August 9, 2022 • 57 mins
Known as Old Hickory to his fans, and King Andrew to his critics, Andrew Jackson was an outspoken, deeply divisive figure. When he was attacked by an assassin while leaving a funeral, the killer's gun miraculously misfired not once, but twice, and despite his old age Jackson retaliated by absolutely wailing on the guy, beating within an inch of his life. And, as it turns out, Andrew Jackson isn't the only president to survive an assassination attempt. Tune for more as Ben and Max explore the strange stories of Jackson, Taft and Roosevelt.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
a one and only super producer, the Man, the Myth,
the Legend, Mr Max Williams. And uh, let's also well,
they called me ben. Uh. Let's also give it up
for my ride or die, very good friend of mine
(00:48):
here in spirit, Mr Noel Brown. Noel is out for
a bit, but we'll be returning soon. Uh. Nevertheless, we
have been speaking a lot offline and it is our
fondest wish that the show go on. So we're going
to have a couple of special guest host in the
next few episodes. And this is where I would like
(01:10):
to introduce our very first special guest host in this lineup. Folks,
give it up for Mr Max Williams. He called that
I'm slippings. You didn't know how many of us we
like sight Machine great? Oh yeah, yeah. We searched long
(01:47):
and far. We we really worked hard to find someone
to come in and they all said no, so you're
stuck with me. Uh well, you know, our search was assiduous.
We did our do Dilon let me give you a
little background on Max Williams. For anybody who is not familiar,
So Max Williams, you know him, you love him from
(02:08):
shows like Ephemeral, from shows like Ridiculous History. You may
also know that he is a fan of curling, is
a fan of war history. He is a fan of
Star trek. Uh. He is also a fan of the
phrase beef it. Yeah. If we won't explain how to
(02:28):
air what that means that okay, yeah, oh man, we
might have to fly this as an explicit if we
do that, right, So okay, So in this case, then, uh,
we're going to talk about survival today and nowadays. I
think for anybody who's a fan of presidential lore like
(02:52):
you and myself, Max, you might be astonished to learn
just how wild the lives of past US presidents were.
In many ways, they have adventures that seem straight out
of straight out of the big screen. You, Noel and
I have talked in the past about all kinds of
(03:12):
strange things. Most recently in US presidential lore we talked
about Abraham Lincoln's former career as a trash talking wrestler
straight out of w W E. Yeah, and don't forget
about Ronald Reagan and throwing rocks at people while he's
a lifeguard. That was a pretty strange one too. Yeah,
I mean a lot of like, you know, especially when
(03:34):
it comes to these older presidents, a lot of what
we hear commonly is about like, oh, this was in
an office, or this is like especially older ones who
were generals like Jackson and Taylor and stuff, where these
were the great battles, but a lot of times loss
in history or just kind of like you know, these
idiosyncrasies about them, and just also these kind of like
wilder stories, and I think, uh, yeah, Andrew Jackson has
(03:57):
a few of those himself. Not all good, of course, no, no,
not all good. We have the benefit of retrospect here. Uh,
that's right. What being a president requires a a certain
set of skills to be a little liam Nisan about it,
and it's also inherently a pretty dangerous position. You are
(04:18):
much more likely to have people attempt to assassinate you
if you are the president, then say, if you are
a plumber. I believe that's true. I'm assuming they're a
plumbers in the crowd right in and let us know.
But today, Max, you and I are talking about a
story that I think really captivated both of us. We're
(04:39):
talking about presidents who survived assassination attempts, and we're going
to have to start. We're gonna have to spend a
lot of time, I think today on Gosh, Max, what
would you call him? I don't know if I would
call him our collective favorite president, but he's certainly a
fascinating character. One and only Andrew jack Soon. I remember
(05:02):
junior year Nerdy Max ap U S History class being
taught by my ap U S History professor, Mr. Boucher,
that Andrew Jackson is a very important president American history.
He says like he's not a good one in many ways,
but he is a very influential and I think that's
(05:22):
probably the best way to say. There's still a lot
of Jackson era stuff that still exists in America. Let's
just say, I mean, he's arguably our first king. And
you know, we've had a couple cents him, like like
a guy who was in office for thirteen years. Oh yeah, yeah,
because that's because that's before the uh that's for the
(05:43):
Laws of the Land change restricting a president to two terms. Right,
And when we talk about I'm talking about Jackson. One
thing we have to mention is that he, like several
other U S presidents of this era, was known for
these real barn stormers of speeches. And while the transcripts
(06:07):
of many of those speeches exist today, we as the US,
did not have the technology to record the audio or
the video, so a lot of it may be lost
in translation through interpretation of the text. But you have
to know this. Jackson is known for huge speeches. He
(06:27):
is an orator. He fires up a crowd and he
has to do this. This is like campaigning, right, This
is how he keeps himself front and center in the
minds of voters and opponents. So our story kind of starts. Um,
you put uh, you put a lot of work in
this outline. I just beefed it a little. Uh, the
(06:48):
story starts. I'm not letting go on January eighteen thirty, Max,
Can you set the scene for us? Why is this
day important? So, as you said, Anuary eighteen thirty five,
so this is a kind of weird day. So, as
you said, like Jackson, he's a fiery speaker. He's also
(07:09):
a war hero from the War of eighteen twelve, and
his kind of politics at the time are very much
like you know, DIVI divisive, like very aggressive, and so
it's very rare that people in Washington are all kind
of together and just like we're not fighting today, but
this day they were not fighting at least at this
point in time. So they're at the Capitol Building for
(07:29):
a funeral for South Carolina Representative Warren Davis, and you know,
it's a dreary, missy day onlookers look kind of like,
you know, it was one of those days where it's like,
let's not do this today. We're gonna be respectful of
the dead. We're gonna do this whole thing. Yeah, no more,
he's saying, I'm not today, of all days, I'm I'm
(07:54):
gonna put the clause back just a little. We're not
doing it today. I'm not coming up. I'm hissing. We're
gonna pump the brakes just for today, because this is
bigger than us. Uh. This occurs about six years into
his presidency, and he had already had this reputation, as
(08:14):
as you said, for using a very very fiery polemical
speeches to get support and to engage with his political opponents.
He also loved the veto the guy loved, loved a veto.
He loved a veto the way Garfield loves lasagna. He
was all about it. Uh. At this time he was
(08:36):
using the veto way more often than other administrations and
sometimes just a straight up obstruct actions of Congress for
no other reason than screw you guys, your minorities. Like
that was actually not a common thing to do with.
