The Assassination That Led to the Death of 800,000 People

Murder is always a horrifying occurrence, leaving all those who witness it shocked and dismayed at the level of violence undertaken by one or many individuals. Yet, the act of assassination, whether attempted or successful, has a different impact on the public and is an act that can have lasting implications not only for the here and now but for the future.

There are several definitions of what it means to assassinate. According to Merriam-Webster, it is to murder a usually prominent person by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons, and per Black's Law Dictionary, it is Murder committed for hire, without provocation or cause of resentment given to the murderer by the person upon whom the crime is committed.

With this in mind, the majority of assassinations, with very few exceptions, are typically political motivations, whether to seize power, seek retribution, undermine a regime, or prevent a new one from taking over. The would-be executioner often acts alone or on behalf of a larger organization or country, with the intended result of ending the target's ideas, striking fear in their colleagues or allies, or even altering the very destiny of a nation.

To identify assassinations that altered history, 24/7 Tempo has referred to such sites as Historyhit, Historyplex, History, and a few others. We exercised editorial discretion in compiling the final list, based on the long-term effects each assassination had. Sometimes the outcome is almost immediately disastrous, as with the assassination of Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand, which triggered World War I, and the murder of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, which ignited one of the 20th century's worst genocides.

Political leaders like Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin each won a Nobel Peace Prize for their work in trying to forge elusive peace accords in the Middle East, and along with their Islamic counterparts, each paid the ultimate price for pursuing that goal. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used nonviolent strategies in the cause of civil rights in India and the United States, respectively – but both died violently. (These are 26 rulers who were killed by their own people.)

Assassinations are shocking events that usually have unfortunate aftermaths, often involving political destabilization (one can't help what might have happened to the political climate in the U.S. should the attempted assassination of 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump have been carried out).

Although sometimes there can be positive outcomes. A perfect example of this is the shooting death of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay officeholder in San Francisco. As tragic as his slaying was, it led to greater understanding and acceptance of the LGBTQ community nationwide.

Here are assassinations that changed the course of history

• Killed in: 44 B.C.
• Perpetrator(s): Roman senators

Julius Caesar won many victories for Rome when it was a republic but he angered the Senate by crossing the shallow river called the Rubicon, the border between Rome and its conquered lands, violating custom and setting off a civil war. Following his victory, he was made dictator "in perpetuity."

Fearing Caesar's aggrandizement of power, a conspiracy of senators, led by Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus, stabbed him to death. Unexpectedly, his death brought about the demise of the Roman Republic and Rome's beginning as an empire.

• Killed in: 1865
• Perpetrator(s): John Wilkes Booth

One of history's greatest what-ifs may just be what would have happened had Lincoln lived. His successor, Andrew Johnson, was the only Democrat and Southerner in Lincoln's administration during the Civil War. Lincoln was politically deft, could manage dissenting opinion, and sought to peacefully reintegrate the South into the Union.

Johnson seemed to be his opposite – stubborn, lacked allies, and could not keep the Radical Republicans from imposing a harsh peace on the former Confederacy. Some historians believe Lincoln would have run afoul with Radical Republicans also.

• Killed in: 1881
• Perpetrator(s): People's Will

Ordinary Russians had great hope for Tsar Alexander II. In his earlier years as the ruler of the far-flung Russian empire, Alexander had embraced liberal principles. In 1861, he freed the serfs and abolished corporal punishment as well as advocating for land reform. But more regressive voices got his ear and Alexander became more suspicious of those outside his circle, especially after several assassination attempts on him.

One attempt finally succeeded, when a radical group called the People's Will killed the tsar with a bomb thrown at his feet. Fearful of revolution, the tsars that followed Alexander were more repressive.

• Killed in: 1901
• Perpetrator(s): Leon Czolgosz

The United States became a global power under President McKinley after routing Spain in the Spanish-American War. Shortly after winning a second term, McKinley was shot and killed by anarchist Leon Czolgosz and was succeeded by Teddy Roosevelt, the youngest man to serve as president.

The energetic Roosevelt, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, embodied the vigorous American nation and sought to project its might around the world. Roosevelt was a different kind of Republican president, suspicious of corporate power and sympathetic to better working conditions for American laborers.

• Killed in: 1914
• Perpetrator(s): Gavrilo Princip

Heir to the throne of the polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ferdinand felt that the empire needed modernizing and the bureaucracy should be reformed, in contrast to his uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph. Ferdinand also believed much of the empire needed greater autonomy, including the recently annexed territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which contained a large Serb population.

On June 28, 1914, Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated the archduke in Sarajevo, igniting the powderkeg that became World War I.

