One hundred fifty-two years ago today an embittered
Shakespearean actor shot the President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln
passed away the following day, April 15 1865, which makes him the first president to be assassinated and the third to die in office. The first, William Henry
Harrison, succumbed to pneumonia thirty-one days after his inauguration in 1841.
Zachary Taylor was second when he died of acute gastroenteritis (though at the
time poisoning was suspected) in 1850. Two more presidents died during their
terms of natural causes: Warren G. Harding in 1923 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1945. Three more were victims of assassinations: James A. Garfield in 1881,
William McKinley in 1901 and of course John F. Kennedy in 1963. There have been
dozens of attempts on presidents’ lives, but it has been nearly 54 years since
any have been successful.
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