sitandspin

Today in 1901 is probably one of the most important days in American History: the day President William McKinley died from his assassination attempt at the hands of former factory worker and anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The Vice-President, one Teddy Roosevelt, took up the office. It was a dramatic change of leadership to say the least, as the two men couldn't have been more different. The tariff-minded McKinley was arguably not a bad president, just an unabashed imperialist who invaded Cuba and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War. He also allowed dreadful poverty and unfair factory conditions to remain unchecked on the home front. With Roosevelt, we got Progressive reform, muckraking, monopoly-busting, national parks and environmental policy. The Age of American Imperialism was over, for the moment.

Interesting facts:
-McKinley, after being shot twice by Czolgosz at the Pan-American Fair where he was shaking hands, shouted above the commotion to leave Czolgosz alone, as the police where promptly beating him near death.
-Czolgosz gave his name as "Fred Nieman" to the police. Nieman is Polish for No One.
-Lincoln's son Robert Todd arrived at the Fair moments after the shooting, making him the son of one assassinated president, a witness to the assassination of president Garfield, and in the same location of a third assassination
-legend has it that Thomas Edison filmed the execution of Czolgosz on the electric chair, but the footage he filmed is only a recreation

McKinley:


Czolgosz: