance and demands for the security of the southern borders of the USSR from the United States, which lost its strategic position in Iran after the Islamic revolution that took place there in February 1979. On December 20-22, at the urgent request of Soviet advisers, Amin and his family moved from their residence in the center of Kabul to the less fortified Taj Beg Palace on the western outskirts of the capital. Soon, the special groups of the USSR KGB "Zenit" and "Grom", part of the "A" ("Alpha") unit, arrived in Afghanistan. On the eve of the assault, Hafizullah Amin and members of his family were poisoned with pomegranate juice, to which KGB agents added poison, but the PDPA Secretary General was saved by Soviet doctors who did not know about Moscow’s preparations. By 18.00 on December 27, KGB units surrounded Taj Beg and, together with a battalion from the 40th Army, began to storm it. Outside, the palace was guarded by motorized infantry and tank battalions of the DRA army, numbering 2.5 thousand people. The attackers in armored personnel carriers broke through to the palace, destroyed the security posts and, under heavy fire from the windows, broke into the Taj Beg. Amin, who tried to escape, was killed by a grenade explosion. During the assault, his two sons and a Soviet military doctor assigned to the PDPA General Secretary also died. According to historians, up to 25 soldiers and officers were killed and up to 225 wounded by the attackers. On the night of December 27-28, a new composition of the RS DRA and the government of the country were formed. The posts of chairman of the RS DRA and head of government were taken by the new Secretary General of the PDPA Central Committee, Babrak Karmal. The next day, the USSR and DRA media announced that Amin’s regime had been overthrown by the “patriotic and healthy majority of the PDPA, the Revolutionary Council and the armed forces of the DRA,” and Amin had been shot “by the verdict of the revolutionary court.” For the operation to overthrow Amin, about 400 employees of the USSR KGB were awarded orders and medals. In July 2004, the curator of the operation, who then held the post of head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB (foreign intelligence), Vladimir Kryuchkov, said: “Everything was done correctly. Moreover, I am amazed at the foresight of the then leaders. Gromyko, Ustinov looked far ahead.”
April 12, 1980 hacked to death Liberian President William Richard Tolbert. Historians characterize his reign as an “oligarchy of Americo-Liberians” (descendants of slaves who fled from the USA to Liberia). Tolbert lost public support after he ordered the shooting of demonstrators protesting soaring rice prices in April 1979. However, this did not prevent him from leading the Organization of African Unity from July 1979 until his death. A year after the shooting of demonstrators, Tolbert fell victim to a coup organized by 17 members of his personal guard under the leadership of Sergeant Samuel Doe, 19, who belonged to the Krahn tribe. At night, the putschists broke into Tolbert’s chambers and inflicted 13 saber blows on the 67-year-old president. US historian Elliot Berg characterized the coup this way: “Never before has a group of people so young, so poorly educated, so low in official status, so inexperienced in government, seized political power so absolutely.” Doe, who first headed the "people's salvation council" and then became president of Liberia, physically destroyed many of Tolbert's associates and established an ethnic dictatorship of the Krahn tribe, giving the police the right to arrest anyone for "unhealthy statements about government policies."
May 24, 1981 died in a plane crash President of Ecuador Jaime Roldos Aguilera. The crash of the Air Force plane carrying 40-year-old Roldos and his five companions occurred near the Peruvian border. The plane deviated from its route by several tens of kilometers and crashed into a mountain. Ecuadorian authorities explained this as a pilot error. However, in 2004, businessman John Perkins, close to international economic organizations, released his autobiography, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. It claims that Roldos died as a result of an operation by US intelligence services, as he came into conflict with large US industrialists over the oil resources of Ecuador.
May 30, 1981 killed President and Prime Minister of Bangladesh Zia Ziaur Rahman. After the declaration of Bangladesh's sovereignty in 1971, he was one of the organizers of the national army. Having won the presidential election on April 21, 1978 and leading the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Rahman demoted his longtime associate General Mansur, transferring him from the main military administration to district command. On May 29, 1981, Rahman paid a visit to the city of Chittagong, which is part of this district. On the night of May 30, Mansur rebelled: the residence where Rahman was staying was stormed. The president and eight people around him were shot dead. But the army command did not support Mansur, who was defeated and killed in battles with troops loyal to the government.
July 31, 1981 died in a plane crash the de facto leader of Panama, commander-in-chief of the armed forces Omar Efrain Torrijos Herrera. Torrijos, who came to power in 1968 through a coup, gained popularity because in 1977 he concluded an agreement with US President Jimmy Carter to return the Panama Canal from the control of the US administration. After the plane carrying 52-year-old Torrijos and his five companions crashed in the mountainous region of Cocle province, Panamanian authorities concluded that the accident was caused by pilot error in poor visibility conditions. But immediately after Torrijos’ death, a US military plane was spotted in the area of ​​the crash, and Torrijos’ brother Moses subsequently stated that the Panamanian leader died as a result of a CIA operation. American businessman John Perkins, who is familiar with Torrijos, agrees with him, claiming that “there was a tape recorder with explosives on the plane.” Observers noted that Torrijos died six months after the election of US President Ronald Reagan, who had a sharply negative attitude towards the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, and found similarities in the circumstances of the death of Torrijos and Ecuadorian President Roldos. But the leadership of Panama and the United States called these arguments political speculation.

