On April 14th, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife were attending a show at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. when John Wilkes Boothe shot him in the head. Lincoln was carried across the street to a bording house, where he died early the next morning.
President Garfield was shot in a Washington D.C. railroad station on July 2nd, 1881 and died 80 days later on September 19, in Elberton, New Jersey, where he had been sent to recover.
President McKinley was shot by an anarchist named Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901 and died eight days later. An experimental metal detecting device created by Thomas Edison was brought in to find the bullet, but was unsuccessful. It is believed that McKinley's wounds were not life threatening, but he contracted an infection from all the probing around to find the bullet.
President Kennedy was shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Events surrounding his death have been a source of controversy for many years.
Other Attempts:
President Andrew Jackson was shot at in the Capitol building on January 30th, 1835, but the attacker missed.
Theodore Roosevelt was shot in 1912, while he was campaigning for President.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shot at on February 15, 1933 in Miami, Florida, just three weeks before his inauguration.
An assassination attempt was made on President Harry Truman on November 1st, 1950 by two Puerto Rican Nationalists.
Two attempts were made on the life of President Gerald Ford, both by women.
Ronald Reagan was shot on March 31st, 1981 by a man named John Hinckley.
Other Presidents To Die In Office:
William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren Harding and Franklin Delano Roosevelt also died while in office, but not by assassination.
Every Twenty Years:
Another odd set of Presidential coincidences has been occurring for some time. Every President that has been elected every twenty years since 1840 has died in office, either by assassination or from another affliction. Zachary Taylor is the only other President to have died in office who was not elected on a twenty year mark. He was elected in 1848 and served only a few months of his term. Are the others a coincidence or is there some sort of Presidential curse?
| YEAR ELECTED | PRESIDENT | OCCURENCE |
| 1840 | William Henry Harrison | Died in Office |
| 1860 | Abraham Lincoln | Assassinated |
| 1880 | James Garfield | Assassinated |
| 1900 | William McKinley | Assassinated |
| 1920 | Warren Harding | Died in Office |
| 1940 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt | Died in Office |
| 1960 | John F. Kennedy | Assassinated |
| 1980 | Ronald Reagan | Attempted Assassination |
| 2000 | George W. Bush | ? |
