Assassination of McKinley
After talking about how Theodore Roosevelt became president, I decided to look into HOW he became president…
President William McKinley was shot on September 6,1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York only a couple months after becoming president. With his visit to the World’s Fair, everyone was extremely anxious for McKinley’s two day visit. Prior to this, America had just won the Spanish-American War which Theodore Roosevelt played a key part in.
Only a couple months into his second term, McKinley was ready for this important and symbolic international event. There, many people celebrated his presence including fireworks that said, “Welcome President McKinley, Chief of our Nation and Our Empire.” With a very demanding schedule, many of the officials feared that there would be an attempt at an assassination, but McKinley insisted that they still to the planned agenda.
At the Temple of Music on September 6, 1901, people were lined up to shake hands with the admired president. Leon Czolgosz had purchased a revolver and had hidden it in a hankerchief. As McKinley was shaking his hand, he took out a revolver and fired two shots. Before he could fire a third, an African American man, James Parker, stopped Czolgosz from taking the third shot. The damage was already done, however.
McKinley was taken to the hospital and for many days they thought he would recover. Theodore Roosevelt was certain he would recover and the weekend that he died, Roosevelt decided to go on a hunting trip. When McKinley died, Roosevelt took over the presidency and would go on to shape America in many ways.
https://www.history.com/news/the-assassination-of-president-william-mckinley
I liked your post about McKinley's assassination in the sense that it explained how he was murdered. I have one question though; why was he murdered? Was he disliked by a large group of people and was murdered by one of these people or was this person crazy and just didn't like Mckinley?
ReplyDeleteI liked how you explained how Roosevelt became president. However, after reading your post, I am also wondering what difference of beliefs pushed Leon Czolgosz to kill McKinley.
ReplyDeleteI think it's awful that McKinley suffered this. It does prompt the question as to why Czolgosz was motivated to kill McKinley, especially after such a succesful end to the war. Also, it's interesting that today the Secret Service does not listen to the President when it comes to security: they will not let him, or anyone related to him for that matter, enter a risky path. This is probably as a result of all the presidential assassinations of our past, especially such an unexpected one as this.
ReplyDeleteI love the background into Roosevelt's usurpation of the presidency and information on McKinley shortly before his death. Why was McKinley assassinated? Did Leon Czolgosz belong to some radical political group?
ReplyDeleteI really like the lead up to the assassination. We didn't learn as much about McKinley as Roosevelt took the spotlight, but learning about McKinley's visit to the World's fair and his death was very interesting. The way he was assassinated sounded very harsh, being shot at point blank by someone who seemed to be merely shaking a hand. I would really enjoy learning the background of the assassin himself, why he did it would be a great addition to this post.
ReplyDeleteI found this article very interesting. I thought it was cool how a black man is the person to tried to protect McKinley, especially considering the time period in which his assassination took place. It is also interesting that this is one of the less discussed assassinations of all the American presidents who have been assassinated.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that you decided to cover a topic that we didn't really learn about in depth and helped us understand this transition period between McKinley and Roosevelt. I wonder how the media and people in general reacted to and treated the African-American man that stopped Czolgosz from firing his third shot and why he wanted to assassinate McKinley in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you brought light to something that we did not talk about more in class. I feel like it would also be really interesting if you were able to look up the media after the shooting and see if that African American man was ever referenced.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was an interesting post. However, I still wonder why Czolgosz wanted to do it.
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