October 6, 1981 killed during a military parade in Cairo Egyptian President Mohammed Anwar al-Sadat. Security measures at the parade were the strictest: the police blocked all approaches to the square in advance, even the guests of honor invited to the podium were subject to searches. But three hours after the parade began, one of the vehicles suddenly separated from the column of trucks with 130-millimeter guns and turned towards the podium where Sadat, Egypt's top leadership and guests of honor were present. Senior Lieutenant Khaled Islambouli of the 333rd Artillery Brigade jumped out of the cockpit and threw a grenade at the stand, then opened fire with a heavy machine gun. Islambouli's accomplices threw the other two grenades from the back of the truck. Another conspirator, sniper Hussein Abbas Ali, opened fire at the stand with a machine gun. Panic set in, Sadat rose from his chair and said: “It can’t be!” Standing motionless, Sadat found himself a target for a sniper: bullets pierced his neck and chest, hitting the pulmonary artery. The Egyptian President was killed 20 seconds later. after the start of the attack. The terrorists, making sure that he was not breathing, tried to escape. In addition to Sadat, several senior military officials, a bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the president's photographer, and his valet were killed. Egyptian Vice President Hosni Mubarak and several foreign diplomats, including US military advisers, were injured. Three perpetrators of the terrorist attack were captured on the spot, and another three days later. The engineer Mohammed Abdel Salam Farrag, who worked out the details of Sadat's assassination, was also arrested. The investigation revealed that the conspirators were part of the Al-Jihad al-Jadid (New Holy War) organization, headed by Farrag. The group's goal was to carry out the Islamic Revolution, the first act of which was the operation to eliminate Sadat called “Kill the Pharaoh.” On April 15, 1982, Farrag and two civilian conspirators were hanged, and former soldiers Islambouli and Abbas Ali were shot. But the investigation did not establish how, having bypassed careful control, the militants carried weapons and grenades into the truck and why, a few seconds before the terrorist attack, Sadat’s bodyguards left their posts around the podium. According to one version, American intelligence agencies were behind the terrorist attack, and according to another, Egyptian intelligence services. Since Sadat's death, Egypt has been continuously led by his former vice president, Hosni Mubarak.
December 18, 1981 the official ATA news agency reported a sudden suicide head of the Albanian government Mehmet Shehu. The Prime Minister was considered the closest ally of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Albanian Labor Party (APT), Enver Hoxha, under whose leadership he worked for about 25 years. In particular, Nikita Khrushchev claimed in his memoirs that, by order of Hoxha, in 1948 Mehmet Shehu “personally strangled” the main rival of his patron in the struggle for party power, Koçi Dzodze. Western media reported that Shehu’s “suicide” was the result of a conflict within the leadership of the APT, and according to rumors circulating in Moscow in the early 1980s, Enver Hoxha personally shot the prime minister at a government meeting. Less than a year after Shehu's "suicide", in November 1982, Enver Hoxha said that the former prime minister and "a group of conspirators associated with him were trying to destroy the party and people's power." After this, a purge of the party and state apparatus took place in Albania: many people associated with Shehu were executed. In the “historical notes” “Titovites” published in Albania in 1983, Hoxha specified: “Mehmet Shehu was initially recruited as an American intelligence agent by the director of the American technical school in Albania, Harry Fultz, and, on his instructions, went to Spain. After that, after spending three years in "French refugee camps in Suirien, Gurs and Verba, where he was also recruited by the British Intelligence Service, returned to Albania. During the national liberation struggle, he became an agent of the Yugoslav Trotskyists." In March 1985, there was a new official statement from Hoxha that Mehmet Shehu was a “Yugoslav, American and Soviet agent” and therefore was liquidated.
October 31, 1984 killed Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi. The cause of death was Sikh revenge for the liquidation of a separatist base in the state of Punjab. Since the beginning of 1984, extremists under the leadership of religious leader Bhindranwale, who demanded the separation of Punjab from India, brought weapons and ammunition to the building of the main shrine of the Sikhs - the Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar. On June 5, 1984, a day especially revered by religious Sikhs, Gandhi authorized the storming of the Golden Temple, which was destroyed by fire from tank guns. All the leaders of the group, including Bhindranwale, and several hundred peaceful Sikh pilgrims were killed. This caused outrage among India's 18 million Sikh population, but the prime minister, despite warnings, did not dismiss members of this religious-ethnic group from her security detail. On the morning of October 31, Gandhi, getting ready for a television interview, refused to wear a bulletproof vest under her dress, deciding that it made her look fat. Sikh guards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh stood at one of the posts along the path leading from the prime minister's residence to the office. When Indira Gandhi passed by, Beant shot her with a pistol, and Satwant fired a machine gun. Other guards opened fire on the killers: Beant Singh was shot dead on the spot, Satwant Singh was seriously wounded. At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Indira Gandhi was operated on for four hours, but without regaining consciousness she died at 2.30 pm. 20 bullets were removed from her body. The investigation found that Beant Singh, who served in the prime minister's bodyguard for about ten years, was associated with a group of religious fanatics and involved his namesake Satwant in the conspiracy. But the Indian authorities failed to find out from whom the order for the murder came. After Gandhi's death, Sikhs were massacred in India. In just a few days, more than 3 thousand people died, dozens of Sikh temples were burned. The civil war was stopped only when Gandhi's son Rajiv called on the population on the radio to renounce revenge.