The veto was a very like selective thing to use
before Jackson. He was like the first one to really
(08:58):
use it. And I think we should talk like how
like how bad this got was. So when Jackson was elected,
there was like one political party in the country at
the time, and like people like Henry Clay, who if
you don't know who Andrew Clay is, he's another very
influential person in American politics. Will people with the influential one,
but like he was like in opposition, it's like, okay,
(09:18):
we're going to create a new political party of this
party is of course called the Whigs, one of the
best named political parties in our country history, and like
their sole purpose was to like fight King Andrews. They
called him, right, King Andrew Bean. Of course, Andrew Jackson,
I personally would make the observation, that's starting a party
(09:41):
without its own, without its own proactive goals. Starting a
party entirely in opposition of an existing thing kind of
damages your shelf life. But but as it did with
the Whigs, yeah, or the what were they the know
nothings or the Anti Masonic Party, I'm thinking right, because
(10:01):
they were just there for something else. Also, what were
they the no Nothing Party? K and O W they
were They came around in the eighteen fifties, so a
little bit after this, and they were mad at Catholic immigrants,
they were mad at anybody moving in um. Yeah, and
(10:26):
then they later kind of they preceded the Temperance Party.
I think hmm, sounds like lovely people. Yeah, I'm sure
there are a lot of fun at parties. Uh so
uh you know what would have been great though, also
would have been a fun party to watch if there
was c SPAN back in the eighteen thirties, man, this
(10:46):
would have been amazing because the Senate Chamber was ground
zero to reality TV level drama. The Whig Party, as
he said, they were haranguing King Andrew and called him
uh and they said he's corrupt, he's incompetent, He's a
real piece of work. And the president came back. It
(11:08):
was almost like a almost like a rap battle. What right,
the dueling oratory uh skills here. So of course Jackson
comes back and says, you know, I'm doubling down. Not
only do I think the wigs are corrupt and incompetent,
they don't know what they're doing. They don't know how
(11:30):
to run a nation. Come at me physically. I will
get you. Like I'm I'm being a little hyperbolic. I'm
taking a lot of editorial license here. But he did
physically threaten them, And this leads us to January of
eight thirty five. There's a senator from South Carolina named
(11:51):
John C. Calhoun, and he's got a personal beef I
think with Jackson. Yeah. So like Calhoun, if I remember correctly,
not very good guy just in general. But he was
like he was weird. So we have to go back
to the what is the election of eighteen twenty four?
There was like five people running. It was a weird,
crazy thing. Jackson won, but then Quincy Adams became president.
(12:13):
That's the whole thing. We won't talk about that here.
But like, so Calhoun had actually been Jackson's first VP,
so like, you know, this is like Obama and Biden,
um Reagan and h W like their buddies. And then
all of a sudden, he's like, dude, you suck and
he decides like I cannot stand for this guy. He's like,
(12:35):
he left the VAT position to be just an opposition
to join Henry Clay's party and go into the Senate
and just fight this guy. Like and I think this
is important that you point out where it's like Jackson
was known for being really militant with his thing, I
mean both like would abuse people both verbally and pretty
(12:56):
much physically too. And the problem that happened was that
was the way opposition too, was like, oh, we're gonna
go more than that, and it became this ever escalating thing,
which led to Calhoun saying something that you know, probably
shouldn't say. He said, Jackson was a Caesar who ought
to have a brutus obviously, you know, referencing you know,
(13:17):
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, or maybe just Julius Caesar in general,
or you know, Brutus is his closest friend who you know,
stabs him. And that might have riled up some people
including a fellow named Richard Lawrence. Yes, okay, So Richard
Lawrence is one of those guys in the history books
(13:39):
who is mainly known for one thing. We don't know
a ton about his life except for his one thing,
and we'll tell you what it is and why Calhoun's
statement was so inflammatory. So Lawrence was born in England.
We know that he moved to d e c. In
(14:00):
eighteen twelve. And he was not he was not this
big high muckety muck in either country. You know. He
wasn't a representative or a senator in the US. He
painted homes for a living, and it was a good living.
It's a decent living. Uh. He was known to be amicable,
(14:22):
he had a good work ethic. But over time he
started getting a little wonky in his ticker, and he
started having these delusions, and he became more and more
convinced that he was a long lost heir to the
British throne. And this continues so eighteen twelve, this grows
(14:47):
over a couple of decades. By eight thirty five, when
this speech takes place, Richard Lawrence is pretty certain, like certain,
that he's the rightful king of England and that the
world will readily admit to this once they see his evidence,
(15:08):
if only he can get Andrew Jackson, King Andrew out
of the way. Rather can't be two kings. You've got
to get the king who's you know, holding your money
out of the way. And I but I think it's
important to take a little step back here and kind
(15:30):
of just talk about Andrew Jackson's time, because you know,
we have this painting. Jackson was very much about persona,
and we have kind of this image in our head
of what Andrew Jackson. I mean, he was like like
the hero general of the War of eighteen twelve. We
think of it this this imposing, dominant figure verbally strong.
This man was not this. At this point he was
(15:51):
sixty seven years old, and we're talking eighteen thirty five
sixty seven. I mean, yeah, he had had a large
number of just like malady is in mishaps and being
Andrew Jackson. A lot of them were self cause, like
he had been in like a dozen duels, including having
a bullet lodged in his chest like in his lungs
for thirty years. There was a British social theorist called
(16:15):
Harriet Martineau who had like a little like she was
actually around for a lot of this, so you'll hear
from her a couple of times. But she says, general
Jackson is extremely tall and thin, with a slight stoop,
beckoning more weakness than naturally belongs to his ears. Yeah,
so he's a tall guy, and uh, being being taller
(16:36):
than average is actually really helpful when someone is running
for the presidency. It has an unconscious effect on a
lot of voters. But because he was old, and because
he had such grievous wounds and and several health problems,
his I kind of worked against him, and he's getting
more and more scrunched up. It's kind of like, if
(16:59):
you look, get that iconic painting of Andrew Jackson, which
was actually in eighteen thirty five, was done by a
guy named Ralph Alisa Whiteside Earl. Just google Andrew Jackson
painting is gonna be one of the first ones that
shows up. It reminds me of how you will see
a celebrity's headshot and then you will see a candid
(17:22):
photo of that that poor person just trying to get
to McDonald's. You know, they're not trying to be in
the movie right now, and you see those photos side
by side and go wow, a lot of work went
into one of these. That's kind of what the comparison
of Jackson would have been like at this time. And
he had other names besides King Andrew. King Andrew is
(17:43):
a uh an insult used by his detractors. Also, jackass
was common. They would call him to guess, yeah, but
that's how we got the donkey. That's how the Democratic
Party got the Donkey. People called him jackass so much
they were like, he's like, I like that, I'm keeping
that kind of own it. We're taking it back. His
supporters would call him his supporters and admirers. There's a
(18:06):
ven diagram, but they're always the same thing. His supporters
called him Old Hickory because of his performance in the
War of eighteen twelve. And here's where always see all
these details starts commingle. Let's get back to Lawrence. He
knows no, it was in his mind like that he
(18:27):
has some sort of in controvertible proof that he is
the true king. And that because Andrew Jackson in a
completely different country is a president called King Andrew, that's
somehow all that stopping Lawrence's ascension. So it makes sense
to me. Yeah, okay, yeah, man, all right, well you're
(18:51):
the expert here, so I am right. Yeah. Did I
just sound cue my own self? Yeah, I guess that's
awesome and shout out of course to our very dear
(19:14):
friend Matt Frederick. H Matt Frederick, Yeah, will be coming
uh will be coming along in a later episode hopefully. Uh.