• Killed in: 1918
• Perpetrator(s): Bolsheviks

The assassination of the tsar and his family ended the 300-year reign of the Romanov dynasty. Tsar Nicholas II had been deposed in 1917 and his family was being held as hostages by the Bolsheviks. By killing all members of Russia's ruling family, the Bolsheviks removed the possibility of a restoration of the monarchy and paved the way for the creation of the Soviet Union, the world's first communist state. He was the fifth tsar to lose his life to an assassin.

• Killed in: 1948
• Perpetrator(s): Nathuram Vinayak Godse

Gandhi's strategy of nonviolent resistance led to the expulsion of the British from India in 1947. He was then assassinated by a Hindu fanatic a year after his nation gained independence. Gandhi's death robbed India of its founding father in its first years as a nation free from colonial rule but it was his effective methods served as an inspiration for civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• Killed in: 1961
• Perpetrator(s): Opponents aided by the CIA

Lumumba, the president of the Republic of Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) was elected after the African nation became independent from Belgium. Lumumba was a Pan-African, anti-colonial leader who gravitated toward the Soviet Union.

The West could not abide the African nation moving toward the communist bloc and he was targeted for an assassination that likely involved the CIA. Overthrown in a coup, he was imprisoned and tortured, then shot by a firing squad. Lumumba's death poisoned relations between African nations and the West for years afterward.

• Killed in: 1963
• Perpetrator(s): CIA and Vietnamese assassins

The autocratic ruler of South Vietnam, President Ngô Đình Diệm, was nominally supported by the U.S. because he was an anti-communist, though his iron-fisted rule alienated elements of Vietnamese society and the military. The United States believed Diệm and his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, were not doing enough to combat the communist insurgency.

After South Vietnam's military assured the U.S. of continued anti-communist efforts, America allowed a coup to proceed, which resulted in both brothers being stabbed and shot to death. Diệm's demise destabilized the South Vietnamese government and encouraged the North Vietnamese to denounce American intervention. A year and a half later, the first U.S. troops landed in South Vietnam, joining some 25,000 military advisors already in the country.

• Killed in: 1963
• Perpetrator(s): Lee Harvey Oswald

John F. Kennedy was the fourth American president to be killed while in office, slain by troubled U.S. Marine veteran Lee Harvey Oswald as Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealy Plaza in Dallas. The national sorrow surrounding Kennedy's death, as well as the extraordinary parliamentary skills of his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, led to the passage of two landmark anti-segregation laws – the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

Historians have speculated that if Kennedy had lived, the U.S. might not have committed thousands of troops to fight in Vietnam. We do know that Johnson accelerated the American troop buildup in Vietnam and that terrible consequences followed.

• Killed in: 1965
• Perpetrator(s): Members of the Nation of Islam

Malcolm X was a leader of the Nation of Islam until the year before his death when he renounced the group and formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He channeled the anger many African Americans felt in the early 1960s into a racial separatist movement that served as a counterpoint to the nonviolent approach to change advocated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Considered a turncoat by the Nation (sometimes referred to as Black Muslims), he received numerous death threats, and while addressing a meeting of the OAAU in a Manhattan ballroom, he was shot 21 times by Nation of Islam members (some say with the tacit approval of the NYPD or FBI).

Three men were convicted of the crime, but two were exonerated and released from prison in 2021. Malcolm X's mystique grew when his autobiography was published eight months ago, and he was a major influence on the Black Power movement.

• Killed in: 1968
• Perpetrator(s): James Earl Ray

The symbol of the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had gone to Memphis to support a strike by the city's Black sanitation workers. It was here that he was slain. Racist career criminal James Earl Ray shot him as he stood on the balcony of his motel.

King's death triggered outrage and riots all over the U.S. His successors carried on his work to make America a more fair and just nation, but the movement's beacon of hope for racial unity was irreplaceable. Had King lived, he would have likely been a crusader for gun-control legislation to curb the gun violence ravaging the inner cities. King opposed the Vietnam War and probably might have voiced his opposition to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• Killed in: 1968
• Perpetrator(s): Sirhan Sirhan

• Killed in: 1978
• Perpetrator(s): Dan White

• Killed in: 1979
• Perpetrator(s): Irish Republican Army

• Killed in: 1979
• Perpetrator(s): Kim Jae Kyu

• Killed in: 1981
• Perpetrator(s): Khalid Ahmed Showky Al-Islambouli

• Killed in: 1984
• Perpetrator(s): Sikh extremists

• Killed in: 1991
• Perpetrator(s): Suicide bomber

• Killed in: 1994
• Perpetrator(s): Possibly opposition party

• Killed in: 1995
• Perpetrator(s): Yigal Amir

• Killed in: 2006
• Perpetrator(s): Andrei Lugovoi

• Killed in: 2007
• Perpetrator(s): Suicide bomber

• Killed in: 2011
• Perpetrator(s): US special forces