March 1, 1986 died from a fatal wound Prime Minister of Sweden, leader of the Social Democratic Party Olof Palme, one of the most popular politicians in Scandinavia. On February 28, 1986, Palme was shot in the center of Stockholm while returning on foot, without security, with his wife from the cinema. The killer shot Palma in the back with a pistol, piercing his spine, trachea and esophagus. Another shot wounded the prime minister's wife. The press and political circles put forward various versions, from a conspiracy of Swedish right-wing extremists to operations of the CIA and South African intelligence services. Since the beginning of 2006, the Swedish media have been considering the version that the killers mistakenly shot Olof Palme, confusing him with a major drug dealer Sigge Cedergren. The main suspect in the case, Krister Petersson, died in 2004 at the age of 57. Earlier, the prime minister's wife Lisbeth identified him, and the court convicted him. But Petersson appealed this decision, and the Swedish Themis leaned towards his side, deciding that Lisbeth Palme was not objective at the time of identification, since the newspapers managed to describe the main features of the killer. Years later, Petersson made money from newspaper interviews, periodically admitting that it was he who killed the prime minister. According to Swedish law, investigators still working to solve the crime have five years left, after which the case will be archived. For now, the murder is officially considered unsolved.
October 19, 1986 died as a result of a plane crash President of the People's Republic of Mozambique (PRM) Samora Moises Machel. The Tu-134 plane in which Machel was returning from Zambia crashed in South Africa. The plane and crew were contracted by the NRM government from the USSR. While approaching the capital of the NRM, Maputo, the airliner suddenly lost its course, flew into South African airspace and crashed into a mountain in the Mbuzini area, near the town of Komatipoort. Along with Machel, 34 people from his entourage and five members of the Soviet crew died. A tripartite commission consisting of aviation specialists from the NRM, the USSR and South Africa was formed to investigate, but the South African authorities did not allow not only experts, but even their journalists, to the crash site. The commission concluded that the plane was operational, but the crew flew with outdated navigation maps. Another commission created in South Africa concluded that the crash was the fault of the pilots, but the USSR and the NRM did not accept this conclusion. An interpretation of the flight recorders, carried out at an independent expert center in Zurich, showed that the Tu-134 crew received a signal from a false VOR beacon, but failed to respond correctly to it. Later, in his memoirs, a member of the tripartite commission from the USSR, chief designer of the Ministry of Aviation Industry, Leonid Selyakov, noted that “there was sabotage, of course,” but the crew also showed “a disregard for the performance of their official duties,” ignoring the possibility of sabotage. In August 2003, former South African military intelligence agent Hans Louw, serving a 28-year sentence after the fall of the apartheid regime, said that he was a participant in the South African intelligence service operation to eliminate Samora Machel. According to Lowe, a false VOR was installed by the South African intelligence services to replace the call sign of the radio beacon at the flight tracking center in Maputo, which led to the plane colliding with the ground. The former special agent said that the operation was supervised by South African Foreign Minister Roelof Botha, 30 minutes later. after the disaster, he arrived in Mbuzini, and on his orders, a military doctor gave a lethal injection to the still living Machel.
August 17, 1988 died in a plane crash Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, de facto head of the country Zia ul-Haq. He was returning to Islamabad on a C-130 Hercules military aircraft from a military base in Bahawalpur, located 400 km from the capital. There were 36 passengers with him, including the ambassador and two US generals. Following ul-Haq's plane was the plane of Pakistani General Aslam Beg. On approach to Islamabad, the Hercules suddenly tilted and went into a steep dive. Losing altitude, the plane, according to eyewitnesses, began to dive and rear, then crashed to the ground. Beg flew around the scene of the disaster and radioed to Islamabad about the death of the 54-year-old leader of the country. The experts' versions differed: the Pakistanis suggested that there could be a container with poisonous gas on board. When the detonator went off, the container opened, the gas hit the pilots, and the plane lost control. US experts found traces of pentaritritol tetranitrate, an explosive often used for sabotage, on the wreckage. The organizers and masterminds of the terrorist attack have not been found.
November 22, 1989 died in the explosion Lebanese President Rene Ani Mouawad. He was an active supporter of ending the civil war between Lebanese Christians and Muslims that had lasted since 1975, which took place amid periodic intervention in the conflict by Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian militants. Muawad owns the words that have become a formula for civil peace: “There can be no country and its dignity without the unity of people, there can be no unity without agreement, there can be no agreement without reconciliation and there can be no reconciliation without forgiveness and compromise.” 17 days after his election as head of state, when Muawad's motorcade was returning to West Beirut after celebrating Lebanese Independence Day, a car bomb exploded along its route. In addition to the 64-year-old president, 23 more people were killed. Experts determined that the bomb contained 250 kg of TNT. The killers were not found, since the investigation could not be carried out due to the armed conflict in the country. But analysts and relatives of Muawad believed that the removal of the president was an action of the Syrian intelligence services.
