In the Crosshairs

Famous Assassinations and Attempts from Julius Caesar to John Lennon

Stephen Spignesi

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781510713031
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Assassinations often change the course of history. Here is an intriguing look at dozens of notable assassinations and attempts throughout history, including complete details about the assassin, the victim, the circumstances of the attack, and the outcome. In the Crosshairs also features photos of many of the victims or would-be victims, and rare archival material, including excerpts from original police reports.High-profile celebrities, political figures, religious leaders, and many others have fallen prey to assassins, and many have survived. In the Crosshairs is arranged in alphabetical order, by last name, and includes such details as: On November 8, 1939, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt – 12 minutes after he left a room where he was making a speech, a bomb went off.
Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat would probably have survived the assassin's bullet on October 6, 1981, if he hadn't taken off his bulletproof vest – but he didn't like the way it made his suit bulge.
Robert John Bardo, the murderer of young actress Rebecca Schaeffer, carried with him to the crime scene a copy of J. D, Sallinger's The Catcher in the Rye, just like Mark David Chapman did when he murdered John Lennon nearly nine years earlier.
From notable murders (Abraham Lincoln, Gianni Versace, and Indira Gandhi) to little-known attempts (George W. Bush, Wild Bill Hickock, and Andy Warhol) here is a surprising, informative, and intriguing book that deserves to be on every history buff's bookshelf.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

QUEEN BEATRIX OF THE NETHERLANDS

Assassinated

Survived ✓

What started out as a beautiful day has ended in a terrible tragedy that has shocked all of us.

Queen Beatrix1

VICTIM: Queen Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard

AGE WHEN ATTACKED: 71

BORN: January 31, 1938

DIED: n/a

OCCUPATION: Queen of the Netherlands until her abdication in 2013

UNSUCCESSFUL ASSASSIN: Karst Roeland Tates, 38

DATE & TIME OF ATTACK: April 30, 2009, approximately 11:50 a.m.

LOCATION OF ATTACK: The road leading to the palace of Het Loo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands

WEAPON: An older model, black Suzuki Swift

ASSASSINATION OUTCOME: There were seven deaths that were the responsibility of the attacker; the death toll rose to eight when Tates died in the hospital the following day. There were also ten nonfatal injuries.

JUDICIAL OUTCOME: None

Karst Tates was the very model of a modern psychotic, despondent loner.

He had the psycho creds: financial troubles, eviction worries, lost his job as a night shift security guard, depression. His parents claimed he was a nice guy; we would have been surprised if they had said otherwise. But unlike scenarios (mostly in the United States) wherein neighbors of the serial killer (the BTK Killer comes to mind) always say he was a nice guy and that they never suspected anything, post-attack reports from Tates’s neighbors are the opposite. After the attack, a neighbor of Tates reported that he had said he was depressed and estranged from his family.

The belief is that he scouted the location where he would crash his car into the bus carrying the royal family. Some reports claim he chose a spot where there would be few if any “innocent bystanders.” He was probably surprised then when he showed up and the streets were lined with hapless innocent bystanders.

Tates was gravely injured in the attack, but he was conscious and lucid enough in the hospital to tell the police that his intention was to kill the royal family. This is accepted as his motive. He died of brain injuries the day after the attack.

His “attack” on the queen and the rest of the royal family was, in essence, a joke. Dutch TV was broadcasting the parade and the whole country watched as Tates’s vehicle sped around the corner where the bus was at the time and crashed into a monument. (The incident can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvHy4PcIRGk.)

He didn’t even clip the bus, but he did run down onlookers (which cannot be seen in the video, but can be seen in a video slideshow at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoxi_XewuuI). This slideshow also has a photograph of Queen Beatrix reacting in horror to the incident and wrapped bodies on gurneys being removed from the scene. (Two men and two women died at the scene. Three later succumbed.) The live video also shows medical personnel performing CPR in the middle of the street on one of Tates’s victims.

Immediately after the crash, Tates’s vehicle was surrounded by police, photographers, and parade-goers. It would seem that the initial perception of the event was that it was an accident. Watching the video, we get the sense that the immediate response was that no one was even considering the possibility that the vehicle was rigged to explode, or that the driver was armed.

The royal bus continued to proceed slowly along the route, only now surrounded by armed guards (in nicely tailored suits, of course).