It is birthday season, by the way, for uh, for
the stuff they don't want you to know. Crue. So,
Matt Nolan, I all of birthdays coming up. If you
guys are listening to the episode Happy New Year dudes. Uh. Anyway, Lawrence, Lawrence,
(19:40):
here's this line from Calhoun. Uh. And he was probably
part of the audience and Calhoun said this in just
a few days later January, Lawrence tries to take his
destiny in his own hands. He decides that if fate
will not intervene on his behalf, get rid of this
(20:00):
king andrew himself. He picked a pretty good target. We
have a description from a wonderful Little time dot com
article by Jennifer Latson that describes Old Hickories actual physical
state around this time. And I love I love a
(20:23):
crazy laundry list. Max, can you hit us with this
one and like lean into it. Old Hickory suffered from
nearly every fiscal ailment of magical smallpox, asteo militis, malaria, dysentery, rheumatism,
drops these, Gloria movius, a widespread intestinal inflammation, Amelo dots is,
(20:50):
a waxy degeneration of body tissues, and bronco tassis, which
is inflamed and dilated bronchial tubes. These ail means, in
addition to lingering effects of injury sustaining duels, one which
left the bullet permanently lodged in his lungs, meant that
Jackson began his presidential term racked with pain and fainting
(21:11):
from weakness. So, uh, you know, any any mispronunciations of
those specific medical conditions fall fall on me as well,
because we're looking some of these up. Uh. These are
real conditions and to have all of them at once
is not a walk in the park. This means that
the US president could not pass that presidential fitness test
(21:35):
some of us had to take in school. So Jackson
is you know at this funeral, it's very sad occasion.
We have put aside rhetoric today. I'm gonna behave myself.
You're gonna behave yourself to death is bigger than all
of us. It's the end of the funeral. Jackson's leaving
via the East portico and Richard Lawrence comes up and starts,
(22:01):
you know, hassling him. Security is different at this time, too, obviously,
and Lawrence pulls a pistol from his jacket. It's derringer.
He aims at Jackson and he fires and nothing happens. Well,
something does happen, It fires, but no bullet comes out. Yeah,
(22:25):
Jackson is just fine. I mean well, saying he's fine
is Navy max re member. He might be sixty seven,
he might be old, he might be sickly, but he's
still Andrew Jackson. So so his response isn't like get
behind people or get like, you know, his security take
care of But he goes, oh you serious. He charges
at the guy with his old hickory cane and starts
(22:48):
clubbing Lawrence. That is his instant response is I'm gonna
beat this guy up. And it gets worse because Lawrence,
as it turns out, had another pistol. Yes, so so
Jackson Jackson is like Wsland whip a snap out or whatever,
and then he starts to go into town on him
(23:09):
with this cane and then Lawrence is like fending it
off and pulls out his second pistol, his second firearm
also loaded. He pulls the trigger again. Boom, that's right,
nothing nothing uh nothing not not I mean maybe like
(23:36):
uh uh, I mean it's a dager. From the kick
goes how loud do we expect this thing to be?
It's like the smallest gun ever made. Not really, but
it basically is. Yeah, it's it's no howardser. And by
now Jackson's crew his entourage are hip to the game.
(23:56):
So they grab Lawrence and they physically pull him away,
and Jackson is unharmed. I mean, he's still racked with
medical problems, but he doesn't have a gunshot to add
to those. And uh, he is livid and he will
be paranoid for the rest of his life. I would
hate to be one of the members of his entourage
(24:18):
and say, you know, hey, sorry, that guy slipped by
you and tried to shoot you and then did it again. Yeah.
I mean, security at this time was not great. I mean,
and it should be pointing out this is the first
assassination attempt that we know of, at least against the
sitting president in history of this country. I mean, so
(24:39):
maybe they just didn't think about it, but it is
still pretty bad. But I mean, we have to talk
about the pistols. So it's just like, yeah, the thing,
like were these things malfunctioning? Were they wrong? Like how
did this guy because he was right next to Jackson,
a boy at the point, It wasn't like he was
like shooting from a long distance. How did Jackson not
get shot? And we don't really know. Yes, yeah, we
(25:04):
are not sure because both of the pistols we're working,
he had loaded them. He may have beef. Yeah, they
were beef. They were beat Laura Lawrence may not have
been in the best mental state, but he was about
his business when it came to fire our maintenance and
(25:26):
loading these and they continue like. There was testing done
on them later, and the testing found that this is
per u S Senator Thomas hart Benton. The testing found
that every time they tried to fire either of these
pistols afterwards, they fire per normal and they could fire
(25:47):
accurately at a distance of thirty feet or so. This
is where we get to a weird lottery. This is
I think the stuff. You really can't explain. The calculated
likelihood of both pistols misfiring on that day in is
something like a hundred and twenty five thousand to one.
(26:10):
So Jackson won the lottery twice in a row. I mean,
I feel like there has to have been something else
that happened, but I mean, we don't know, and I
mean it sounds like they just both misfired from everything
we've read, and I mean, which is like, wow, Jackson, Uh, good,
good on you. I guess you won the lottery. But
(26:30):
then I want to backtrack to something Jackson actually said
when he was clubbing Lawrence. It's kind of weird. It
doesn't actually make a ton of sense, except if you
think about it, because you mentioned the paranoia that he
had after this, and probably the paranoia that he had
plenty of beforehand. But so when he's like charging at Lawrence,
he's clubbing him, and he's screaming, let me alone, let
(26:52):
me alone, I know where this came from, which is
a weird kind of line to be screaming. It's like,
let me alone, I know where this came from. He's like,
you're a whig operative or something. But he does seem Yeah,
he does seem to, at least in his mind, have
a an understanding of a conspiracy behind this assassination attempt.
(27:15):
I also want to point out that you'll find some
historians arguing that the humidity of the day may have
may have contributed to the pistols misfiring, but that's it's
still not proven. Also, just a side note, if we
ever do this as a historical reenactment, other people watch
(27:37):
Jackson beat the snot out of this guy until they
thought Jackson might actually kill him. They're like, this old
man is going to kill him. Davy Crockett is in
the audience. Max. Davy Crockett is one of the people
who says, yeah, I don't know, okay, okay, now let's
separate him. It's all been fun. Yeah, big guy, you've
(28:00):
your fine. Let's let's chill out. Let's look at your nap, buddy,
Let's get you up that nap and you can go
yell at I don't know, you can't yell at TV.