December 25, 1989 shot during the revolutionary uprising President, Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Romania (SRR) Nicolae Ceausescu. The revolution was preceded by religious and ethnic unrest in the Transylvanian city of Timisoara in November 1989. On December 21, Ceausescu tried to speak from the balcony of the party’s Central Committee building in Bucharest, declaring the events in Timisoara the actions of “spy services of foreign states.” But the demonstration gathered in support of the authorities turned into a spontaneous action of the crowd, which began to chant “Down with the tyrant!”, “Down with communism!”, tearing banners, trampling on portraits of Ceausescu and his wife Elena. It was not possible to restore calm in Bucharest, despite the intervention of troops. On the afternoon of December 22, the Ceausescu couple and two guards escaped in the president’s personal helicopter, which landed on the roof of the Central Committee building. Soon after, a riotous crowd broke into the building. Ceausescu made his first stop in Snagov, near his summer residence, 40 km from Bucharest, from where the SRR president unsuccessfully tried by phone to find the security forces who remained loyal to him. The Ceausescu couple then went by helicopter to the city of Targovishte, where the SRR president hoped to find support from the workers. But the helicopter did not reach the city; it had to be abandoned in a field. On a rural road, the Ceausescu couple and their guards seized a private car and, at gunpoint, ordered it to go to Targovishte. There, by the evening of December 22, the Ceausescu spouses were detained, taken to the police station, and then transported to the barracks of the local garrison, where they spent three days. The tribunal meeting took place on December 25 at the Tyagoviste military base. It was organized by generals Victor Stanculescu and Virgil Magureanu, and the prosecutor's office was represented by Ghiku Popa. Ceausescu was sentenced to death for “genocide, resulting in 60 thousand human victims; undermining state power by organizing armed actions against the people; undermining the national economy; attempting to escape from the country using funds stored in foreign banks, totaling more than $1 billion.” . The Ceausescu spouses declared the trial illegal and pleaded not guilty. On the same day, at 14.50, they were shot. Before his death, 72-year-old Nicolae Ceausescu sang “The Internationale”. When the recording of the execution was shown on Romanian television, the announcer said: “The Antichrist was killed on Christmas!”
September 9, 1990 killed Liberian President Samuel Canyon Doe. He came to power as a result of a putsch, established a partnership with the United States and broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR. Having corrected the documents and added a year to himself to meet the 35-year age limit, in October 1985 Doe held elections with many irregularities, after which he became “president-elect.” In December 1989, the uprising of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) began against Doe, who had established a harsh dictatorship. It was led by ex-diplomat Charles Taylor, accused by Doe of embezzling $1 million. By the end of 1990, the NPFL had grown to tens of thousands of fighters and controlled more than 90% of the country. A splinter group led by Yedu Johnson, who called himself "Prince Yormi", fought both the NPFL and Doe's troops. The civil war was accompanied by massive repression, economic chaos, and the impoverishment of the majority of Liberians. Hundreds of thousands were forced to flee the country. In September 1990, Johnson’s troops approached Monrovia, who, under the guise of negotiations, offered Doe a meeting at the UN mission. On it, Doe was captured and, after severe torture - he was castrated and forced to eat his severed ear - killed. The president's death was recorded on videotape, which was broadcast on many television channels. The shot shows "Prince Yormie" sipping beer while holding Doe's second severed ear.
June 29, 1992 gunned down Chairman of the Supreme State Council, head of the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Algeria Mohammed Boudiaf. His reign lasted about six months. During this period, the armed struggle between Islamic radicals and the army and security forces intensified. In March 1992, Boudiaf's government banned the Islamic Front for the Salvation of Algeria (IFS), its leaders were sentenced to long terms, and about 7 thousand Islamists were arrested. On the morning of June 29, when the head of the Supreme State Council spoke in the assembly hall of the House of Culture in the city of Annaba, a member of his personal security, 26-year-old lieutenant Lembarek Bumarafi, came out from behind the curtain on the stage with a machine gun in his hands. He shot 73-year-old Boudiaf, who was sitting a meter away, in the back of the head. In the ensuing shootout, 27 people were wounded. When arrested, the wounded terrorist said: “Boudiaf deserved to die because he was a communist and an enemy of Islam.” The investigation and trial of Boumarafi lasted more than three years. It turned out that he was involved in the Islamic Salvation Army, the military wing of the IFS. In November 1995, Boumarafi was shot in Sherkadu prison.
May 1, 1993 died in the explosion President of Sri Lanka Ranasinghe Premadasa. During his four-year rule, the ethnic armed conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils ​​escalated in the country. In the north there were militants of the radical Sinhalese nationalist, Marxist Janatha Vimakti Peramana, whom the president managed to suppress. In the jungle in the south, Tamil guerrillas from the separatist movement Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were strengthened, carrying out regular sabotage and terrorist attacks. The Sinhalese Premadasa, who did not want to negotiate with the LTTE, promised the nation to eradicate terrorism, but his own army did not have enough strength to fight the Tamil militants, and Premadasa requested military assistance from India. Since the Indians also failed to cope with the LTTE, and the presence of foreign troops in the country caused Premadasa to lose popularity, the President withdrew the request for help. The Indians left Sri Lanka, but its leader failed to keep his promise to clear the jungles of the Jaffna Peninsula of “tigers.” During the May Day demonstration in Colombo, while Premadasa was walking in a column of his supporters, a suicide bomber on a bicycle suddenly crashed into it. He detonated an explosive device, which killed and injured about 30 people in addition to the 68-year-old president. Authorities blamed the attack on LTTE militants, but no one has claimed responsibility for the blast. After the death of Premadasa, the armed confrontation in the country continued, with more than 55 thousand victims in the next five years.