Tates’s vehicular attack was the first attempt on the lives of the Dutch royal family in decades. Today, a monument stands near the site of the attack. It was unveiled in 2010 in honor of the seven victims and depicts a box holding seven blue and white balloons.

THOMAS BECKETT

Assassinated ✓

Survived

To look upon he was slim of growth and pale of hue, with dark hair, a long nose, and a straightly featured face. Blithe of countenance was he, winning and loveable in his conversation, frank of speech in his discourses, but slightly stuttering in his talk, so keen of discernment and understanding that he could always make difficult questions plain after a wise manner.

Robert of Cricklade1

VICTIM: Thomas á Beckett

BORN: December 21, 1118

DIED: December 29, 1170

AGE WHEN ATTACKED: 62

OCCUPATION: Chancellor of England, Archbishop of Canterbury, friend and enemy of King Henry II, English martyr now known as St. Thomas Beckett

ASSASSINS: Reginald FitzUrse2, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard le Breton: four over-ambitious knights in the service of corrupt King Henry II

DATE & TIME OF ATTACK: Tuesday, December 29, 1170, at dusk

LOCATION OF ATTACK: In front of the altar of St. Benedict in Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, England

WEAPONS: Swords

ASSASSINATION OUTCOME: After several blows from the knights’ swords, including one that cracked open his skull and splattered his brains, Thomas died almost immediately.

JUDICIAL OUTCOME: The four knights, initially boastful and proud of their deed, were quickly excommunicated and had to flee to Scotland for refuge. They eventually gave themselves up to King Henry, who turned them over to the Pope for punishment. The pontiff required them to fast, and they were then ordered to join the Crusades and spend fourteen years in the Holy Land. King Henry later acknowledged his mistake in earlier accusing Thomas of theft, by walking through Canterbury barefoot in a sackcloth as monks beat him with reeds.

Sometimes we have to watch what we say, especially if we happen to be the King of England.

King Henry II was traveling in France with one of his archbishops when he learned that Thomas Beckett, the highest cleric in the Church of England, had returned to England and had been met with crowds and great acclaim.

Thomas had been named Archbishop by his friend King Henry in an attempt to create an easy (but powerful) alliance between the monarchy and the Church in England. Unfortunately for King Henry, things did not go as he had hoped. After the king implemented laws that would have given him control of all cases in England involving clergy, Thomas publicly denounced him and the new laws, greatly embarrassing the monarch and creating an untenable situation for King Henry.

Quick-thinking (and devious), King Henry summoned Thomas and accused him of stealing large sums of money from the Church when he was chancellor. King Henry hoped to distract the public from the archbishop’s contempt toward his authority, and there was such an uproar over the accusations that Thomas felt it wise to flee to France. He left England in October 1164 and stayed there six years in exile.

When King Henry heard that Thomas had been welcomed back to England with open arms, he was outraged. Archbishop Roger of York, who was with the King in France, stirred the monarch up even more by reminding him that he was going to have to contend with Thomas when he returned and that there would be no peace in his kingdom as long as Thomas was back in England.

It was then that King Henry angrily exclaimed (to anyone and everyone within earshot), “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?!”3

King Henry’s words were heard by four of his knights who suddenly saw a great opportunity for “career advancement,” so to speak. If they eliminated the “Thomas problem” for King Henry, then they would immediately be elevated in the king’s eye, and riches and privileges aplenty would soon come their way.

So what did these four ambitious knights do? They left without delay for England.

They arrived in England on December 29th and immediately set out for Canterbury. Their arrival in Canterbury was cause for great alarm, and the monks attending Thomas urged him to flee his residence and seek refuge in the cathedral, where a Vespers service was taking place at the time.

Thomas did as they asked, but the knights followed him into the cathedral and attacked him with swords. De Tracey struck first, and the others pierced him three additional times. Thomas fell to his knees, and then Breton struck Thomas on the top of the head with such force that his head actually split open and the tip of the sword broke off. Thomas’s brains spilled out onto the floor of the cathedral, and the knights finished the job by spreading the archbishop’s hacked-out brain matter all over the marble floor. By this time, the worshippers had fled the cathedral, and the knights followed soon thereafter, leaving Thomas’s ravaged body and bloody, cracked-open head lying in a pool of his own blood and brains. Thomas’s companion, Edward Grim, was wounded by one of the knight’s swords, but he survived.

Three days after Thomas’s murder, a series of purported miracles bega...