Opinion How to interpret that the country where the most presidents have been killed is the United States

[Your Account]

1. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated in 1865.
2. James A. Garfield, assassinated in 1881.
3. William McKinley, assassinated in 1901.
4. John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963.

Why U.S. and how among so many countries ?

 

[blaseblase]

Is it? I think that's Bolivia. A lot of countries don't have presidents and the U.S. was first to have that position.

 

[EndlessCritic]

Category:Murdered Roman emperors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[nostradumbass]

France has had a few presidents assassinated, and like 3 kings, Russia's had 5 tsars assassinated, Bolivia's had 3, plus a pretty sketchy "suicide" and a sketchy helicopter crash, and another few that were murdered after leaving office, and Simon Bolivar officially died of tuberculosis, but might have been poisoned, not sure exactly what the count is for Dominican Republic, but I'm pretty sure they're more than pulling their weight in that department, Iran has chopped down their share of shahs and presidents too. The end of Rome was like a goddamn Scream movie with everybody getting stabbed left and right.

Africa is kind of a slaughterhouse too, I just don't think they're all called president, and the territory and who controls what changes every 20 minutes.

As for the US, I saw an interesting documentary called Zoolander that explains it.

 

[650lb Sumo]

In a study published in 2009 in the American Economics Journal: Macroeconomics entitled: “Hit or Miss? The Effects of Assassinations on Institutions and War”, the authors Benjamin F Jones and Benjamin A Olken looked at a dataset of all assassinations of primary national leaders between 1875 and 2004. There were 3 countries that shared top place for the number of assassinations in that period; namely the Dominican Republic, Spain and the United States with three each.

 

[djacobox372]

Egypt has had 6 heads of state killed since 1910
France has had 4 killed since 1894, 7 since 1589
Iran has had 6 killed since the 1896

Add to that peru, romania, spain, etc... all more killed in modern history than the US

 

[Jeffy37]

1. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated in 1865.
2. James A. Garfield, assassinated in 1881.
3. William McKinley, assassinated in 1901.
4. John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963.

Why U.S. and how among so many countries ?

I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened in so long given how many radicals are on both sides

 

[emefer]

Is it? I think that's Oblivion. A lot of countries don't have presidents and the U.S. was first to have that position.

Fixed

 

[Broke Lester]

How to interpret ''that the" thread title?

 

[Prutfis]

11 mudered kings in Denmark, but we can trace our royal line back to the 900s.

 

[jimbob27]

Using President as a title for a head of state is relatively new, it literally started with the US constitution. They've been using that title longer than anyone, so it stands to reason they'd have the most Presidents assassinated.

 

[panamaican]

Most of ours happened in the time period shortly after the Civil War where you have a lot of people who, not only trained to fight but did their fighting domestically for what they considered righteous causes. It's inevitable that some of those people will eventually turn against the government.

But, as others have pointed out, we're hardly the top of the heap when it comes to heads of state being killed. Weird as it may be, I'm always intrigued that JFK was the last, although he's certainly not the last politician to be assassinated. You never want a populace that has become complacent as to their government, you don't want assassinations either, so it's a weird balance.

 

[Natural Order]

There should have been more…*settle down mods*

 

[mkess101]

Reagan had dat dog innim, or we'd have notched another one.

 

[jimjamjammer]

There should have been more…*settle down mods*

Reagan was close. If that dude had of hit GW with that shoe... you never know!

 

[Belaya Smert]

I think all the countries with Prime ministers need to step their game up.
Signed America

 

[PG29 red0 Jr]

W was able to dodge incoming attacks.

 

[panamaican]

W was able to dodge incoming attacks.

You know this is how he felt:

 

[I Am Legion]

Well this thread was proven false almost immediately, so......yeah.

 

[650lb Sumo]

Reagan had dat dog innim, or we'd have notched another one.

Theodore Roosevelt too. Edit: remembered he was former president at the time, although campaigning for reelection.