28 Mar 2012 - Lincoln was the first successful assassination

I was watching 'Bones' today and there was some discussion about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the man that assassinated him, John Wilkes Booth. I realised that I didn't really know much about this event in history, aside from the fact that Lincoln was assassinated at the Theatre. So I decided to do a little Googling on the subject. I knew a little about Lincoln, that he was a famous American president, who's term included the American civil war, and that he is often mentioned as one of the most influential presidents that the United States (US) has ever had. However, the fact that surprised me, was that he was the first successfully assassinated US President. There had been previous attempts to assassinate presidents in the United States of America but until Lincoln, who was the 16th US President, there had never been a successful assassination. 

I don't know why, probably because there are so many movies about assassination attempts on US Presidents, but I had always assumed that there had been many assassinations that I didn't know about. The only two that I could call to mind were Lincoln and John F. Kennedy (JFK). I did some further research and after the successful assassination of Abraham Lincoln, there has only been 3 more successful assassinations; James A. Garfield (20th President), William McKinley (25th President) and the other one I already recalled, which is probably the most famous assassination, John F Kennedy (35th President). Considering Barack Obama is the 44th President, that is only about ten per cent of US Presidents that have been assassinated, which means that ninety per cent have lived through their duration as president (or at least died of natural causes during their presidency). I guess overall a ninety per cent chance you won't be assassinated as a US President isn't so bad, although a 100 per cent chance would be preferable if considering the top job!