October 21, 1993 killed President of Burundi Melchior Ngezi Ndadaye. The country's first democratically elected leader, the candidate of the Front for Democracy in Burundi, was a Hutu. In the fall of that year, members of the Tutsi officer corps close to the Unity and National Progress Party rebelled, kidnapped the president and six other cabinet ministers, and then killed them. This provoked an ethnic conflict in the country, which turned into a civil war that lasted until August 2005. According to preliminary UN estimates, the victims of this war were from 250 to 300 thousand.
April 6, 1994 near Kigali airport in Rwanda, a surface-to-air missile shot down a plane carrying Presidents of the neighboring countries Burundi and Rwanda Cyprien Ntaryamira and Juvénal Habiyarimana. Debris fell into territory controlled by Tutsi rebels. In Rwanda, the death of a Hutu president sparked a nationwide chain reaction of revenge. The Rwandan army, consisting of Hutus, launched massive repressions against the Tutsis. On April 7, Hutu soldiers killed their fellow tribesman - Prime Minister of the country Agatha Uwilingiyamane- because of her “moderation”: the pregnant head of government had her stomach ripped open. One of the initiators of the genocide, Jean Kambanda, became prime minister. In a matter of days, all moderate Hutu politicians were slaughtered, including five ministers and the head of the constitutional court. Having dealt with the “traitors” from among their fellow tribesmen, the Hutu extremists began the “final solution” of the national question. State radio announced gatherings of militant groups. The mayors gave them pre-prepared lists, and the Tutsis were systematically slaughtered. A month after the massacre began, the UN created the International War Crimes Tribunal in Rwanda. According to experts, at least 800 thousand became victims of the genocide, including those who died from hunger and disease. Almost a million Rwandans fled to neighboring countries.
November 4, 1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot and killed. He was killed in the Square of the Kings of Israel in Tel Aviv, when, after a rally held under the slogan “Yes to peace, no to violence,” he was heading to his car. According to investigators, the murder was committed by a lone extremist, a 27-year-old law student at Bar-Ilan University and a member of the ultranationalist organization EYAL (Jewish Combat Organization), Yigal Amir. At 21.50, Amir, according to the official version, approached Rabin and shot him twice in the back with a Beretta pistol, the third bullet wounded the bodyguard. Amir was captured on the spot, and 73-year-old Rabin was transported to Ichilov Hospital, where he died after surgery at 11:30 p.m. At the same time, on the night of the murder, the head of the Israeli Ministry of Health, Ephraim Sneh, and the director of the hospital, Gabi Barabash, announced that Rabin died from a wound in the chest from a bullet fired from the front and shattering his spine. These testimonies were recorded in the medical report, but were not accepted by the investigation and the court. According to one of the unofficial versions, Rabin was killed as a result of a conspiracy by the Israeli secret services: after Amir shot him in the back for the first time, in the ensuing chaos, an unknown assassin shot the prime minister in the chest with a pistol with a silencer. According to the third version, Amir fired blank cartridges, and Rabin was shot not in the square, but in his car on the way to the hospital. However, Yigal Amir confessed to the murder, citing his rejection of Rabin’s policy of compromise with the Palestinians, which he regarded as a betrayal of the Jews of Israel. On March 27, 1996, the court sentenced Amir to life imprisonment, finding him guilty of murder. In addition, he received six years in prison for wounding the prime minister's bodyguard. It is noteworthy that the court did not hear the key witness - the head of the EYAL and part-time agent of the Israeli General Security Service (analogous to the FBI) ​​Avishai Raviv, who recruited his friend Amir into the organization. After hearing the verdict, Amir said: “The Israeli state is a monster.” He is now serving his sentence in Ayalon prison in the city of Ramla without the right to pardon. In June 2005, the Israeli rabbinical court allowed Amir's marriage to Larisa Trembovler, a repatriate from Moscow, the mother of four children. The wife unsuccessfully tries to get Amir's case reviewed. The name of Yitzhak Rabin is given to the square where he was assassinated, a medical center, a power plant, the largest military base in Tel Aviv and dozens of other institutions, streets and squares throughout Israel.
October 27, 1999 killed Prime Minister of Armenia Vazgen Sargsyan. He died when a group of five terrorists burst into the meeting hall of the National Assembly of Armenia and shot the country's leaders and members of parliament with machine guns. The attack was shown live on national television. Along with the prime minister, the head of the National Assembly Karen Demirchyan, two vice-speakers, the minister of operational affairs and two deputies became victims of the terrorist attack. The majority of members of parliament and government were taken hostage by the terrorists. The action was led by former journalist Nairi Hunanyan, expelled from the nationalist Dashnaktsutyun party “for behavior discrediting the name of the party.” The group of attackers included his uncle Aram and his brother Karen, who, by the way, was once named after the speaker. After the attack, the attackers said that they did not intend to kill officials and deputies, but “only to scare” the ruling bloc and its leaders into resigning, but the shooting was provoked by parliament security. The attack was motivated by “a filial desire to protect the Motherland from final destruction.” Negotiations with terrorists, led by Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, lasted all night. Upon completion, the terrorists released the hostages and surrendered. The trial began on February 15, 2001, and the verdict was announced on December 2, 2003. The seven participants and organizers of the attack who appeared in court were found guilty of a number of charges, including treason and terrorism, and received 14 years to life in prison.
