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Assassination attempts and plots on Presidents of the United States have been numerous: more than 20 attempts to kill sitting and former presidents, as well as the Presidents-elect, are known. Four sitting presidents have been killed, all of them by gunshot: Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President), James A. Garfield (the 20th President), William McKinley (the 25th President) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th President). Two presidents were injured in attempted assassinations, also by gunshot: Theodore Roosevelt (the 26th President) and Ronald Reagan (the 40th President). With the exception of Lyndon Johnson, every president's life since John F. Kennedy has been threatened with assassination. Although the historian J.W. Clarke has suggested that most American assassinations were politically motivated actions, carried out by rational men, not all such attacks have been undertaken for political reasons.〔''E.g.'', (Assassinations, presidential ). Answers.com. Retrieved 2010-02-23.〕 Some attackers had questionable mental stability, and a few were judged legally insane.〔''E.g.'', Ben Dennison, ("The 6 Most Utterly Insane Attempts to Kill a US President" ), ''Cracked'', October 21, 2008. Retrieved 2010-02-23.〕〔("Praying for God to Kill the President" ), ''TFN Insider'', Texas Freedom Network, Retrieved 2010-02-23.〕 Since the Vice President of the United States has for more than a century been elected from the same political party as the President, the assassination of the President is unlikely to result in major policy changes. This may explain why political groups typically do not make such attacks. ==Presidents assassinated== ===Abraham Lincoln=== (詳細はLincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, at approximately 10:15 p.m. Lincoln was shot once in the back of his head with a .44 caliber Derringer pistol by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while watching the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and two guests. Major Henry Rathbone tried to stop Booth from escaping, but Booth stabbed him in the chest and slashed his arm to the bone with a dagger that he was also carrying. Soon after being shot, Lincoln's wound was declared to be fatal. The unconscious President was then carried across the street from the theater to the Petersen House, where he remained in a coma for nine hours before dying the following morning at 7:22 a.m. on April 15.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lincoln Papers: Lincoln Assassination: Introduction )〕 Booth was tracked down by Union soldiers and was shot and killed by Sergeant Boston Corbett on April 26, 1865. Booth apparently believed that killing Lincoln would radically change U.S. policy toward the South. Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward were targeted in the same plot. However, Johnson's would-be assassin, George Atzerodt lost his nerve and failed to go through with the attack, while Lewis Powell, who was assigned to kill Seward, was only able to inflict largely superficial injuries due to a combination of his gun misfiring and intervention from Seward's family. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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