Assassination Attempt
On February 15, 1933, Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech from the back of an open car in the Bayfront Park area of Miami, Florida, where Zangara was living, working the occasional odd job, and living off his savings. Zangara joined the crowd, armed with a .32-caliber pistol he had bought at a local pawn shop. However, being only five feet tall, he was unable to see over other people, and had to stand on a wobbly folding metal chair, peering over the hat of Lillian Cross to get a clear aim at his target. After the first shot, Cross and others grabbed his arm, and he fired four more shots wildly. Five people were hit, including Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who was standing on the running board of the car next to Roosevelt. En route to the hospital, Cermak had allegedly told FDR, "I'm glad it was me instead of you.", words now inscribed on a plaque in Bayfront Park.
Read more about this topic: Giuseppe Zangara
Famous quotes containing the word attempt:
“The real risks for any artist are taken ... in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it—when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)