June 1, 2001 gunned down King of Nepal Birendra Bir Bikram Shah. The killer was his eldest son and heir to the throne, Dipendra. According to the official version, on the evening of June 1, during dinner at the palace in Kathmandu, Dipendra quarreled with his parents because they did not approve of his intentions to marry the daughter of a member of the Nepalese parliament, an Indian by birth. After the argument, a drunk Dipendra went to his apartment, donned a military uniform, returned to the dining room with an M-16 automatic rifle and fired 80 bullets at the family. King Birendra, Queen Ashwarya, their youngest son Prince Nirayan, daughter Princess Shruti, the king’s sisters Shrada and Shanti and his son-in-law were killed. Dipendra then went out into the garden, shot himself in the temple and fell into a coma. Moreover, after the death of his father, the prince legally became the monarch, so the State Council of Nepal appointed his uncle Gyanendra, the younger brother of the murdered king, as regent. He escaped death because he was not present at the dinner. In the first days after the tragedy, Nepal's official media reported that the weapon in Dipendra's hands "discharged spontaneously." Thousands took to the streets of Kathmandu demanding an investigation. On June 4, Dipendra died without regaining consciousness, and Gyanendra was proclaimed King of Nepal. This caused new protests: the Nepalese believed that Gyanendra used psychotropic substances to seize power, under the influence of which Dipendra shot his relatives. Gyanendra dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency in the country and suppressed demonstrations with police forces. On February 1, 2005, Gyanendra declared himself the sole ruler of the country. Periodic protests continue in Nepal.
March 12, 2003 shot dead at the entrance to the Serbian Government House building Prime Minister of Serbia Zoran Djindjic. In January 2001, he headed the government, which six months later, bypassing the decision of the Constitutional Court of Yugoslavia, in exchange for assistance from Western countries in the amount of $1.3 billion, extradited the country's ex-president Slobodan Milosevic to the International Tribunal in The Hague. According to investigators, a sniper hiding in one of the multi-story buildings fired two bullets from a Heckler & Koch G3 assault rifle at the 50-year-old prime minister. Djindjic, wounded in the stomach and back, died in hospital. The Serbian government has introduced a state of emergency for a month. The organizer of the murder was named as a Zemun criminal group (Zemun is a suburb of Belgrade). According to the investigation, Djindjic’s fight against organized crime and corruption caused a response from the Zemun clan. During the investigation, the clan was practically destroyed: the police arrested more than a thousand people, charging them with 400 criminal cases. The accomplices in the murder, according to the prosecutor's office, were security officials close to the Milosevic administration. The arrested former deputy commander of the special forces of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs "Red Berets" Zvezdan Jovanovic admitted to be the perpetrator. The trial began in December 2003 and is still ongoing. Charges in the Djindjic murder case have been brought against 36 people, some of whom are wanted. On May 2, 2004, the main suspect in organizing the terrorist attack, the leader of the Zemunites, the commander of the Red Berets, Milorad Lukovic, nicknamed Legia (Legionnaire), voluntarily surrendered to the police, declaring his innocence. So far, the prosecution's version contradicts the testimony of key witnesses. Thus, the head of the prime minister's security, Milan Veruovic, who was next to Djindjic at the time of the murder, claims that there were three shots, and there were two shooters - the detained Jovanovic and an unknown person. In February 2005, Djindjic's former comrade-in-arms, Vladimir Popovich, put forward a new version: the murder was the result of a conspiracy by security forces who feared a reshuffle in the security command.
February 26, 2004 died in a plane crash President of Macedonia Boris Trajkovski. The Beech Aircraft presidential plane, which had been in operation for more than 30 years, crashed 10 km from the Bosnian city of Mostar. Along with Trajkovski, six people from his entourage and two crew members died. In the first days after the disaster, the media put forward various versions - from rainy weather and a forced landing on an area where mines from the 1992-1995 war were preserved, to a terrorist attack by Islamic radicals. Investigators in Bosnia and Herzegovina blamed the crash on the French battalion of the International Stabilization Force (SFOR), which provided technical support to Mostar airport. According to this version, three days before the disaster, the radar installation used to guide Trajkovsky’s plane failed. But the SFOR command denied these statements. On May 5, 2004, the Minister of Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Branko Dokic, announced the results of the investigation commission, which recognized that “the plane crash was caused by errors during the flight and maneuvering before landing made by the crew.”
February 3, 2005 died Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Zhvania. According to the official version, the 41-year-old prime minister suffered carbon monoxide poisoning while visiting a friend. According to the investigation, combustion products accumulated in the room due to improper installation of the Iranian-made Nikala stove. A criminal case under the article “criminal negligence leading to grave consequences” was opened against the stove maker, but the search for him did not yield any results. Pathologists did not reveal any physical damage to the bodies of Zhvania and his friend. Many residents of Georgia did not believe the official conclusion, and US FBI specialists joined the investigation and confirmed the version of the accident. It is also shared by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. But family members of the victims claimed evidence was manipulated and insisted on Zhvania’s violent death. In particular, relatives claim that no fingerprints were found in the apartment where the burnt victims were found, and the bodies were moved there after their murder.

