Random Most Bizarre Assassination Attempts In History (11 items)

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  (#2) Margaret Thatcher Was Nearly Blown Up By A Bomb In A VCR

  In 1984, following the death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, the IRA became determined to strike at the very heart of the English government by attempting to assassinate Margaret Thatcher herself. Aware that Thatcher would attend the Annual Conservative Party Conference, the IRA began to plan.

  Three weeks before the event, an IRA bomb maker named Jerry Magee checked into the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, under an assumed name and placed a bomb in Room 629. Using electronic parts from a VCR, he set the bomb to explode more than three weeks later, October 11, at 2:53 AM on the morning of the last day of the conference.

  See, the party leader gives a speech on the final day of the event, so the IRA was reasonably assured that Thatcher would be present. The explosive was supposed to be strong enough to collapse the whole building, killing everyone inside. The bomb did blow up on schedule, but it only killed five people and injured thirty others. Thatcher herself narrowly avoided a collapsing chimney column only a few feet away from her room. 

  Magee's fingerprints were still on his check-in card and he was arrested. Given eight life sentences and a minimum of 35 years in jail, he was released as a result of the Good Friday Agreement prisoner exchange in 1999. 
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  (#8) President Reagan Was Inches Away From Death

  On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. fired six wild shots at President Ronald Reagan. Five missed. Initially, it was believed that Reagan had escaped injury and media outlets reported that the President was not hit. However, as they sped towards the White House, Reagan complained of pain in his rib cage. 

  The head of the President's secret service detail, Jerry Parr, made the decision to go instead to George Washington University Hospital. President Reagan entered the hospital, insisting on walking to the emergency room. He suddenly crumpled to one knee and began to experience difficulty breathing.

  The first reading of Reagan's blood pressure revealed it was dangerously low. The bullet had stopped only one inch from Reagan's heart and he was bleeding heavily internally. It took 35 minutes to stabilize Reagan. During this surgery, he lost approximately half of his blood supply. He was very, very close to dying.

  Reagan left the hospital a week later; it would be many years before the media and the American people grasped the seriousness of Reagan's condition during this incident.  
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  (#5) The Royal Dutch Family Escaped Suicide Car Attack, But Eight People Died

  On April 30, 2009, during a parade honoring a Dutch national holiday, a car driven at high speed narrowly missed the open air bus containing Queen Beatrix and other members of the Dutch royal family. In front of thousands of horrified onlookers, the car then slammed into a monument, striking 17 pedestrians. Eight individuals, including the driver, 38-year-old Karst Tates, would eventually die from their injuries. 

  Tates had apparently recently lost his job and faced eviction, but had no criminal record and no drugs or alcohol in his system. Before losing consciousness, Tates did state to police that he meant to harm the Dutch royal family. No concrete motive for the attack was ever verified. News accounts described Tates as a "loner."
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  (#3) Two Pistols Were Too Scared Of Andrew Jackson To Fire

  On January 30, 1835, an unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence became the first person to attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. Andrew Jackson was leaving the US Capitol building after attending a funeral for a House member, when Lawrence confronted him, pulling the trigger on a pistol.

  Although the percussion cap ignited, the gun misfired. Lawrence then took another pistol out of his pocket (reloading was pretty cumbersome) and shot at Jackson again. That gun, astoundingly, also misfired. Some accounts maintain that Jackson attempted to beat Lawrence with his cane, but most likely the President was rushed from the scene quickly.

  The utterly delusional assassin believed himself the King of England. Whether or not Lawrence's mind was damaged by habitual exposure to the chemicals in the paint that he used is not clear, but a jury was quite clear on his sanity. They declared him criminally insane after five minutes and sent him to a mental institution where he died in 1861. When both pistols were tested a hundred years later by the Smithsonian, they both fired on the first attempt. Were the guns somehow aware of Jackson and afraid of his retribution? Probably not, but who can say? Jackson himself chose to believe that it was divine intervention.   
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  (#4) Harry Truman Slept Through Most Of An Attack By Puerto Rican Nationalists

  When it was decided during Harry Truman's administration that the White House would be renovated, Truman moved to a temporary residence at Blair House, then the official home of the Vice President. Accompanied only by a couple of Secret Servicemen and even pausing for red lights, Truman used to walk a half block on a public street to work at his executive office. Things were different in 1950.

  On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalist gunmen attempted to shoot their way into Blair House in an attempt on Truman's life. Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, both native born Puerto Ricans, were coordinating their attack with uprisings occurring on their home island. While Truman was taking a post-lunch nap in a second story bedroom, the gunmen approached the steps of the building and began firing at White House Police officers and Secret Servicemen.

  Collazo got as far as the front steps before being seriously wounded. Torresola wounded several members of law enforcement before the (already mortally wounded) police officer Leslie Coffelt emerged from his guard shack in the front of the building and shot Torresola in the head, killing him instantly. Coffelt would die in the hospital four hours later.

  Hearing the commotion, President Truman actually opened the second floor window directly over the entrance, only to be warned by the Secret Service to get back as Torresola was reloading his weapon. Collazo would be sentenced to death, and Truman would later commute the sentence to life in prison. Jimmy Carter commuted Collazo's sentence in 1979 and he returned to Puerto Rico.  
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  (#11) Two Unconnected Women Tried To Kill President Gerald Ford Within Two Weeks Of Each Other

  Twice in September of 1975, President Gerald Ford was confronted with pistol-wielding assassins attempting to shoot him at close range. Atypically, both attackers were female. The first attempt occurred on September 5, when Ford was walking the grounds of the state capital in Sacramento. While shaking hands with the crowd, Ford was confronted by a Charles Manson family member, Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme. Dressed entirely in red, including a bright scarlet dress and elf like stocking cap (perfect attire to remain inconspicuous) Fromme drew her Colt .45 from a leg holster under her dress, pointed it at Ford and pulled the trigger. The gun misfired. At the time Fromme exclaimed, "It didn't go off! Can you believe it?!" as she was wrestled to the ground.

  Later that same month on September 22, 1975, President Ford was back in California, addressing a conference at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel. As he was preparing to enter his limo in front of the hotel, Sara Jane Moore, a radicalized FBI informant and 45-year-old bookkeeper, fired two shots at him from across the street.

  One shot was relatively close to the President, and the second was deflected by an onlooker who wrestled Moore to the ground. Moore received a life sentence and worked as an accountant in jail. She was paroled in 2007, after 32 years in prison. Squeaky Fromme was paroled in 2009. 

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