10 Horrifying Political Assassinations

Lincoln went down in history as the president that abolished slavery and led the Union against the Confederacy in the American Civil War. In April 1865, just five days after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender, Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, went to watch the play “Our American Cousin,” along with guests. However, actor John Wilkes Booth had other ideas. Supporting the South, he sought to end Lincoln and his ideas. Booth snuck up behind the president and shot him before running away. While Lincoln survived for many hours, he tragically passed away. Booth was located two weeks later and perished in a shootout. The Civil War officially ended just a month after Lincoln’s assassination.

A key figure in the rise of communism in Russia in the early 1900s, Trotsky was a close associate of Vladimir Lenin as the two formed the basis for the Soviet Union. However, when Lenin passed away in 1924, there was a rush for power. And Joseph Stalin claimed it. He saw his former comrade as a threat, which eventually led to Trotsky being exiled, who then criticized Stalin’s vision at any possibility. Angered by this, Stalin sent agents to track down Trotsky. After enduring one assassination attempt in 1939, Trotsky survived another in Mexico City in May 1940. But by August, Trotsky’s luck had run out as Ramón Mercader struck with an ice pick, taking out one of the last opponents to Stalin’s reign.

In 1960, Lumumba became the first Prime Minister of what was then known as the Republic of the Congo. For years, he had been fighting to free Congo from its colonial rule by Belgium. With his left-wing views, he achieved this feat by heading the Mouvement National Congolais and gaining support throughout the African country. But by September, a pro-Belgium and US union of Congolese figures led a coup d'état. Lumumba was arrested and tortured. In January 1961, Lumumba was executed, and his body was destroyed. When the world heard the news, they were outraged. In 2002, Belgium formally apologized for its role in Lumumba’s demise. In 2022, they gave the Democratic Republic of the Congo a gold tooth, the only surviving piece of Lumumba.

His guerilla warfare skills during the Irish War of Independence against Great Britain were so legendary that several global revolutionary leaders studied Collins’s work. He even orchestrated the violent Bloody Sunday event in 1920. Collins, who was one of the leaders in the Irish Republican Army, signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, partitioning Ireland and creating the Free State. This caused the I.R.A to split into being either pro or anti-treaty. Which then led to the Irish Civil War. Heading the pro-treaty Free State Army, Collins was ambushed by anti-treaty forces in County Cork, Ireland, in August 1922. The 31-year-old perished from a gunshot wound. Ireland was devastated by the loss as around 500,000 people reportedly attended his funeral.

With rising tensions brewing in Russia, Nicholas II abdicated the throne at the end of the February Revolution in 1917. Not long after, the Provisional Government arrested the House of Romanov. The royal family was then imprisoned in various locations across Russia and Siberia during this period of flux. But things changed. Nicholas, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, as well as several servants, were executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries in July 1918. Nicholas, who was familiar with assassinations since his grandfather, Alexander II, was a victim in 1881, was the last Tsar of Russia. For years, the location of their remains was lost to time. But in 1998, they were laid to rest in St. Petersburg.

Jo Cox (2016)

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Siding with the Remain campaign during the Brexit debate in the UK, Cox represented the Labour Party MP for the area of Batley and Spen from 2015. In June 2016, she was on her way to a constituency surgery in West Yorkshire, England. However, Thomas Mair slew Cox in the street. Mair, an extremist, had ties to numerous far-right groups and owned a lot of fascist paraphernalia. He made no attempt to defend his deplorable actions during the trial. Mair was sentenced to a whole life term in prison, meaning he’ll never be paroled. Figures from all sides of the political spectrum banded together to celebrate the life of Cox. Her sister, Kim Leadbeater, took over as MP for Batley and Spen in 2021.

Alexander Litvinenko (2006)

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Specializing in combating organized crime, Litvinenko was an officer in the Russian Federal Security Service after working in the KGB. However, after clashing with Vladimir Putin, Litvinenko escaped to the UK and was granted asylum. He then helped its intelligent services with information about Russia, as well as writing books and articles criticizing Putin’s reign. In November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill with poisoning from polonium radiation. Within weeks, Litvinenko deteriorated rapidly, and he perished. In 2007, the Guinness World Records inducted Litvinenko as the first person to be slain by radiation. Before passing, Litvinenko accused Putin of his demise, and in the aftermath, those accusations grew louder. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for Litvinenko's passing.

In January 2020, the world was shocked when the United States, issued by then-president Donald Trump, commenced a drone attack in Baghdad, Iraq. The main target was Soleimani, a major general in the Iranian armed forces, but 10 people perished altogether. The U.S. stated this was done to deter any future attacks conducted or supported by Iran against them. Within days, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at an army base that contained American personnel. While there were no fatalities, 110 people were wounded altogether. Things got worse when shortly after, Iran shot down the passenger airplane, the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. All 176 crew and passengers on board perished. The country later admitted it was a mistake.

She broke ground by becoming the first woman to lead a democratic government in a majority Muslim country when Bhutto became Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988. With two reigns in the role, things fell apart in 1996 when Bhutto was accused of corruption. She spent years in exile, where she vocally criticized the regime of Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf. In 2007, Bhutto returned to Pakistan to run in the general election. Having already survived one assassination attempt, Bhutto attended a rally in Rawalpindi in December. There, she was slain, and upwards of 20 people perished as well. While a firearm and a bomb were used, it’s unclear what the fatal cause exactly was. This event sparked violent protests across the country.

Gandhi had quite a legacy in India. Not only was she the first woman Prime Minister of the country, but she was in charge during 1971’s Independence War and sided with Bangladesh. Amid her second term in office, in October 1984, Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards, allegedly as a response to Operation Blue Star, an operation against Sikh leaders. The bodyguards were executed in 1989. In the aftermath, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, became Prime Minister until 1989. In May 1991, Gandhi, who was on the campaign trail in Sriperumbudur, was the victim of an explosion carried out by the militant group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. 14 other people, along with the assassin, also lost their lives.