Ronald Reagan’s Attempted Assassination
On March 30th, 1981, the 70 year old president Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. He was shot 6 times in about 1.7 seconds! He fired a Röhm RG-14 .22LR blue steel revolver. Only 1 of the 6 bullets hit him! He was outside the Washington Hilton Hotel where he had just finished addressing a labor meeting. John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan after watching the movie Taxi Driver. In the movie Robert De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, stalked a presidential candidate. Travis was doing this to rescue/impress someone, who was played by Jodie Foster. John went through college without any friends. So, he added Foster to his list of obsessions. He couldn’t decide what he would do. He would think of something else almost everyday. He thought about killing Senator Edward Kennedy, and even thought about kidnapping Jodie Foster! After pandering for awhile, he started stalking the new President Ronald Reagan. He wrote to Jodie Foster about his plans to kill Reagan.
Three others were injured during the shooting. Reagan was shot in the chest near his left underarm. There were bullets in his seventh rib and some three inches in his left lung, collapsing it. Dr. Dennis S. O'Leary said ''He is alert and should be able to make decisions by tomorrow.'' It was a miraculous recovery. Sadly, he died on June 5, 2004. He died from suffering Alzheimer's disease for nearly 10 years. This was one of the scariest two hours in America since JFK’s assassination in 1963. I hope you learned something new reading this
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