This section needs expansion. You can help by
adding to it.
Numerous heads of state and heads of government were assassinated between 1881 and 1914.
Regicides were for obvious reasons celebrated as popular victory over
counter-revolutionary forces, which remained strong a century after the 1789
French Revolution. The first assassinations were carried out by
Russian anarchists, which would lead to the creation of the term of "
nihilism". For example, U.S.
President McKinley's assassin
Leon Czolgosz claimed to have been influenced by anarchist and
feministEmma Goldman. Bombings were associated in the media with anarchists because
international terrorism arose during this time period with the widespread distribution of dynamite.[citation needed] The image remains to this day. This perception was enhanced by events such as the 1886
Haymarket Riot, where anarchists were blamed for throwing a bomb at police who came to break up a public meeting in
Chicago, Illinois.
April 20, 1879 –
Alexander Soloviev attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia, failing.
February 17, 1880 –
Stepan Khalturin successfully blows up part of the
Winter Palace in an attempt to assassinate Tsar Alexander II. Although the Tsar escapes unharmed, eight soldiers are killed and 45 wounded.
November 7, 1893 – The Spanish anarchist Santiago Salvador throws two
Orsini bombs into the orchestra pit of the
Liceu Theater in
Barcelona during the second act of the opera Guillaume Tell, killing some twenty people and injuring scores of others.
February 12, 1894 –
Émile Henry, intending to avenge Vaillant, sets off a bomb in Café Terminus (a café near the
Gare Saint-Lazare train station in Paris), killing one and injuring twenty. During his trial, he declares, "There is no innocent bourgeois."
November 3, 1896 – In the
Greek city of
Patras, Dimitris Matsalis, an anarchist shoemaker, attacks banker Dionysios Fragkopoulos and merchant Andreas Kollas with a knife. Fragkopoulos is killed on the spot; Kollas is seriously wounded.
April 22, 1897 –
Pietro Acciarito tries to stab King Umberto of Italy.
March 28, 1908 – Anarchist Selig Cohen aka Selig Silverstein throws a bomb in New York City's
Union Square, which explodes prematurely, killing him and a bystander.
November 14, 1909 –
Argentine anarchist militant
Simón RadowitzkyassassinatesBuenos Aires chief of police, Lieutenant
Ramón Falcón by a throwing a bomb at his carriage while Falcón was returning from a deceased fellow officer's funeral.
November 12, 1912 – Anarchist
Manuel Pardiñas shoots Spanish Prime Minister
José Canalejasdead in front of a
Madrid bookstore, immediately turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.
October 13 and November 14, 1914 – Galleanists – radical followers of
Luigi Galleani – explode two bombs in New York City after police forcibly disperse a protest by anarchists and communists at John D. Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown.[1]
November 24, 1917 9 policemen and a bystander in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin killed when a time bomb left at a Catholic church by Galleanists was taken to a police station, where it exploded.[3]
April 29 – A Galleanist mail bomb intended for U.S. Senator
Thomas W. Hardwick explodes, burning a servant and blowing off her hands.
June 2 – Galleanist Carlo Valdinoci killed when his bomb (intended for the Washington DC home of U.S. Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer) explodes prematurely.
June 3 – New York City night watchman
William Boehner killed by a Galleanist bomb placed at a judge's house.
September 16, 1920. – The
Wall Street bombing kills 38 and wounds 400 in the
Manhattan Financial District. Galleanists are believed responsible, particularly
Mario Buda, the group's principal bombmaker, although the crime remains officially unsolved.
^Cannistraro, Philip V., and Meyer, Gerald, eds., The Lost World of Italian-American Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers,
ISBN0-275-97891-5 (2003) p. 168
^Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press (1991), pp. 58–60
This section needs expansion. You can help by
adding to it.
Numerous heads of state and heads of government were assassinated between 1881 and 1914.
Regicides were for obvious reasons celebrated as popular victory over
counter-revolutionary forces, which remained strong a century after the 1789
French Revolution. The first assassinations were carried out by
Russian anarchists, which would lead to the creation of the term of "
nihilism". For example, U.S.
President McKinley's assassin
Leon Czolgosz claimed to have been influenced by anarchist and
feministEmma Goldman. Bombings were associated in the media with anarchists because
international terrorism arose during this time period with the widespread distribution of dynamite.[citation needed] The image remains to this day. This perception was enhanced by events such as the 1886
Haymarket Riot, where anarchists were blamed for throwing a bomb at police who came to break up a public meeting in
Chicago, Illinois.
April 20, 1879 –
Alexander Soloviev attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia, failing.
February 17, 1880 –
Stepan Khalturin successfully blows up part of the
Winter Palace in an attempt to assassinate Tsar Alexander II. Although the Tsar escapes unharmed, eight soldiers are killed and 45 wounded.
November 7, 1893 – The Spanish anarchist Santiago Salvador throws two
Orsini bombs into the orchestra pit of the
Liceu Theater in
Barcelona during the second act of the opera Guillaume Tell, killing some twenty people and injuring scores of others.
February 12, 1894 –
Émile Henry, intending to avenge Vaillant, sets off a bomb in Café Terminus (a café near the
Gare Saint-Lazare train station in Paris), killing one and injuring twenty. During his trial, he declares, "There is no innocent bourgeois."
November 3, 1896 – In the
Greek city of
Patras, Dimitris Matsalis, an anarchist shoemaker, attacks banker Dionysios Fragkopoulos and merchant Andreas Kollas with a knife. Fragkopoulos is killed on the spot; Kollas is seriously wounded.
April 22, 1897 –
Pietro Acciarito tries to stab King Umberto of Italy.
March 28, 1908 – Anarchist Selig Cohen aka Selig Silverstein throws a bomb in New York City's
Union Square, which explodes prematurely, killing him and a bystander.
November 14, 1909 –
Argentine anarchist militant
Simón RadowitzkyassassinatesBuenos Aires chief of police, Lieutenant
Ramón Falcón by a throwing a bomb at his carriage while Falcón was returning from a deceased fellow officer's funeral.
November 12, 1912 – Anarchist
Manuel Pardiñas shoots Spanish Prime Minister
José Canalejasdead in front of a
Madrid bookstore, immediately turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.
October 13 and November 14, 1914 – Galleanists – radical followers of
Luigi Galleani – explode two bombs in New York City after police forcibly disperse a protest by anarchists and communists at John D. Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown.[1]
November 24, 1917 9 policemen and a bystander in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin killed when a time bomb left at a Catholic church by Galleanists was taken to a police station, where it exploded.[3]
April 29 – A Galleanist mail bomb intended for U.S. Senator
Thomas W. Hardwick explodes, burning a servant and blowing off her hands.
June 2 – Galleanist Carlo Valdinoci killed when his bomb (intended for the Washington DC home of U.S. Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer) explodes prematurely.
June 3 – New York City night watchman
William Boehner killed by a Galleanist bomb placed at a judge's house.
September 16, 1920. – The
Wall Street bombing kills 38 and wounds 400 in the
Manhattan Financial District. Galleanists are believed responsible, particularly
Mario Buda, the group's principal bombmaker, although the crime remains officially unsolved.
^Cannistraro, Philip V., and Meyer, Gerald, eds., The Lost World of Italian-American Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers,
ISBN0-275-97891-5 (2003) p. 168
^Avrich, Paul, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press (1991), pp. 58–60