The word assassin  is quintessentially Arabic, that derived from Hashshashin  and is thought to have derived from a group of 8th century Persian, Hassani Sabbah soldiers who mellowed on the hashish drug before killing their intended targets.

All throughout history, notable persons have been assassinated.  They have been assassinated for many reasons, including but not limited to...political gain, suppression of information, apprehension of power, for protection of others, private disagreements and to gain wealth.

One of the most historic assassinations was that of Julius Caesar on March 15th, 44 B.C...The Ides of March.  Julius Caesar loved absolute power and  finally consolidated his power in February 44 BC, when he declared himself the total Roman dictator for life.  He adorned himself with total prestige, to say that power had finally gone to his head would have been putting it mildly.

Over 50 members of the senate agreed unanimously that the assassination of Julius Caesar would be in their best interests and the best solution to this power crazed tyrant.  Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Theatre of Pompey, by several members of his own senate.  He was stabbed thirty-five times, to make absolutely sure he was dead and not just severely injured.

Its ironic that amongst many of Julius Caesar's noteworthy quotations, he actually said: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely  " and " Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. "  So he above all else should have known where his actions where going to lead.

The assassination of Julius Caesar made way for a new emperor and hence served the greater purpose for the senate and people of Rome.  His successor was Augustus Caesar who ruled until 14 A.D.

Gaius Caligula Germanicus Caesar was another power mad, tyrannical emperor of Rome, he was assassinated in A.D 41, after just five years of rule when his own bodyguard, the Praetorian guard waylaid and stabbed him to death in a secret tunnel that ran under his palace.

Assassinations of emperors generally served so that another emperor could be voted or sanctioned into office.  These assassinations were never done for money or any other reason, it was the ultimate political manoeuvre where all else would fail.  Negotiations of course would have been impossible, so as far as the concerned party was interested, the need for assassination was paramount in these situations.

The same decision was made about Adolf Hitler during the later stages of WWII when many of his high ranking officers decided that he had to go.  There were actually over twenty attempts on Hitlers life in the last years of WWII but none of them ever succeeded.

Assassinations, successful or not can have disastrous consequences.  The result of the failed attempts on Hitler made him feel as if he was truly invisible, also it made him step up his security arrangements making further attempts even harder.  These failed attempts also resulted with many thousands of people losing their lives in the subsequent purges that Hitler had in uncovering the " traitors "

Assassinations of top high level figures are history changing and can affect the lives of an entire country if successfully carried out.  If they fail they can have equally dynamic consequences.  The assassination of Hitlers right hand man, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhardt "hangman" Heydrich in 1942 by members of the Czech resistance resulted in the entire annihilation of the Polish village called Lidice.

Below is a photograph of the village of Lidice after the  Nazis had demolished it, as you can see all that remained were piles of debris, not one brick remained on another.

Later the Nazis even had the rubble taken away, ploughed the land, planted trees and erased the name from every map and atlas in their possession.  Lidice was rebuilt after the war, construction began in earnest in 1947 and today the entire new village of Lidice can be visited.  There is also a huge memorial erected there in remembrance of all those that died in that tragic event.

NOTABLE ASSASSINATIONS

Below are a list of some infamous assassinations of famous people, people who were politicians, leaders, peace activists, artists and visionaries who hoped to make a difference in the world.  Sadly, the only difference they made was to adjust the minds of a few individuals who then decided to have them assassinated.

They were assassinated for various reasons that the assassins had decided were of upmost importance, either to them as individuals or to a determined collective.  These notables were basically not liked for what they stood for or not liked for what they were doing and it was rationalized by the assassins that they had to be removed...permanently.

Whilst researching for this page, I found over five hundred famous and notable assassinations in recent times, I decided to only select a few of them for illustration on this page...I was literally spoiled for choice.

Benazir Bhutto: 54 (1953 - 2007)

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber who detonated a hand grenade close by her as she was leaving a rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. Twenty other people were also injured in this attack, that the Pakistani Taliban later claimed responsibility for.

Two police officers along with five members of the Taliban were indicted for the assassination on November 6th, 2011, four years after the incident.

Franz Ferdinand: 51 (1863 - 1914)

Austrian Archduke and heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand  was shot whilst he travelled in a motorcade going to Sarajevo Town Hall on June 28, 1914.  The assassin was a young Serbian, Gavrilo Pricip, who was a member of the Black Hand, a Serbian nationalist movement.  Both Ferdinand and his pregnant wife Sofia died in the attack...this was the prelude to WWI

William McKinley: 58 (1843-1901)

The 25th president of the USA, William McKinley  after winning the 1896 election visited to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y.  He was about to shake hands with a young man in the crowd when the man, Leon Czolgosz, pulled out a revolver and shot him twice at point blank range.  McKinley died eight days later.

Abraham Lincoln: 56 (1809 - 1865)

Whilst attending a performance of the play "Our American Cousin " at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Boothe shot Lincoln in the back of the head.  Lincoln died several hours later and Boothe was killed a few days later by Boston Corbett, a Union soldier who shot Boothe through the neck.

