James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876)

“Wild Bill” Hickok, one of the greatest gunfighters of the
American West, was murdered in Deadwood, South Dakota
while  playing poker when Jack McCall walked up behind
Hickok,drew his Colt Model 1873 revolver and shot Hickok
in the back of the head at point-blank range, killing him
instantly.

McCall was hanged in a public execution in
Yankton, at age 24.

Colt Model 1873 revolver.

The poker hand purportedly held by Hickok at his demise.

James Earl Ray, suspect in the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
is arrested.

James Earl Ray, an escaped American convict, is arrested in London,
England, and charged with the assassination of African American civil
rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, King was fatally wounded by a sniper’s
bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at
the Motel Lorraine. That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was
found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the
Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness
reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect:
escaped convict James Earl Ray. A two-bit criminal, Ray escaped a
Missouri prison in April 1967 while serving a sentence for a holdup. In
May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually
determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false
identity, which at the time was relatively easy.

SANDY KOZEL

   
  
TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1901, U.S. President William McKinley was shot and mortally wounded by Leon Czolgosz, an American anarchist . McKinley succumbed
to his wounds on September 14, 1901. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt
was sworn into office on the same day, succeeding McKinley, who had
been reelected in 1900. Gzolgosz was executed on October 29, 1901.
    
   

Leon Frank Czolgosz  (May 5, 1873 – October 29, 1901)

The site of William McKinley’s tragic assassination in Buffalo, New
York is only marked by a plaque on a large boulder.        

TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo along with his
wife, Duchess Sophie. With tensions already running high among Europe’s
powers, the assassination precipitated a rapid descent into World War I.

Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, and his wife Sophie riding
in an open carriage at Sarajevo shortly before their assassination.

The assassin was Gavrilo Princip, a 19-
year-old peasant.