Okla-homey
9/6/2006, 06:11 AM
September 6, 1901: President William McKinley is shot
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/9279/aamckinleyjo7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
William McKinley. Third US president killed by an assassin's bullet
105 years ago on this day in 1901, President William McKinley is shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist and Polish immigrant named Leon Czolgosz approaches him and fires two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying "be careful how you tell my wife."
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9164/aauh032yc5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Czolgosz moved over the president with the intent of firing a third shot, but was wrestled to the ground by McKinley’s bodyguards. McKinley, still conscious, told the guards not to hurt his assailant. Other presidential attendants rushed McKinley to the hospital where they found two bullet wounds: one bullet had superficially punctured his sternum and the other had dangerously entered his abdomen.
The president was rushed into surgery and seemed to be on the mend by September 12. Later that day, however, the president’s condition worsened rapidly and, on September 14, McKinley died from gangrene that had gone undetected in the internal wound and the resulting sepsis. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was immediately sworn in as president.
Czolgosz, a Polish immigrant, grew up in Detroit and had worked as a child laborer in a steel mill. As a young adult, he gravitated toward socialist and anarchist ideology. He claimed to have killed McKinley because he was the head of what Czolgosz thought was a "corrupt government."
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/295/aa12ax2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Czolgosz was convicted and sentenced to "ride the lightning" and was executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901 -- fewer than two months after his arrest and less than a month after trial. The unrepentant killer’s last words were "I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the working people." His electrocution was personally filmed by Thomas Edison but apparently no copy of the film has survived.
On September 16, after receiving a state funeral in Washington, D.C., McKinley’s coffin was transported by train to his hometown of Canton, Ohio, for burial.
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/1831/aa39fn3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
McKinley was memorialized by naming a mountain for him in 1912. Mount McKinley (or Denali) in Alaska is the highest mountain peak in North America, at a height of approximately 20,320 feet. It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park. The mountain was also known as Bolshaya Gora (Большая Гора) in Russian.
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/1281/aa800pxmountmckinleybars7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Mount McKinley, a/k/a "Denali"...the original name preferred by Indians in the region.
As a somewhat related aside, McKinley's successor Theodore Roosevelt would survive an assasination attempt when a folded copy of a speech in his inside suit coat pocket slowed a bullet which otherwise would probably have penetrated his heart.
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/8025/aa2801oy9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
During a stop in Milwaukee on his 1912 "Bull Moose" campaign for the presidency, Roosevelt was shot at close range by John Schrank, a psychotic New York bartender Schrank had his .38 caliber pistol aimed at Roosevelt's head, but a bystander saw the gun and deflected Schrank's arm just as the trigger was pulled. Roosevelt did not realize he was hit until someone noticed a hole in his overcoat.
When Roosevelt reached inside his coat, he found blood on his fingers.
Roosevelt was extremely lucky. He had the manuscript of a long, 50-page speech in his coat pocket, folded in two, and the bullet was no doubt slowed as it passed through it. He also had a steel spectacle case in his pocket, and the bullet traversed this, too, before entering Roosevelt's chest near the right nipple. Thus, one could say that Roosevelt's long-windedness and myopia saved his life!
Although the bullet traveled superiorly and medially for about 3 inches after breaking the skin, it lodged in the chest wall, without entering the pleural space. The bullet was never removed and Teddy recovered, but the shooting effectively stopped his campaign.
The assassin's bullet played an unique role in the Presidential career of Theodore Roosevelt. He became president when McKinley was shot... and his efforts to regain the presidency from Taft in the campaign of 1912 ended for all practical purposes in Milwaukee with his own attempted assassination. Teddy lost to Woodrow Wilson.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/5069/insane7zobe4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/9279/aamckinleyjo7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
William McKinley. Third US president killed by an assassin's bullet
105 years ago on this day in 1901, President William McKinley is shaking hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, when a 28-year-old anarchist and Polish immigrant named Leon Czolgosz approaches him and fires two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly on his toes before collapsing forward, saying "be careful how you tell my wife."
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9164/aauh032yc5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Czolgosz moved over the president with the intent of firing a third shot, but was wrestled to the ground by McKinley’s bodyguards. McKinley, still conscious, told the guards not to hurt his assailant. Other presidential attendants rushed McKinley to the hospital where they found two bullet wounds: one bullet had superficially punctured his sternum and the other had dangerously entered his abdomen.
The president was rushed into surgery and seemed to be on the mend by September 12. Later that day, however, the president’s condition worsened rapidly and, on September 14, McKinley died from gangrene that had gone undetected in the internal wound and the resulting sepsis. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was immediately sworn in as president.
Czolgosz, a Polish immigrant, grew up in Detroit and had worked as a child laborer in a steel mill. As a young adult, he gravitated toward socialist and anarchist ideology. He claimed to have killed McKinley because he was the head of what Czolgosz thought was a "corrupt government."
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/295/aa12ax2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Czolgosz was convicted and sentenced to "ride the lightning" and was executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901 -- fewer than two months after his arrest and less than a month after trial. The unrepentant killer’s last words were "I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the working people." His electrocution was personally filmed by Thomas Edison but apparently no copy of the film has survived.
On September 16, after receiving a state funeral in Washington, D.C., McKinley’s coffin was transported by train to his hometown of Canton, Ohio, for burial.
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/1831/aa39fn3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
McKinley was memorialized by naming a mountain for him in 1912. Mount McKinley (or Denali) in Alaska is the highest mountain peak in North America, at a height of approximately 20,320 feet. It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park. The mountain was also known as Bolshaya Gora (Большая Гора) in Russian.
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/1281/aa800pxmountmckinleybars7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Mount McKinley, a/k/a "Denali"...the original name preferred by Indians in the region.
As a somewhat related aside, McKinley's successor Theodore Roosevelt would survive an assasination attempt when a folded copy of a speech in his inside suit coat pocket slowed a bullet which otherwise would probably have penetrated his heart.
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/8025/aa2801oy9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
During a stop in Milwaukee on his 1912 "Bull Moose" campaign for the presidency, Roosevelt was shot at close range by John Schrank, a psychotic New York bartender Schrank had his .38 caliber pistol aimed at Roosevelt's head, but a bystander saw the gun and deflected Schrank's arm just as the trigger was pulled. Roosevelt did not realize he was hit until someone noticed a hole in his overcoat.
When Roosevelt reached inside his coat, he found blood on his fingers.
Roosevelt was extremely lucky. He had the manuscript of a long, 50-page speech in his coat pocket, folded in two, and the bullet was no doubt slowed as it passed through it. He also had a steel spectacle case in his pocket, and the bullet traversed this, too, before entering Roosevelt's chest near the right nipple. Thus, one could say that Roosevelt's long-windedness and myopia saved his life!
Although the bullet traveled superiorly and medially for about 3 inches after breaking the skin, it lodged in the chest wall, without entering the pleural space. The bullet was never removed and Teddy recovered, but the shooting effectively stopped his campaign.
The assassin's bullet played an unique role in the Presidential career of Theodore Roosevelt. He became president when McKinley was shot... and his efforts to regain the presidency from Taft in the campaign of 1912 ended for all practical purposes in Milwaukee with his own attempted assassination. Teddy lost to Woodrow Wilson.
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/5069/insane7zobe4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)