Where would he yell at? I don't know, probably yell
at some bird or something outside a bear. So we
we also want to thank, by the way, Lorraine Boss,
who wrote an excellent article in the Smithsonian about this
attempted assassination. We're also pulling in some some other sources
(28:24):
and observations here, like the travelogue you mentioned Max. So
Jackson was convinced this attack was politically motivated. This was
the first attempt to assassinate a sitting president, and the
media and the public went nuts. Talk about the proliferation
(28:47):
of speculation and conspiracy theories here. Jackson himself was certain,
and he says, I know where this came from. He
was certain that a rival politician named George Poindexter was
behind it. He thought, point extra hired Lawrence to kill him.
The problem was, Jackson's certitude didn't seem to be backed
(29:11):
up by evidence. Yeah. No, I mean, like, I mean,
I guess it would make sense considering all the visual
of the time, But it also makes way more sense
that this guy, as we later found was just you know,
not all there say at least, But I mean, this
didn't stop Jackson from you know, going out and pretty
much declaring that this is fact and that all these
(29:32):
wigs must pay. Martineau actually has an account of that
night when everyone was like hanging out afterwards. Yeah, later,
same day, later that night, she goes to a party.
M Jackson is at this party. Before we proceed with this,
what is this party for? Is this party just a
(29:53):
part of the Hardy schedule? Is it a party like
a wake party for the guy that there's there at
a funeral? Or is it a party because Jackson survived
someone trying to shoot him twice and then he beat
the living ship it out of him? Beat me, please,
max self peep. I love it. You know, that is
a good question. I I'm tempted to think that it
(30:16):
was already planned. I'm tempted to I don't know, somebody
correct me on this. I'm tempted to think there was
something already planned, but it became a celebration of a
couple of different things, you know what I mean? Like you, uh,
you have a friend whose birthdays on July five, and
you were already having a July fourth party that weekend,
(30:37):
so you know, double up, bang for your buck. So
it's like it's like someone who's born in Christmas and
has to celebrate their Christmas President a birthday presidents at
the same time. They really get skimped out that way. Yeah,
I feel for you folks. You know, um the moral
fortitude that you have grown. That's the real present, is
something that some other line your parents fed you. Anyway,
(31:00):
here's what Martineau says at this at this party, right
after someone tried to kill the president before two hours
were over, the name of almost every eminence politician was
mixed up with that of the poor maniac who caused
the uproar. Jackson protested, in the presence of many strangers
that there was no insanity in the case. I was silent,
(31:21):
of course. He protested that there was a plot and
that the man was a tool, and at length quoted
the Attorney General as his authority. It was painful to
hear a chief ruler publicly trying to persuade a foreigner
that any of his constituents hated him to death. And
I took the liberty of changing the subject as soon
(31:42):
as I could. What do you change the subject to? You?
Are you like? Wow? Yeah, that's crazy. So is this
the Washington eggnog recipe? So tell me the story. I
up that bullet in your lunge, right, I mean, yeah,
I feel like you'd be hard person to change the
subject of. It's if you change the subject, and they
(32:04):
would listen to you change the subject, then immediately go
back to what they were talking about. He seems like
that type of person. And I mean what is interesting
also about this is, I mean we've seen this, unfortunately
with a lot of conspiracy theories and less cle of
years there if you yell them loud enough, you don't
actually have to put any truth behind it, and that
we saw that in this case. So despite no evidence
(32:26):
of this conspiracy, I mean, there's absolutely no connection whatsoever
to the Wigs hiring Lawrence to kill Jackson, Sensationalism took
over the story. It was just everywhere, absolutely And I
do want to say that some conspiracy theories with the
benefit of retrospect, do end up being true, just actual conspiracies,
(32:47):
but this was definitely a blossoming of conspiracy theories where evidence,
if there was any evidence, took a far back seat.
A paper in Boston was saying, rumor is circulating a
thousand stories. They were probably at a loss trying to
figure out which to print. People were asking media questions,
very valid questions. Was Richard Lawrence a hired assassin? And
(33:12):
if so, logically who hired him? These are the things
that immediately went through Jackson's mind when he realized he
wasn't going to die from that first gunshot, picked up
the cane and his like weird kill bill moment. Uh,
he immediately, you know he I would not be surprised
if in his mind at that point he's physically beating
(33:32):
Point Dexter, you know, and that's what he's thinking of.
But the two main suspects in Congress are his Jackson's
former VP Calhoun, who has to go to the Senate
and publicly declare his innocence, and then the President of
course says it's that bastard Point Dexter, the senator from Mississippi. Uh,
(33:53):
he's involved in this and it was never proven again,
but it probably cost index or his reelection because that's
some bad pr What did the Whigs do? The Whigs say,
the conspiracy goes even deeper. The Whigs named Andrew Jackson
as the chief conspirator in his assassination attempt. They say, look,
(34:15):
everybody knows you're a jerk and you're trying to make
America forget that and like you because you survived this
fake assassination attempt. Shades of Alex Jones here. Uh, but
you teased it you teased it really well, Max, Was
there a conspiracy? No, Richard Lawrence was just not right.
(34:46):
So obviously this guy tries to kill a president, he's
gonna go to trial. He goes to trial, and yeah,
it becomes very very evidence. So not he did the
painter believe the president had killed his father. He believed
that Andrew Jackson had killed Richard Lawrence's father, which no,
(35:08):
he was also convinced he was a fifteenth century king,
King Richard the third, not not a descendant. He thought
he was Richard. He was Richard Lawrence the third. He
thought that, and he was also I mean, so a
little context right here. This is when Jackson's trying to
(35:31):
get rid of the Bank of the United States. At
this point in time, the the centralized the bank, blah
blah blah. That's a big thing that's going on in
history here. And he's convinced that the bank is going
to pay his money, and Jackson's doing that so he
will not get his money, as we can see, not
really all there. Yeah, but he's got he's got a lot.
(35:53):
He's got a lot of confidence, which goes a long
way in this country. Confidence. Here's one of our cinematic moments.
The famous attorney Francis Scott Key is the chief prosecutor.
The trial happens just a few months later in April
of eighteen thirty five, and during the trial, King Richard
(36:17):
Lawrence the third says to the jurors, it is for me, gentlemen,
to pass upon you, and not you upon me. Yeah. Yeah.
He was actually found not guilty because of because the
reasons of insanity, and he was confined to a hospital
for the mentally ill until his death until eighteen sixty one. Yeah,
(36:39):
I mean, he he was never convicted of his crime, though,
I think about that. Yeah. Also, we have to point
out that if we're being if we're being completely honest,
this is a pretty harsh punishment because hospitals for the
mentally ill, all all facilities for people with mental issue
(37:00):
whose are terrible places. Well not all, that's hyperbolic, but
the majority of them are very very bad places at
this time in the US and in Europe. If we're
being if we're being honest, So so what does Jackson think? Uh?
The guy who tried to kill him twice has been
ruled insane. Congress has done some investigations, The Court of
(37:24):
public opinion, as adjourned, they found no conspiracy. Is Jackson happy?
