Top 10 People Who Have Survived Assassination Attempts

Top 10 People Who Have Survived Assassination Attempts

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Top 10 People Who Survived the Most Assassination Attempts

Killing these famous figures wouldn't be as easy as their would-be assassins first thought! Join http://www.WatchMojo.com as we count down our picks for the Top 10 People Who Survived Assassination Attempts! For this list, we’re looking at the most significant failed assassinations in history. To qualify, however, the target has to have been directly involved in the attempt, and under immediate danger because of it. We are not including assassination plots that were foiled or that failed before any action of consequence was carried out.

#10: Franklin D. Roosevelt 1882 – 1945

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Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States, and the first that anybody tried to kill… While Abraham Lincoln was also targeted, 4 years prior to his actual assassination! But Franklin D. Roosevelt takes our tenth spot! In February 1933, FDR was shot at by disgruntled bricklayer, Giuseppe Zangara, during an impromptu speech in Miami, Florida. The attack, during which the Mayor of Chicago was fatally wounded, happened less than a month before Roosevelt assumed his historic presidency!

The second president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser fell under fire during a publicly broadcast radio address, held on October 26th, 1954. Eight shots were fired at him by a member of the opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, but they all missed. An event that might’ve ended Nasser’s life, it actually proved a pivotal moment on the road to his presidency. Following the attack, he administered an ultra-hard line against dissenters… Arresting thousands, dismissing hundreds, and executing extreme cases, until he became Egypt’s undisputed leader!

#8: Benito Mussolini 1883 - 1945

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The fascist ruler of Italy for over 20 years, the early stages of Benito Mussolini’s term were littered with assassination attempts. He survived the first on April 7th, 1926 (delivered by Violet Gibson), and also emerged unscathed after Italian anarchist, Gino Lucetti, threw a bomb at his car in Rome, in September of that same year. Perhaps the most notorious attempt on Mussolini’s life came on October 31st of 1926, however, when 15 year-old Anteo Zamboni shot at him in Bologna, and was lynched on the spot!

An activist for female education in Pakistan from an early age, Malala Yousafzai was subject to an assassination attempt when she was just 15 years old! She first gained attention via a BBC blog - written under a pen name - detailing school life under the influence of the Taliban, and gradually her voice became more and more prominent… Too prominent for the Taliban, who shot her in the head while she rode the bus home from an exam! Miraculously, Yousafzai recovered, and is now one of the world’s most influential human rights campaigners!

#6: Vladimir Lenin 1870 - 1924

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The survivor of two assassination attempts, it’s widely suggested that the second stunt against Lenin’s life actually did contribute to his eventual death! The Russian leader was first targeted in January 1918, when his car was ambushed in Petrograd… Unhurt from that episode, he was shot at three times by Socialist Revolutionary, Fanya Kaplan, who considered him a ‘traitor to the Revolution’. Lenin survived, but it’s believed that the bullet wounds massively contributed to his later strokes, which eventually killed him!

Our highest-ranking American to survive assassination, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. just 69 days into his presidency! He suffered a wound to his right arm, a punctured lung, and severe internal bleeding, but reportedly remained in good spirits while on the operating table! Hinckley had been psychotically obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster, and had carried out the would-be-killing in an attempt to earn her attention… In his opinion, it was ‘the greatest love offering in the history of the world’!

Fidel Castro himself once quipped, ‘If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal’… And he was right! During the ‘60s especially, the Cuban leader was a primary target for the American Foreign Intelligence Services known as the CIA, and therefore under constant threat! The list of potential assassination plots and methods reads like a James Bond script...! Exploding cigars, booby-trapped seashells, hypodermic syringes disguised as ball-point pens… But Castro evaded all of that, and hundreds more! He was hunted at an unprecedented level!

#3: Charles de Gaulle 1890 - 1970

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Another world leader who worked under constant threat, the most famous attempt on French President Charles De Gaulle’s life was lodged on August 22nd, 1962. Targeted by extremists because he had allowed Algerian independence, De Gaulle and his wife were showered with machine gun fire, while driving through Paris. The pair ducked out of immediate harm’s way, but were further saved because of the superior suspension system on the Citroen DS car they were riding in! Their driver manoeuvred out of a potentially catastrophic 70mph skid, and chauffeured the De Gaulles to safety!

Unlike many of today’s would-be assassins, the man who targeted Pope John Paul II, in 1981, was actually very accurate! Mehmet Ali Agca had already successfully murdered one Turkish left-wing journalist in 1979, before he fired multiple bullets at the Pope, causing the religious leader near-fatal injuries. The Pontiff did recover, however, and would remain Pope for close to another quarter of a century! John Paul II even forgave his assassin, when he met with him two years later, while Agca was serving his prison sentence! Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. - Gabrielle Giffords 1970 - - Larry Flynt 1942 - - Wolfgang Schäuble 1942 - - Queen Victoria 1819 - 1901 - Pervez Musharraf 1943 -

While it’s a relief that some of our assassin escapees went unharmed, that can’t be said for today’s top choice! Throughout his career, Adolf Hitler held off numerous attempts on his life – some dating as far back as 1930, before the Nazi leader had even assumed power in Germany! Operation Valkyrie and the 20 July Plot picked up majority attention, despite their failure falling quite late in Hitler’s history, in 1944. In contrast, the Oster Conspiracy of 1938 never really got off the ground… If only it had, how different would the world be then?? Do you agree with our list? Which failed assassination did we forget? For more top 10s that aren’t a threat to your life published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.