Throughout history, individuals, sometimes working alone, sometimes as part of a conspiracy, have changed or attempted to change the course of history by killing major political/military figures.

We can only speculate as to what would have happened had the July Plot against Hitler succeeded or if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed.

First off is the assassination of the only British Prime Minister to be killed. Spencer Perceval, shot dead by aggrieved merchant John Bellingham, on the 11th May 1812, who blamed the Government for not indemnifying him after he was imprisoned, and lost his fortune, in Russia.
Bellingham is the classic case of the lone gunman, an individual taking it out on the perceived source of his grievance. Though in this particular case, Bellingham was viewed as a hero since,Perceval's death did ensure that the Orders in Council were suspended by the incoming Government of Lord Liverpool, ending an economic recession.




Perceval, on the left of the picture reels back after being shot, while Bellingham, on the right, is captured. Bellingham was hanged one week later on the 18th May.


Please add any assassinations or attempted assassinations which you find of interest.

Fifty one years ago today, there was a failed assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle, carried out by members of the Organisation de l'armee secrete (OAS: French military and right wing opposed to the French withdrawal from Algeria) in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart.



An official examines one of the fourteen bullet strikes on De Gaulle's Citroen DS.

The incident features at the beginning of Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal

Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Anna Lindh died on 11 September 2003 (10 years ago today) after being stabbed the previous evening in a Stockholm department store. Her murderer, a disturbed young man from an immigrant family with no obvious motive, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Lindh's death was the highest profile assassination of a Swedish politician since the shooting of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. That killing remains unsolved.

Was Oliver Stone right about a conspiracy after all:

JFK Tip-off