Is Old Hickory satisfied? Oh no, he's still not. Now
he's uh, he's still beefing it. He is so beefed
right now. This guy he thinks. He says, look, there
(37:48):
must have been some kind of cover up, because I
still think the Wigs were somehow involved the Whig Party.
And in eighteen thirties Evans the end of his presidency,
someone asked him if he has any regrets, And that's
a question that can be tricky for a lot of
public figures to navigate, and they're very rarely honest about it.
(38:12):
So he says, yes, I regret I was unable to
shoot Henry Clay or to hang John c kel who
the worst enemies started friends. I guess, I guess. So,
I mean, I don't think granted Henry Clay had been
an opponent his for a long time, I mean, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
(38:32):
If it wasn't for Henry Clay, he would have in
president in saying that's a good thing, that's a thing,
but yeah, I'm as soupan He went to his grave
believing that Richard Lawrence was hired by those guys. Yeah,
and you know, maybe I'm mythologizing a bit to say
that he and Calhoun were friends. Because of the way
(38:53):
the appointment of the vice president works back in that time,
it's very different from the way a vice president works today.
I feel like they have changed that law by that
point because a little weird history thing. It was the
runner up in elections became the VP. I think they
changed that after Aaron Burr became the VP, because everyone's like,
Aaron burn should not be the president. They were found
with Aaron Burn's the VP. But Aaron Burr nearly became
(39:16):
president in eighteen hundred and if you've seen Hamilton's you know,
Aaron Burns not a good guy in history. That's right,
That's right. It's the twelfth Amendment. It was eighteen uh yeah,
to be used in the A T O four election. Okay, yes,
So so they probably did appear to get along at
(39:36):
some point, but they became bitter enemies, is to take away.
And now we're we've got to talk about a couple
of other failed assassination attempts, just to bring some attention
to these, because if you're a kid in the US,
you know all the stories about the successful assassination attempts
(40:00):
and odds are you're very aware of two, and you
may not know too much about the other ones. You're
aware of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater,
and you're aware of the assassination of John Kennedy at
that motorcade in Dallas, but you might not be aware
of all the other attempts to assassinate US presidents. Again,
(40:22):
it's a very dangerous job. Sarry Ice Road Truckers. Uh.
You you are statistically, I think, probably safer than a president.
I mean, that is so true. To put in summary,
Eight of the forty six presidents in our in our
country's history have died in office. I mean four of
them have been natural causes, natural causes and putting quotations.
(40:44):
We're not sure about two of them. Yeah, but there's
four that have been assassinated. Obviously, you said JFK. You
you said Abraham Lincoln. Those are the two of very
famous ones. But then also we have William McKinley, Yeah,
it was assassinated, And then we have Garfield was assassinated too,
and they're not as famous. Oddly enough, McKinley is the
one that surprised me because it was actually his VP
(41:05):
became very famous, which is Theodore Roosevelt. But what gets
even more mind blowing is when you see how many
assassination attempts there have been, and there's a lot more
in history now because you know, Secret Service have gotten
more sophisticated, the classifying of documents that we know about
attempts against like you know, recent presidents such as you know,
(41:27):
Bush Obama, such as those because we just have more
sophisticated technology, and then planning online. But there were some
assassination attempts that were pretty pretty scary. So Ben I
suggest we each do one. We just pick our favorite one.
We do one, Okay, I'll play your reindeer games. I'm
gonna go with you know what, I'm gonna go with
(41:50):
someone that we we should probably talk about more often
on this show. I'm gonna go with William Howard Taft.
That's a good one, right there. What about you? Man? Um,
I'll go with FDR. It's not now actually scratch that.
I'm going in Theodore Roosevelt. He wasn't technically a president
at this point, but I'm gonna go with it. Perfect
all right, Here we go So William Howard Taft is
(42:13):
probably most commonly known for two things. One being president
and then you know all his public service. He was
a Supreme Court justice as well, and as senator. This
guy went through the ranks. Um. He's also known for
being stuck in a bathtub, which is those are just
(42:36):
like two big things. So it's a it's a one
and a two. Be there's no one. It's a one
to be. Let's be honest about Taft. The one is
he got stuck in the bath The two be so okay,
So it's nine. And Taft is supposed to meet with
(42:57):
the president in Mexico at the time, a guy named
poor Feario Dias. This is going to be the first
ever meeting of this sort between Mexico and the US.
And additionally, it's gonna be the first time a US
president has entered the has crossed the US Mexican border
as it stands at that time. And in the in
(43:18):
this article, we found by Audrey w U five infamous
presidential assassinations and attempts. The news of the meeting led
to a bunch of assassination threats against both the Mexican
and the US president, such that multiple armed force groups,
(43:38):
multiple intelligence groups on both sides of the border were
all enlisted to try to provide security. October six, nine,
day of the summit, there's a Texas ranger walking around.
He gets worried that there's somebody out there with a pistol.
The guys he's well, he was walking for sure, so
maybe they're related and was grandfather or something great grandfather? Yes, yes, uh, okay,
(44:06):
we gotta we gotta bring that one back later in
a later episode. So okay, it's kind of all right.
This guy Texas ranger walking not walker, is looking around
because he hears that there is an individual in the
(44:27):
crowd at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce standing armed
along the route that the US and Mexican presidents are
going to take justice Taft and Diaz are passing. The
ranger finds the man, disarms him and restrains him. So
this doesn't feel as climactic maybe as the Lawrence Jackson
(44:52):
assassination attempt, because the firearm never like, it never got
to the point necessarily of even those presidents being aware
that their lives were at risk. And you have to
ask yourself, Um, I asked myself this all the time.
How would history have changed if water both of those
men were assassinated. It's an impossible question to answer, but
(45:14):
it is a fascinating one because if Half died that day,
then all of the other influence he had on us
government would have never come to pass. Yeah, I mean
has said it's an impossible question to answer completely, so
I'm not gonna really try to answer it, but it
(45:34):
People don't think of Taft as influential as he really was.
I mean, he was known like because you know, Teddy
result was known for burking out the trust, but in
four years, Half broke up more trust than him. And
as he said, he was the chief Justice of the
Supreme Court for nine years. This guy is very influential,
very important. We would probably know more about him if
(45:55):
he had a second term. And that's where we get
back to Teddy Roosevelt and his assassination attempt. M hm. So,
for for those who don't know this, Teddy Roosevelt was president,
Teddy Roosevelt decided he wanted to go hunt lions in Africa.
I'm pretty sure that's actually what he told people who
was going to go to and so then he was like,
you guys should vote for Taft. Tafts was pretty good,
(46:16):
but then Teddy Roosevelt came back and said, I want
to be president again, and they were like, we like Taft.
So Terry Roosevelt was like, well, they obviously like me better.