Abraham Lincoln, with his enacted reforms, defeated the southern slaveholders who had formed during Pierce's administration.

Under McKinley's leadership, grandiose colonial conquests took place. It was thanks to this that the Hawaiian Islands began to become part of America.

Woodrow Wilson raised America from its knees, making it one of the most powerful countries. During his reign, the US economy became the first in the world.

Truman signed the decision to drop nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He was remembered by the people as a despotic barbarian ruler.

Johnson Lyndon started the Vietnam War. Years later, George Bush Sr. would decide on military action in different parts of the world. Bush Jr. will continue his policy by starting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Territorial merits of presidents

Initially, America was not such a big country. Over the 230 years of its existence, it has almost doubled its territory.

Many US presidents, an impressive list, have achieved significant expansion of American territory through reform and conquest. Under James Monroe, five states were added to the country. John Tyler achieved the entry of the state of Texas into the territory subject to the United States. Thanks to James Knox Polk, America was replenished with states such as Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada. Later it was decided to annex the state of Colorado.

Under Zachary Taylor, the so-called gold rush began. It was during his tenure as president that gold deposits were discovered in the state of California.

At the instigation of James Buchanan, negotiations began with Russia on the annexation of Alaska. William McKinley, thanks to the conquests, appropriated the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

Coins depicting US presidents

The 1 cent coin features Abraham Lincoln in profile. This coin first saw the world in 1982 and was issued until 2008. On the other side is a mausoleum.

The five cents feature a bust of Jefferson. He was the third President of the United States. The reverse side is replete with images of the family estate Monticello.

Franklin Roosevelt left his image on the 10-cent coin. On the other side, a burning torch is drawn between the branches. George Washington immortalized his bust on a 25-cent coin. People remembered it with the inscription on the left side “In God We Trust” and the image of an eagle with outstretched wings. 50 cents are decorated with a portrait of John Kennedy. The anniversary issue of coins falls on 1976.

The $1 coin features Sacagawea with a child on his shoulder. The image is printed on both sides of the coin. US presidents, the list of which is quite large, contributed a lot to the development of the national currency. But not everyone deserved to be immortalized on a metal monetary equivalent. Images of the heads are imprinted not only on coins, but also on the national currency of America - the dollar.

Assassinated US Presidents

The list is small, but it was America that became famous for the death of its heads of state due to murder.

The first president to be assassinated was Andrew Jackson. Then the gun did not fire, and he remained alive.

Abraham Lincoln was shot in the theater and died the next day. James Garfield was shot at a Washington train station. William McKinley also did not escape violent death; he died 8 days after the assassination attempt in Chicago.

There was also an attempt to kill Theodore Roosevelt. It all ended with the president being wounded in the chest.

The most notorious assassination attempt was the assassination of John Kennedy. To this day it remains a mystery to the people.

Gerald Ford almost lost his life. The bullet flew only a few centimeters from the president.

According to media reports, over 30 attempts were made to take the life of Bill Clinton, and all of them ended unsuccessfully.

Film adaptation of the lives of presidents

Films about US presidents, the list of which is presented below, tell about the lives of heads of state. There are films based on real events.

In 1995, the world saw the film “The American President,” presenting the owner of the White House as a wonderful father and just a good family man.

In the same year, a work about the life of the 37th President of the United States, Nixon, was released. This is not the only film material made about the life of Richard Nixon. At the beginning of 2008, the premiere of the film “Frost vs. Nixon” took place.