Leon Trotsky: 61 (1879 - 1940)

Lev Davidovich Bronstein  alias Leon Trotsky was assassinated by Russian NKVD agent Roman Mercador in Mexico with an ice pick.  Trotsky was leading the 1917 October Revolution in Russia in the wake of Lenin's death in 1924.  It is thought that Joseph Stalin ordered his death.

Mahatma Gandhi: 79 (1869 - 1948)

Peace activist and non violent revolutionary Mahatma Gandhi  was assassinated by Hindu nationalist, Nathuram Godse.  Godse shot Ghandi three times in the chest at close range. Two days before his death, Gandhi said: " If I am to die by the bullet of a mad man, I must do so smiling. There must be no anger within me. God must be in my heart and on my lips. "

John F. Kennedy: 46 (1917 - 1963)

There is still a lot of controversy surrounding J.F.K's assassination.  The official version is that lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin but much of this has been open to conjecture over the years.  Oswald was himself assassinated a few days later by Assassin Jack Ruby.

Robert F. Kennedy: 43 (1925 - 1968 )

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot three times with a .22 caliber revolver by Palestinian born Sirhan Sirham during a campaign in los Angeles.  Kennedy was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel and died 26 hours later.  After his arrest, Sirhan stated that he shot Kennedy because he supported Israel.

Malcolm X: 40 (1925 - 1965)

American civil rights and political activist Malcolm X was assassinated during a speech he was giving in the Audubon Ballroom, located on Broadway at 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, north of Harlem in New York.  Malcolm X was actually shot no less that seventeen times by three men, who used a sawn off shotgun and two handguns.

Martin Luther King: 39 (1929 - 1968)

Martin Luther King was a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and a civil rights movement pioneer.  He was a very charismatic man and drew large crowds of both black and white people, he was always rapturously applauded for his visionary speeches.  He was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray.  Two months later James Earl Ray was arrested in London, later in March 1969 Ray confessed to the killing, but withdrew the confession three days later. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison but continued to deny that he assassinated King.

Martin Luther King seen third from the left on the actual balcony where he was shot, a day later after this photo was taken.

Anwar Sadat: 63 (1918 - 1981)

Anwar Sadat, the third Egyptian president was assassinated by a Jihadist military cell led by Khalid Islambouli during a large military parade.  Assault rifles, handguns and rifle grenades were used to assault the podium where Sadat was sitting with other delegates.  He died instantly along with eleven others, including James Tulley, the Irish Minister for Defence.

Lord Louis Mountbatten: 79 (1900 - 1979)

Lord Mountbatten was a very popular figure in British politics, he was assassinated by the IRA whilst holidaying in Ireland, off the coast of County Sligo, near his family holiday home at Classiebawn Castle.  The yacht on which he was staying was blown up, killing Mountbatten straight away.  The IRA later stated that the assassination of Mountbatten was to raise public awareness of the situation in Northern Ireland by assassinating " an emotional figure in British and Irish politics  "

John Lennon: 40 (1940 - 1980)

John Lennon of the hugely popular pop group, The Beatles  was assassinated by crazed eccentric Mark David Chapman on the steps of the Dakota building in New York where Lennon was living. After shooting Lennon in the back four times with a .38 special revolver, Chapman sat down and calmly waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.  He was reading the J.D. Salinger novel " The Catcher in the Rye "  Chapman said that the book had influenced him into doing the killing.

Olof Palme: 59 (1927 - 1986)

Olof Palme was the Social Democrat Prime Minister of Sweden, he was shot at point blank range in an alley after visiting the Grand Cinema in Stockholm.  His assassin has never been caught.

Ahmad Shah Massoud: 48 (1953 - 2001)

Afghanistan ruler, Ahmad Shah Massoud, " The Lion of Panjshir " was assassinated by two Al-Qaeda rebels in a suicide bombing two days before September 11th 2001.  Massoud was opposed to the Taliban and Soviet occupiers having rule in his country.  His death is now remembered as Massoud Day  in Afghanistan.

Pim Fortuyn: 54 (1948 - 2002)

Pim Fortuyn  was the openly homosexual and anti Islam leader of the Pim Fortuyn List  political party.  He was shot to death in a parking lot by animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf, several days before the general election.

Yitzhak Rabin: 73 (1922 - 1995)

Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli statesman and politician, he was assassinated in a car park after a peace treaty rally in Tel Aviv by radical right wing activist Yiqal Amir.  Amir stated that he was opposed to Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords which was the official declaration of principles on interim self government arrangements for the resolution of Palestinian conflicts.

AN ASSASSINS LOT...

All throughout history, anybody who was standing out from the crowd and making changes were possible targets for the assassins bullet or knife.  People don't like change and many are prepared to kill to keep it that way, and history enforces that statement by the hundreds of assassinations that have occurred.

Since the death of Christ, perhaps the most famous assassination, there have followed around a thousand notable assassinations of various leaders, politicians and famous people in this world.

Assassinations are the ends to a means and the assassin believes that he is stopping something from occurring and is making a difference.  In actual fact, there is never any real difference as the person who is assassinated is always replaced with like minded people who invariably carry on with the same policies or follow the same route.

Things will always be the same, they will never be changed or altered by the death of an individual, regardless of how powerful that person was.  Life carries on and the only losers are those that were killed, the only change was to the assassinated families lives.

Page created on October 14th 2011. Update November 1st 2011