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Leon Czolgosz, a 28-year-old unemployed mill worker and self-proclaimed anarchis
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September 6

McKinley Falls to Anarchist Bullet: Roosevelt Rises

Leon Czolgosz, a 28-year-old unemployed mill worker and self-proclaimed anarchist, shot President William McKinley twice in the abdomen at point-blank range during a public reception at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. McKinley initially appeared to recover, but gangrene set in and he died on September 14. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, who was hiking in the Adirondacks when word arrived, rushed back to Buffalo and took the presidential oath. Czolgosz was electrocuted 45 days later. McKinley's assassination was the third presidential murder in 36 years (after Lincoln and Garfield), and it prompted Congress to assign the Secret Service to permanent presidential protection detail.

September 6, 1901

125 years ago

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