So he made his own party called the Bull Moose Party,
and he ran against Taft in nineteen twelve. Oddly enough,
this is how we got Woodrow Wilson, who was not
a favorite. He was not considered really in competition, but
(46:38):
because they split the vote, he got the election. But
let's go to a date October fourteenth, nineteen twelve. Eddy
Roosevelts getting up on a stage to give a speech.
He's got this big, fifty page main script. He was
known for, like Jackson, talking a lot and being very loud,
and maybe not as angry and racist as Jackson, but
(47:01):
he was known for being a very passionate speaker. But
there was a gentleman in the crowd by the name
of John Schrank. Mm hmm. I said that one, right, Shank,
It's like a dollar store Shrek. Let's go with it.
So Johnny Johnny asked, we'll call him. I'm gonna call
him that he has come under the impression that I
(47:25):
guess his favorite president, William McKinley, was secretly murdered. Remember
we mentioned he was one of four presidents ssassinated by
no other than Teddy Roosevelt, So Teddy Roosevelt could have
sent to the role of presidency. Remember this was in
one so eleven years passed by this point. But Johnny
s is just waiting in there in the crowd. Roosevelt
(47:46):
gives up there to give a speech, and he pulls
out a cult revolver, a big gun, and shoots it
and hits Teddy Roosevelt right in the chest. And then
Teddy Roosevelt turns his head and looks at Johnny ass
and says, don't hurt him to the crowd, what you
do that for? Remember this guy who just got shot
(48:07):
is there and he's like, what did you do that for?
And Johnnys is just son. He's like huh, and then
you just say. He says nothing. He's apprehended the dragon away.
And then Roosevelt, being the absolute badasset he is, turns
his head and he says, friends, I shall ask you
to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether
you fully understand it that I had just been shot,
(48:29):
but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose,
and you have buns his shirt and shows all the blood.
So it turns out that he has manuscraped his glass.
He had all this stuff in his breast pocket and
that's where the bullet did it hit. So he still
got hurt. The bullet still went through, but it wasn't
as you know, deadly as you would think. So, you know,
(48:50):
people like his aids and stuff like, okay, Mr President,
we have to get the hospital. You gotta go and
h No, I am, I'm here to give a speech.
I'm giving my speech. Come on, come on, He said,
I'll give a short one. How about that, guys, I'll
give a short one. Okay. He goes on for ninety
minutes because he's Teddy Roosevelt, and then he eventually leaves,
goes to the doctor and what's funny enough, as they're like, well,
let's just leave the bullet in there. So similar to Jackson,
(49:12):
he just lived the rest of his life with a
bullet in his chest. Did not win re election, by
the way. No and Shrink ended up being found guilty
of the attempt, but like Lawrence before him, he was
sentenced to spend the rest of his life in an asylum.
In his case, he was in the state of Wisconsin. Uh. Yeah,
(49:32):
and it's strange Teddy Roosevelt goes on to live until right.
I think we could we could put both of those
stories in our official list of underrated assassination attempts. Yeah,
most definitely. I mean there were real attempts that was
both of them got fair. I mean Teddy literally got shot,
(49:52):
and I mean, I guess we don't really know from
the story who the assassin at the Taft assassination was
going forward to going for tap through the Mexican president.
But where was he going for both? I mean, unfortunately
a lot of these stories there are multiple people wounded
and killed, so, um, we don't know. But it's like
(50:12):
these were both very very close to really changing the
whole thing of history. And Ben, I'm gonna set you
up for one more. I don't know if it's I
would really call it an assassination attempt, but it was
an assault on a sitting president. And I know talking
to you off off, Mike offline, Uh, this is a
personal favorite of years. So I'm just gonna let you
(50:34):
take this one away. Oh man. Yeah, let's double dragon
this one first, Uh, Max, can we can we play
the clip? We'll play this for you, ridiculous history and
see if you can guess what this is about. All right, well,
(50:59):
ding ding d prize to everybody who heard that and
just recalled one of the Uh. I always say hilarious,
but of fascinating. It was pretty hilarious, dude. This video
on the rag, Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's kind of
gone viral. Uh So it's December four. For six years,
(51:21):
the US has been searching for weapons of mass destruction
and Iraq and they're just not finding any. Then President
George W. Bush visits the country before he plans to
leave office, and he is there with the Prime Minister
of Iraq at the time, Nori alb Meliki. Uh and
they're gonna have a news conference in Baghdad, and Bush says,
(51:47):
Bush is trying to tell this crowd of people, Hey,
this conflict went on longer than people wanted. You know,
nobody loves a war, but this has been necessary for
quote world peace. And that's where we meet our hero
of the pranks today. Yes, that hero is Muntadar Alzaiety.
(52:07):
Apologies once again for my pronunciations there. So he is
a twenty eight year old journalists working for the Egyptian
based television service called Al back Dotti, and he stood
up and he has something he wanted to say to Mr. Bush.
But it wasn't just with his words. It was with
this I don't know it. Would you call them his actions? Yes? Yes,
So he takes off a shoe and he starts to scream,
(52:31):
this is a gift from the iraqis this is a farewell,
kiss you. Dog shouts in in Arabic, and he flings
his shoe at the president who Matrix dodges it. Matrix
dodges it, and I will say it w had some
moves man, very quickly. This one's going straight for his head. Uh.
(52:53):
Not the same to be said for the second shoe.
So Alzaieti reaches for his other shoe, because you know,
we worked two shoes, and he throws it while screaming
this is for the widows, the orphans and those who
were killed in Iraq. Yeah and uh, these are serious things.
And this journalist, who is overcome with the with the
(53:16):
horrors of war, has chosen not to use a firearm.
I would say this means that it counts much less
as an attack and much more as a protest. Right,
it is a protest. You also have to know that
there's a reason he's throwing shoes and not tomatoes or something.
(53:37):
Shoes in in this part of the world can be
used as great instruments of insults because the implication is
that you are lower than dirt. You are beneath my feet,
You are beneath the feet of this country. You monster,
is basically what this journalists the same. But if you
look at the video that we just played a clip from,
(53:58):
you'll see that the four or U S President is
kind of smirking after he does that first first dodge,
which is objectively is a good dodge, and then he
kind of tells secure secret security to stand down. Weird
story in case anybody's wondering what happened to the shoe, Well,
the shoes were you would naturally expect them to be
(54:20):
booby trapped somehow, but they were not packed with explosives,
nothing like that. They were regular shoes. They were this
guy's shoes. He took off his shoes and threw him, uh,
threw him as a protest the shoes. I heard Max
that the shoes themselves after they were revealed to be
just regular regular shoes. Uh, they were actually destroyed with prejudice,
(54:42):
like exploded. Oh yeah, I mean I feel like that's
if you send the president anything that he doesn't want
or they think might be dangerous, I feel they just
blow it up. Do you agree with that, like assessment
therapet I feel like it's within your abilities and privileges
as comman under in chief executive privilege there. Yeah, you could.
