This Week in the United States - The Lincoln Assassination

This Week's Historical Theme – The United States

 

14 April 1865

A significant event throughout the history of the United States that occurred in April was Abraham Lincoln's assassination. President Lincoln was shot in the head at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC by actor John Wilkes Booth. Booth initially plotted to capture him and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital, however on March 20 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to union forces. In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save to save the Confederacy, learning that Lincoln was to attend Ford's Theatre on April 14. He plotted the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln and his two possible successors: Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward.

On April 14 at about 10pm, Booth walked into the theatre and up to the presidents box. Lincoln's guard, John Parker, was not there as he had left his post to get a beer. Booth slipped in and shot the president in the back of the head. He jumped to the stage to escape, injuring his leg, and fled on horseback. The other conspirators were captured, except for John Surratt who fled to Canada. The troops finally caught up with Booth on April 26 and killed him. All the captured co-conspirators were killed including John Surratt's mother, Mary Surratt. John Surratt was eventually tracked down in Egypt and brought back to trial, but managed, with the help of clever lawyers, to win an acquittal.

Want to find out more about the Lincoln Assassination? Click here for more information, or here for more about how Presidential Assassinations changed US politics.

November 4 - The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

This Day in History: 4 November 2020

 

4 November 1995

 

25 years ago, today, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot fatally after attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square in Israel. Later, Rabin died in surgery at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. He had been walking to his car when he was shot in the arm and the back by Yigal Amir, a 27-year-old Jewish law student who had connections to the far-right Jewish group, Eyal. Israeli police arrested Amir at the scene of the shooting, and he later confessed to the assassination. He explained at his arraignment that he killed Rabin because the Prime Minister wanted to "give out country to the Arabs."

 

Rabin had been a leader of the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and served as chief-of-staff of Israel's armed forces during the Six-Day War of 1967. After serving as Israel's ambassador to the United States, Rabin entered into the Labour Party and became Prime Minister in 1974. In this role, he conducted the negotiations that resulted in a 1974 cease-fire with Syria and the 1975 military disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt. In October 1994, Rabin and Yasir Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize, due to their formal peace agreement with the Palestinians.

 

Want to find out more about the assassination of Rabin? Click here for more information, or here for more about his life.

October 6 - The Assassination of Anwar Sadat

This Day in History: 6 October 2020

 

6 October 1981

 

39 years ago, today, Islamic extremists assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, during the annual victory parade held in Cairo that celebrated Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal. The terrorists were led by Khalid el Islambouli, a lieutenant in the Egyptian army with connections to the terrorist group Takfir Wal-Hajira. They were all wearing their army uniforms and stopped in front of the reviewing stand to fire shots and throw grenades into a crowd of Egyptian government officials. Sadat was short four times and died two hours later. Eleven other people also died in the attack, including the Cuban ambassador.

 

Sadat had an incredible public service record for Egypt, as he was instrumental in winning the nation's independence and democratising it. However, his controversial peace deal with Israel, for which he and Menachem Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize, made him a target for Islamic extremists across the Middle East. Additionally, Sadat angered many by allowing the unwell Shah of Iran to die in Egypt rather than be returned to Iran, in order to stand trial for his crimes against the country. Despite the well-known threats on Sadat's life, he did not withdraw from the public eye, as he believed it was important for the country's well-being that he was open and available.

 

Want to find out more about the life of Anwar Sadat? Click here for more information, or here for more about the historic peace deal made between Egypt and Israel.

Lenin Assassination Plot

This fascinating BBC article investigates the attempted assassination of Lenin in 1918 by Fanya Kaplan and accusations that it had been coordinated by Robert Lockhart, a British agent. He had been sent to Russia to persuade the new Bolshevik government to continue fighting the First World War alongside its Triple Entente allies, but when it signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, making peace with Germany, Lockhart turned his attention to ways to destabilise the government. He was arrested by the Cheka but denied all involvement, and was later freed in exchange for a Russian spy. Lockhart instead suggested that responsibility should rest with Sidney Reilly, a flamboyant Russian who worked a freelancer for the British Secret Service but who had increasingly taken matters into his own hands. However, the historian Robert Service believes that Lockhart might have been using Reilly as a distraction, to cover up much deeper involvement of the British government in the assassination of a head of state. All documents relating to this are still kept secret, suggesting there is still a lot of sensitivity over this issue. More will be revealed over the controversy in a Radio 4 programme tonight, which will be available on iPlayer soon after.