History's most notorious assassinations

Assassination attempts have been carried out since antiquity, and not everyone has been so lucky as to survive. Just look at how many Roman emperors fell victim to the sword, knife, or poison. In fact, most assassinations are politically motivated, with presidents, prime ministers, and members of royalty all having been targeted throughout history. But some killings remain senseless and inexplicable, those of musicians for example, or advocates for peace and equality.

Click through for a gruesome timeline of victims of assassinations, and the murderers that hit their mark.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 1865

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot and mortally wounded on April 14, 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. The president died the following day. Twelve days later, Booth was shot and killed by Union Army forces.

Assassination of Shinzo Abe, 2022

Shinzo Abe, the former Prime Minister of Japan, was assassinated at a public campaign event on July 8, 2022. The 67-year-old was shot while giving a speech and was seen to collapse to the ground. Abe was immediately rushed to hospital, but news broke shortly afterward that he had died from his injuries.

A 41-year-old man named Tetsuya Yamagami was taken into custody at the scene. He reportedly used a homemade gun to fire two shots at Abe. Yamagami told authorities that the motivation for the killing was Abe's connection to Japan's Unification Church, which has been accused of pressuring members to make exorbitant donations. Yamagami said his mother went bankrupt because of the church. 

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914

On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo. The act itself was callous enough, but it's what happened next that makes this killing truly momentous. After the shooting, Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated as a nationalist secret society, which initiated the July Crisis and led directly to the outbreak of the First World War. He would die in prison in 1918 of tuberculosis.

Assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 BCE

He wasn't the first Roman emperor to die a violent death, nor was he the last. But the assassination on March 15, 44 BCE of Gaius Julius Caesar is one of the most notorious murders in Roman history. He was stabbed by senators 23 times, with at least 60 party to the conspiracy, including Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Decimus Junius Brutus.

Assassination of the Romanov family, 1918

On the night of July 16–17, 1918, the Russian Imperial Romanov family (Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Empress Alexandra, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) were shot to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Ipatiev House, a merchant's residence in Yekaterinburg where they had been detained. Pictured is the room in which they were assassinated.

Assassination of Federico García Lorca, 1936

One of Spain's foremost poets and playwrights of the 20th century, Federico García Lorca was deliberately targeted and killed by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, on August 18, 1936 in Granada. His remains have never been found.

Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, 1942

The most high-profile assassination of a senior Nazi official took place in Prague on May 22, 1942 when Reinhard Heydrich was attacked by Czechoslovak resistance operatives Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. Heydrich died of the injuries sustained on June 4, 1942. Nazi reprisals were swift and deadly. Hitler ordered an attack on the village of Lidice, where 199 men were killed, 195 women were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, and 95 children taken prisoner. Gabčík and Kubiš, together with co-conspirators, died in a gun battle inside Prague's Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodious. Pictured is the bomb-damaged shell of Heydrich's car.

Assassination of John F. Kennedy, 1963

The most infamous political assassination in world history took place on November 22, 1963 when US President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of his murder.

Assassination of Malcolm X, 1965

Kennedy's death in 1963 marked the beginning of a tumultuous decade for the United States, when several political killings took place. On February 1, 1965, controversial African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X was assassinated inside the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Three Nation of Islam members were tried and convicted of the slaying and sentenced to life imprisonment, although two were exonerated in 2021. Pictured is a wounded Malcolm X being stretched out of the ballroom by police officers. He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 1968

The same year saw Robert Kennedy die from gunshots shortly after addressing an audience at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Palestinian militant Sirhan Sirhan was charged with the senator's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Kennedy was hit three times and died almost 26 hours later at the city's Good Samaritan Hospital. In this ironic photograph, Kennedy is seen attending the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. just two months earlier.

Assassination of Georgi Markov, 1978

In a scenario straight out of a Bond movie, Bulgarian dissident writer and BBC broadcaster Georgi Markov, who had defected from Bulgaria in 1969, was attacked on September 7, 1978 while walking across Waterloo Bridge in London. As he was doing so, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his right thigh. He died four days later, the result of ricin, a deadly poison, delivered into his body via the tip of an umbrella. Pictured is the tiny platinum toxic ball that killed him. The Russian KGB is thought to have ordered the assassination, but to date no one has been charged with Markov's murder.

Assassination of Louis Mountbatten, 1979

Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was vacationing at his Irish home, Classiebawn Castle in County Sligo, in the summer of 1979 when Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon placed a radio-controlled bomb on his boat, Shadow V. On August 27, 1979, Mountbatten and his party took to the water. Shortly afterwards, the bomb was detonated. The statesman was pulled from the water alive, but died from his injuries before being brought to shore. Three other people succumbed to their injuries. McMahon was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. He was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Assassination of Indira Gandhi, 1984

Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. By the time of her assassination by members of her own bodyguard unit on October 31, 1984 in New Delhi, she herself was the nation's prime minister. The assassins were caught and eventually executed.

Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, 1995

On November 4, 1995 in Tel Aviv, the prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Israeli right-wing extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. He is currently serving a life sentence for the  murder.

Assassination of Rafik Hariri, 2005

The bomb blast that ended the life of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, on February 14, 1995 also killed dozens of others. Many more were wounded. A Special Tribunal set up after the assassination found compelling evidence for the responsibility of Lebanese group Hezbollah in the killings.

Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, 2006

It's generally assumed that the murder by poisoning of Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko, who was a British-naturalized Russian defector and former spy, was sanctioned by President Vladimir Putin. He is pictured at the Intensive Care Unit of University College Hospital in London, where he died on November 23, 2006.

Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, 2007

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto waves from her car just seconds before being attacked on December 27, 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The opposition leader died from a bullet wound to the neck after speaking at a rally. The Pakistan Taliban claims it killed the stateswoman.