(55:03):
You could just say I don't like it, blow this up, Like,
but sir, it's a it's a from your child, right, yeah, right,
it's a watercolor painting from the son of the ambassador.
It's like, okay, well I get a picture of me
holding it and then blow it up, and then blow
it up. It's gonna cost me nightmares. Get this out
(55:24):
of my office. Well it's just gonna be the background
of all these photos and it's just gonna it's really
that's all anyone's gonna talk about it clashes, you know,
I don't want to be the watercolor president. Uh like
L O L. We don't know if that actually happens,
but we hope you enjoyed this. Look at failed assassination attempts,
(55:44):
and we hope it prompts all of us to think
about how history could have played out differently if any
of these attempts had been successful. I want to begin
the ended of our show by thanking, of course one
and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Let's also thank
our special guest, Max Williams. We soak it up, man,
(56:09):
I'm so, but let's not forget to uh thank the
researcher of this article, Mr Max Williams. Yes, yes, also
our research associate. Uh. And now we're done. But it's
also special thanks to our amazing great research associates Jeff
Bartlett and Zach Williams. They're amazing. They're the true m
v p s of the show. Yeah. Gabe Bluesier also
(56:30):
now hosting this Day in History class. I want to thank,
of course, Jonathan Strickland, a K the quizt Or, Chris
rossiotis Eve's Jeff co One. Thank Anna who came on
recently as well. I also want to say I know
where he said it, but Max, this is a lot
of fun, man, and you know that. Nolan. I always
love it when when you are able to come on
(56:52):
air with us. Even just a little bit. Uh So,
I hope that all of our fellow ridiculous historians out there,
I hope you enjoyed max On as much as I did.
Everybody tune in. We've got some more special guests on
the way. We're going to explore some strange stories about marathons,
fast food, those spoilers. Other than that, meantime, the last
(57:13):
and most important thanks that I want to give, at
least max is to our good friends write or die.
Mr Noel Brown. Noel, hope it did you proud. So
I'm gonna end the episode the way that you always do.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
(57:38):
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
a one and only super producer, the Man, the Myth,
the Legend, Mr Max Williams. And uh, let's also well,
they called me ben. Uh. Let's also give it up
for my ride or die, very good friend of mine
(00:48):
here in spirit, Mr Noel Brown. Noel is out for
a bit, but we'll be returning soon. Uh. Nevertheless, we
have been speaking a lot offline and it is our
fondest wish that the show go on. So we're going
to have a couple of special guest host in the
next few episodes. And this is where I would like
(01:10):
to introduce our very first special guest host in this lineup. Folks,
give it up for Mr Max Williams. He called that
I'm slippings. You didn't know how many of us we
like sight Machine great? Oh yeah, yeah. We searched long
(01:47):
and far. We we really worked hard to find someone
to come in and they all said no, so you're
stuck with me. Uh well, you know, our search was assiduous.
We did our do Dilon let me give you a
little background on Max Williams. For anybody who is not familiar,
So Max Williams, you know him, you love him from
(02:08):
shows like Ephemeral, from shows like Ridiculous History. You may
also know that he is a fan of curling, is
a fan of war history. He is a fan of
Star trek. Uh. He is also a fan of the
phrase beef it. Yeah. If we won't explain how to
(02:28):
air what that means that okay, yeah, oh man, we
might have to fly this as an explicit if we
do that, right, So okay, So in this case, then, uh,
we're going to talk about survival today and nowadays. I
think for anybody who's a fan of presidential lore like
(02:52):
you and myself, Max, you might be astonished to learn
just how wild the lives of past US presidents were.
In many ways, they have adventures that seem straight out
of straight out of the big screen. You, Noel and
I have talked in the past about all kinds of
(03:12):
strange things. Most recently in US presidential lore we talked
about Abraham Lincoln's former career as a trash talking wrestler
straight out of w W E. Yeah, and don't forget
about Ronald Reagan and throwing rocks at people while he's
a lifeguard. That was a pretty strange one too. Yeah,
I mean a lot of like, you know, especially when
(03:34):
it comes to these older presidents, a lot of what
we hear commonly is about like, oh, this was in
an office, or this is like especially older ones who
were generals like Jackson and Taylor and stuff, where these
were the great battles, but a lot of times loss
in history or just kind of like you know, these
idiosyncrasies about them, and just also these kind of like
wilder stories, and I think, uh, yeah, Andrew Jackson has
(03:57):
a few of those himself. Not all good, of course, no, no,
not all good. We have the benefit of retrospect here. Uh,
that's right. What being a president requires a a certain
set of skills to be a little liam Nisan about it,
and it's also inherently a pretty dangerous position. You are
(04:18):
much more likely to have people attempt to assassinate you
if you are the president, then say, if you are
a plumber. I believe that's true. I'm assuming they're a
plumbers in the crowd right in and let us know.
But today, Max, you and I are talking about a
story that I think really captivated both of us. We're
(04:39):
talking about presidents who survived assassination attempts, and we're going
to have to start. We're gonna have to spend a
lot of time, I think today on Gosh, Max, what
would you call him? I don't know if I would
call him our collective favorite president, but he's certainly a
fascinating character. One and only Andrew jack Soon. I remember
(05:02):
junior year Nerdy Max ap U S History class being
taught by my ap U S History professor, Mr. Boucher,
that Andrew Jackson is a very important president American history.
He says like he's not a good one in many ways,
but he is a very influential and I think that's
(05:22):
probably the best way to say. There's still a lot
of Jackson era stuff that still exists in America. Let's
just say, I mean, he's arguably our first king. And
you know, we've had a couple cents him, like like
a guy who was in office for thirteen years. Oh yeah, yeah,
because that's because that's before the uh that's for the
(05:43):
Laws of the Land change restricting a president to two terms. Right,
And when we talk about I'm talking about Jackson. One
thing we have to mention is that he, like several
other U S presidents of this era, was known for
these real barn stormers of speeches. And while the transcripts
(06:07):
of many of those speeches exist today, we as the US,
did not have the technology to record the audio or
the video, so a lot of it may be lost
in translation through interpretation of the text. But you have
to know this. Jackson is known for huge speeches. He
(06:27):
is an orator. He fires up a crowd and he
has to do this. This is like campaigning, right, This
is how he keeps himself front and center in the
minds of voters and opponents. So our story kind of starts. Um,
you put uh, you put a lot of work in
this outline. I just beefed it a little. Uh, the
(06:48):
story starts. I'm not letting go on January eighteen thirty, Max,
Can you set the scene for us? Why is this
day important? So, as you said, Anuary eighteen thirty five,
so this is a kind of weird day. So, as
you said, like Jackson, he's a fiery speaker. He's also
(07:09):
a war hero from the War of eighteen twelve, and
his kind of politics at the time are very much
like you know, DIVI divisive, like very aggressive, and so
it's very rare that people in Washington are all kind
of together and just like we're not fighting today, but
this day they were not fighting at least at this
point in time. So they're at the Capitol Building for
(07:29):
a funeral for South Carolina Representative Warren Davis, and you know,
it's a dreary, missy day onlookers look kind of like,
you know, it was one of those days where it's like,
let's not do this today. We're gonna be respectful of
the dead. We're gonna do this whole thing. Yeah, no more,
he's saying, I'm not today, of all days, I'm I'm
(07:54):
gonna put the clause back just a little. We're not
doing it today. I'm not coming up. I'm hissing. We're
gonna pump the brakes just for today, because this is
bigger than us. Uh. This occurs about six years into
his presidency, and he had already had this reputation, as
(08:14):
as you said, for using a very very fiery polemical
speeches to get support and to engage with his political opponents.