A film about George W. Bush, based on real events, was released in 2008. It details his rise to power.

In 2012, President Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was released. The film is more fantasy than real film history. That same year, a biographical confession of President Lincoln was presented to the public. The film describes his life during the Civil War.

US presidents, a list of 44 individuals who have contributed to the development of the state, are part of its history.

American police have arrested a Los Angeles man on charges of threatening to kill US President George W. Bush.

The first American president to be assassinated was Andrew Jackson. On January 30, 1835, in the Capitol building, 35-year-old painter Richard Lawrence approached him and, grabbing a pistol, tried to shoot twice, but the pistol misfired. The criminal was captured and stated that he was taking revenge on Jackson for being unemployed. The president himself claimed that the assassin was sent by his political opponents.

On April 14, 1865, the president was mortally wounded in a theater box in Washington and died the next day. Abraham Lincoln. US Secretary of State William Seward, who was sitting next to him, was wounded but survived. The killer was an actor, a supporter of the defeated Confederacy.

On July 2, 1881, at the Washington Station, the failed far-right politician Charles Guatier (Guiteau), suffering from a nervous breakdown, shot the president at point-blank range. James Garfield. On September 19, 1881, he died from general blood poisoning.

On September 6, 1911, the President was seriously wounded during the opening ceremony of the Pan-American Exposition in Chicago. William McKinley. Died on September 14. His killer was 28-year-old anarchist Leon Spolgots.

On October 14, 1912, an assassination attempt was made during a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Theodore Roosevelt. Despite being wounded in the chest, the president did not leave the podium and completed his speech to voters and only after that turned to the doctors. The attacker, John Schrank, was declared insane.

On February 15, 1933, shortly after winning the election but before his inauguration, an assassination attempt was made on Franklin. Delano Roosevelt. In Miami, Florida, he was shot by anarchist Giuseppe Zangarra. A woman standing nearby managed to hit the criminal in the hand at the time of the shot. Zangarra missed Roosevelt, but fatally wounded Chicago Mayor Anthony Cermak.

On November 1, 1950, an attempt was made to assassinate the President. Harry Truman at his residence on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Two Puerto Rican nationalists made an attempt on his life. There was a three-minute shootout between the guards and the attackers, as a result of which the guard and one of the attackers were killed, and the second attacker was arrested.

On November 22, 1963, the US President was assassinated in Dallas. John Kennedy. According to the official version, the lone killer was former paratrooper Lee Harvey Oswald, who lived for several years in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. Two days later, Oswald was shot and killed in Dallas police custody by Jack Ruby as he was being taken to federal prison. This assassination attempt still remains one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century.

On February 22, 1974, an assassination attempt was made in Baltimore Richard Nixon. A gunman armed with a pistol stormed a Delta Airlines plane flying to Atlanta and, threatening to blow up the plane with all the passengers, ordered the pilots to fly towards the White House. He said he was going to kill President Nixon. After a shootout with the FBI special forces, the criminal shot himself. A homemade bomb was found in his briefcase.

In September 1975, two assassination attempts were made on the president. Gerald Ford. On September 5, in Sacramento, California, the president was shot by Lynette Fromme, a member of the Charles Manson terrorist gang. The gun was loaded, but it misfired. On September 21, as President Ford left his hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by left-wing activist Sarah Jane Moore. A bullet fired from a 38-caliber pistol flew a meter from the president.

On March 30, 1981, in Washington, twenty-five-year-old disc jockey John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan, released after speaking at a construction union convention from the Washington Hilton Hotel. The bullet, having pierced the chest, passed one and a half centimeters from the president’s heart and lodged in the lung. It was only possible to remove it after a four-hour operation. In addition to Reagan, the White House press secretary, a Secret Service agent and a police officer were seriously injured. A forensic medical examination found Hinckley insane and sent him for compulsory treatment.

In April 1993, it became known about an assassination attempt planned on George H. W. Bush. American intelligence services uncovered a plot according to which the car of the then ex-president of America was to be blown up during a visit to Kuwait.

In the entire history of independent America, no president has had as many assassination attempts made as his Bill Clinton. Four attacks on the president’s life occurred only within 8 months (from September 12, 1993 to May 23, 1994). According to some sources, attempts were made on Clinton's life about 30 times; More than 80 people were detained on suspicion of attempted murder, most of them mentally ill.

Repeated assassination attempts were made on the current president George W. Bush.

On May 10, 2005, during Bush's speech on Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgian citizen Vladimir Harutyunyan threw a grenade towards the stage. It didn't explode by accident.

In March 2007, Jordanian military prosecutors announced the discovery of a plot to assassinate US President George W. Bush during his visit to the kingdom in November 2006. Three Jordanians intended to blow up the US and Danish embassies in Amman at a time when the American president would be in one of them.

In March 2007, Colombian intelligence services announced that they had information about an impending assassination attempt on George W. Bush during his visit to this country.

In June 2007, Bulgarian intelligence services reported a planned assassination attempt on the American president during his visit to the Bulgarian capital.