12 Assassinations That Changed History

_____ led America through the Civil War, preserved the Union, abolished slavery, modernised the economy and bolstered the federal government.

_____ was known as the ‘Liberator’, enacting wide-ranging liberal reforms across Russia. His policies included the emancipation of serfs (peasant labourers) in 1861, the abolition of corporal punishment, the promotion of self-government and the ending of some of the nobility’s historic privileges.

_____ was heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was assassinated by a Serbian named Gavilo Princip in Sarajevo. His assassination was the catalyst for the outbreak of WWI.

Nicknamed the ‘man with the iron heart’, ______ was one of the most important Nazis, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He was assassinated in Prague as part of an SOE operation known as Operation Anthropoid.

One of the earliest heroes of the civil rights movement in India, ______ spearheaded non-violent resistance to British rule as part of the Indian quest for independence.

_____ was America’s darling: young, charming and idealistic, he was welcomed with open arms by many in the US, particularly due to his New Frontier domestic policies and staunchly anti-Communist foreign policy.

As the leader of the Civil Rights Movement in America, _______ met with plenty of anger and opposition over his career, including a nearly fatal stabbing in 1958, and he regularly received violent threats. He gave the famous "I have a dream" speech.

A 28-year-old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot ______ during a fair in Buffalo, New York. He died eight days later. His death led to the modern version of the Secret Service, which ensures the president is adequately protected.

_____ was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel: first elected in 1974, he was re-elected in 1992 on a platform that embraced the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Subsequently, he signed various historic agreements as part of the Oslo Peace Accords, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

The first female Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority country, ______ was one of Pakistan’s most important political figures. Killed by a suicide bomb at a political rally in 2007, her death shook the international community.

Arguably the most famous Roman to live, the assassination of ______ the vaunted military general and dictator of Rome was carried out on March 15, 44 BC, a date better known as the Ides of March, when in the midst of a calculated melee he was stabbed at least 23 times by his own senators.

The human rights activist and Muslim minister known as ______ was shot onstage at the Audubon Ballroom, New York City on February 21, 1965 by two men armed with semi-automatic handguns and one with a sawed-off shotgun.