Czar Alexander II, the ruler of Russia since 1855, was killed in the
streets of St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by a member of the revolutionary “People’s Will” group. The People’s Will, organized
in 1879, employed terrorism and assassination in their attempt to overthrow Russia’s czarist autocracy. They murdered officials
and made several attempts on the czar’s life before finally
assassinating him on March 13, 1881.

William McKinley (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901)

On January 29, 1843, William McKinley, who will become the
25th American president and the first to ride in an automobile, 
was born in Niles, Ohio. McKinley served in the White House
from 1897 to 1901, a time when the American automotive
industry was in its  infancy. During his presidency, McKinley
(who died from an assassin’s bullet in September 1901) took
a drive in a Stanley Steamer (below), a steam-engine-powered
auto built in the late 1890s by Francis and Freelan Stanley. The
Stanley Motor Carriage brothers Company produced a number
of steam-powered vehicles before going out of business in the
early 1920s, after being unable to compete with the rise of less
expensive gas-powered cars.

The Stanley Motor Carriage Company was an American manufacturer
of steam cars; it operated from 1902 to 1924. The cars made by the company were colloquially called Stanley Steamers, although
several different models were produced.

 
Twins Francis E. Stanley  
(1849–1918)

PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY       LEE HARVY OSWALD

(FoxNews) – The National Archives and Records Administration on Wednesday released nearly 1,500 confidential documents related to
the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. 

The agency released the files via their website. Historians, political scholars and believers in a wide range of theories about Kennedy’s assassination immediately began poring over the documents.

Many of the documents relate to Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Many files also reference tensions between the United
States and Cuba, evaluating statements from leader Fidel Castro
that allude to the possibility of Kennedy being in danger due to escalating aggression between the two nations.

On December 12, 1963, a vinyl long-playing record (“LP”) called
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Memorial Album set a record for
album sales. A total of 4 million copies sold in the first six days
of its release.

The album included recordings of some of Kennedy’s most
memorable speeches, as well as memorial tributes to the
president broadcast in the aftermath of his assassination on 
November 22, 1963. The recordings included excerpts from his
inaugural address and his campaign debates with Richard Nixon
as well as highlights from speeches on a variety of topics.

Each copy of the album cost 99 cents and the proceeds went to
the Joseph Kennedy, Jr., Foundation for Mental Retardation.

John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group that transformed
popular music in the 1960s, was shot and killed by an obsessed fan in New
York City. 

The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan apartment
building when Mark David Chapman (below) shot him four times at
close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon, bleeding profusely,
was rushed to the hospital but died en-route. Chapman had received
an autograph from Lennon earlier in the day (above) and voluntarily
remained at the scene of the shooting until he was arrested by
police.

For a week, hundreds of bereaved fans kept a vigil outside the
Dakota–Lennon’s apartment building–and demonstrations of
mourning were held around the world.

New York City police hold spectators behind barricades the
day after former Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed in
front his residence at the Dakota in New York. (AP)