Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan

The attempted assassination of United States President Ronald Reagan occurred on March 30, 1981, 69 days into his presidency. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. The most seriously wounded victim, James Brady, died decades later of complications related to his injuries. Hinckley's motivations for the attack was to impress actress Jodie Foster, who he had developed an obsession over after seeing her in the film Taxi Driver.

Reagan was shot in the chest, below the left underarm. He suffered a punctured lung and heavy internal bleeding, but prompt medical attention allowed him to recover quickly. No formal invocation of presidential succession took place, although Secretary of State Alexander Haig controversially stated that he was "in control here" while Vice President George H. W. Bush returned to Washington.

There were no fatalities in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but White House Press Secretary James Brady, who was left paralyzed from a gunshot wound, died in 2014 of causes a Virginia medical examiner found were directly related to the 1981 shooting. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of attempting to assassinate the President and remains confined to a psychiatric facility. In January 2015, federal prosecutors announced that they would not charge Hinckley with Brady's death, despite the medical examiner's classification of his death as a homicide.

Assassination attempts

There are several lists of assassination attempts:

See also

3-19 shooting incident

The 3–19 shooting incident (Chinese: 三一九槍擊事件) was an assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu while they were campaigning in Tainan, Taiwan on March 19, 2004, the day before Taiwan's presidential election. Their injuries were not life-threatening, and both Chen and Lu were released from Chi-Mei Hospital on the same day without losing consciousness or undergoing surgery.

The attack provoked shock and unease in Taiwan, where political violence of this kind was commonplace against non-KMT members 40 years earlier. Reaction to the incident divided along partisan lines, with some pan-Blue supporters believing the incident was faked in order to win the sympathy of voters in the upcoming election, which Chen and Lu won by 29,500 votes. In August 2005, the case was officially closed with all evidence pointing to a single deceased suspect, Chen Yi-hsiung, but Chen's opponents as well as Annette Lu have insisted on the continuation of the investigation.