Assassinated

Image from Ameinu On November 4, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.      Yitzhak Rabin served two terms as the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, first from 1974 to 1977, then again beginning in 1992. He was active in the Israeli military early on in his life, having risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the War of Independence, then later became the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 Six-Day War. As prime minister, Rabin implemented many positive reforms, such as an updated education system and modernized healthcare. He earned much international accolade for his role in the Oslo Peace Accords, for which he - along with Yasser Arafat of Palestine and Shimon Peres of Israel - received a Nobel Peace Prize.      Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Orthodox Jew and staunch Zionist. He viewed Rabin's plans in the Oslo Peace Accords to return occupied land to Palestine as a betrayal to Zionism, and plotted to put an end to this ...

Image from Encyclopaedia Britannica On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated.      Indira Gandhi was India's first female prime minister. She served three terms from 1966 to 1977, and a fourth from 1980 to her death in 1984. As part of her foreign policy, Indira Gandhi encouraged Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka, but domestically refused to grant full autonomy to Sikhs in the Punjab region. In June 1984, Operation Blue Star commenced, in which the Indian military launched an assault on the Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar in an attempt to squash the efforts of separatist extremists.      On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was shot several times by Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, two Sikh guards in the prime minister's inner circle. Beant fired the first three shots into Gandhi's abdomen, then Satwant unloaded a machine gun into her chest, heart, and body. Although the prime minister was likely already dead when she arrived at the All India Instit...

Image from People Magazine On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.     Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prominent leader of the American Civil Rights movement. He utilized peaceful protest and his powerful rhetoric to press for civil rights laws and behaviors, incredibly noted in his "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and his "I Have a Dream" speech. In 1964, the Johnson administration passed the Civil Rights Act and MLK earned the Nobel Peace Prize.      On April 3, Dr. King spoke to a rally of his supporters in Memphis, Tennessee. After the rally, he checked into the Lorraine Motel. The next evening while leaning over a hotel balcony to chat with his friends, he was shot by James Earl Ray. The shot proved fatal, and within the span of approximately one hour, Dr. King was dead.      King's death was announced in a speech by presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy (who was assassinated only two months later, in June 1968). The a...

Image from Fox News On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated.      John F. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States, from 1961 until his death in 1963. The handsome and charismatic Kennedy was the first Catholic president, and with a team of young advisors, including his little brother Robert F. Kennedy as Attorney-General, ushered in the optimistic dream of an American golden age. As president, JFK had a hand in confronting many Cold War tensions abroad, including in Berlin,Vietnam (see Ngo Dinh Diem ) and in Cuba, with the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis. In the domestic realm, Kennedy launched the Peace Corps, and hoped to bring about income tax cuts and a civil rights bill.      On November 22, 1963, Kennedy and his posse were in Dallas, Texas on a fundraising trip. Paraded through downtown Dallas in a motorcade; while incredibly festive, there was a clear lack of effective security precautions. As the president's limousine...

Image from The Daily Telegraph . Photograph of Ngo Dinh Diem, 1957 On November 2, 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated.     In October 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem became president of South Vietnam, a position that he held until his death in November 1963. Diem was both put into and removed from power at the hands of the American government, which acted as puppetmaster. As president, the Catholic Diem used violence against Buddhist organizations, outlawed divorce, abortion, and opium, and installed his brothers in positions of power. His policies led to an outbreak of riots, and refusing to comply with outside demands, the American Kennedy administration began to plot his removal from power.      Encouraged by CIA cash payouts, Duong Ban Minh organized and led a coup on November 1, 1963. On November 2, Diem and his brother were killed in an American-supplied armored personnel carrier by members of the South Vietnamese military, each having been shot and stabbed repeated...

Image from Wikipedia . Photograph of Mohandas Gandhi. On January 30, 1948, Mohandas "Mahatma" Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated.          Mohandas Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, politician, and activist largely credited with leading the successful campaign for Indian independence from the British government and advocating for home rule. He is revered for his nonviolent protest approach, using peaceful civil disobedience to campaign for Indian independence. Gandhi began his life of peaceful protest against authorities in South Africa, but returned to India in 1915, where he became a dominating figure in the National Congress movement.      While taking a walk with his nieces on January 30, 1948, Mohandas Gandhi met his end. He was shot thrice by Nathuram Godse, a member of an extremist Hindu nationalist party that wished to make India a pure Hindu state. After shooting Gandhi, Godse attempted to shoot himself, but his pistol was knocked aside by a w...

            Image from Wikipedia . Photograph of Ernst vom Rath. On November 7, 1938, Ernst vom Rath was assassinated .     Ernst vom Rath was a German diplomat who went down in history as a Nazi martyr, primarily because of the implications of his assassination. More notable, however, is the story of his assassin, Herschel Grynszpan. Grynszpan was a Polish-German Jew  whose life began in a prosperous position but quickly declined as a result of Nazi discrimination and restrictions against Jews. He moved to France at the age of 15, but his stay was cut short and he became a stateless refugee.      In early November of 1938, Herschel Grynszpan received a letter from his sister that detailed the unfortunate situation the rest of his family had found themselves in. Viewing this as the last straw, he sought revenge on the Nazis; on November 7, the 17 year old bought a revolver and went to the German Embassy in Paris, where he asked...

                                 Image from Smithsonian Magazine . Illustrated supplement from Le Petit Journal, published in 1914. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.      Franz Ferdinand was Archduke and heir apparent of Austria-Hungary, and found himself in conflict with Emperor Franz Joseph I on several occasions. The first major source of tension between Franz and Franz stemmed from Ferdinand's romantic interest in Sophie Chotek, a Czech countess, which was not a relationship that the emperor approved of. Another cause for soreness between the two had political roots; Austria-Hungary was a multiethnic empire, with much conflicts between ethnicities. Archduke Ferdinand attempted several peaceful negotiations, such as amending Austro-Hungarian rule to be a triple monarchy between Germans, Magyars, and Slavs, or the creation of...