He also loved the veto the guy loved, loved a veto.
He loved a veto the way Garfield loves lasagna. He
was all about it. Uh. At this time he was
(08:36):
using the veto way more often than other administrations and
sometimes just a straight up obstruct actions of Congress for
no other reason than screw you guys, your minorities. Like
that was actually not a common thing to do with.
The veto was a very like selective thing to use
before Jackson. He was like the first one to really
(08:58):
use it. And I think we should talk like how
like how bad this got was. So when Jackson was elected,
there was like one political party in the country at
the time, and like people like Henry Clay, who if
you don't know who Andrew Clay is, he's another very
influential person in American politics. Will people with the influential one,
but like he was like in opposition, it's like, okay,
(09:18):
we're going to create a new political party of this
party is of course called the Whigs, one of the
best named political parties in our country history, and like
their sole purpose was to like fight King Andrews. They
called him, right, King Andrew Bean. Of course, Andrew Jackson,
I personally would make the observation, that's starting a party
(09:41):
without its own, without its own proactive goals. Starting a
party entirely in opposition of an existing thing kind of
damages your shelf life. But but as it did with
the Whigs, yeah, or the what were they the know
nothings or the Anti Masonic Party, I'm thinking right, because
(10:01):
they were just there for something else. Also, what were
they the no Nothing Party? K and O W they
were They came around in the eighteen fifties, so a
little bit after this, and they were mad at Catholic immigrants,
they were mad at anybody moving in um. Yeah, and
(10:26):
then they later kind of they preceded the Temperance Party.
I think hmm, sounds like lovely people. Yeah, I'm sure
there are a lot of fun at parties. Uh so
uh you know what would have been great though, also
would have been a fun party to watch if there
was c SPAN back in the eighteen thirties, man, this
(10:46):
would have been amazing because the Senate Chamber was ground
zero to reality TV level drama. The Whig Party, as
he said, they were haranguing King Andrew and called him
uh and they said he's corrupt, he's incompetent, He's a
real piece of work. And the president came back. It
(11:08):
was almost like a almost like a rap battle. What right,
the dueling oratory uh skills here. So of course Jackson
comes back and says, you know, I'm doubling down. Not
only do I think the wigs are corrupt and incompetent,
they don't know what they're doing. They don't know how
(11:30):
to run a nation. Come at me physically. I will
get you. Like I'm I'm being a little hyperbolic. I'm
taking a lot of editorial license here. But he did
physically threaten them, And this leads us to January of
eight thirty five. There's a senator from South Carolina named
(11:51):
John C. Calhoun, and he's got a personal beef I
think with Jackson. Yeah. So like Calhoun, if I remember correctly,
not very good guy just in general. But he was
like he was weird. So we have to go back
to the what is the election of eighteen twenty four?
There was like five people running. It was a weird,
crazy thing. Jackson won, but then Quincy Adams became president.
(12:13):
That's the whole thing. We won't talk about that here.
But like, so Calhoun had actually been Jackson's first VP,
so like, you know, this is like Obama and Biden,
um Reagan and h W like their buddies. And then
all of a sudden, he's like, dude, you suck and
he decides like I cannot stand for this guy. He's like,
(12:35):
he left the VAT position to be just an opposition
to join Henry Clay's party and go into the Senate
and just fight this guy. Like and I think this
is important that you point out where it's like Jackson
was known for being really militant with his thing, I
mean both like would abuse people both verbally and pretty
(12:56):
much physically too. And the problem that happened was that
was the way opposition too, was like, oh, we're gonna
go more than that, and it became this ever escalating thing,
which led to Calhoun saying something that you know, probably
shouldn't say. He said, Jackson was a Caesar who ought
to have a brutus obviously, you know, referencing you know,
(13:17):
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, or maybe just Julius Caesar in general,
or you know, Brutus is his closest friend who you know,
stabs him. And that might have riled up some people
including a fellow named Richard Lawrence. Yes, okay, So Richard
Lawrence is one of those guys in the history books
(13:39):
who is mainly known for one thing. We don't know
a ton about his life except for his one thing,
and we'll tell you what it is and why Calhoun's
statement was so inflammatory. So Lawrence was born in England.
We know that he moved to d e c. In
(14:00):
eighteen twelve. And he was not he was not this
big high muckety muck in either country. You know. He
wasn't a representative or a senator in the US. He
painted homes for a living, and it was a good living.
It's a decent living. Uh. He was known to be amicable,
(14:22):
he had a good work ethic. But over time he
started getting a little wonky in his ticker, and he
started having these delusions, and he became more and more
convinced that he was a long lost heir to the
British throne. And this continues so eighteen twelve, this grows
(14:47):
over a couple of decades. By eight thirty five, when
this speech takes place, Richard Lawrence is pretty certain, like certain,
that he's the rightful king of England and that the
world will readily admit to this once they see his evidence,
(15:08):
if only he can get Andrew Jackson, King Andrew out
of the way. Rather can't be two kings. You've got
to get the king who's you know, holding your money
out of the way. And I but I think it's
important to take a little step back here and kind
(15:30):
of just talk about Andrew Jackson's time, because you know,
we have this painting. Jackson was very much about persona,
and we have kind of this image in our head
of what Andrew Jackson. I mean, he was like like
the hero general of the War of eighteen twelve. We
think of it this this imposing, dominant figure verbally strong.
This man was not this. At this point he was
(15:51):
sixty seven years old, and we're talking eighteen thirty five
sixty seven. I mean, yeah, he had had a large
number of just like malady is in mishaps and being
Andrew Jackson. A lot of them were self cause, like
he had been in like a dozen duels, including having
a bullet lodged in his chest like in his lungs
for thirty years. There was a British social theorist called
(16:15):
Harriet Martineau who had like a little like she was
actually around for a lot of this, so you'll hear
from her a couple of times. But she says, general
Jackson is extremely tall and thin, with a slight stoop,
beckoning more weakness than naturally belongs to his ears. Yeah,
so he's a tall guy, and uh, being being taller
(16:36):
than average is actually really helpful when someone is running
for the presidency. It has an unconscious effect on a
lot of voters. But because he was old, and because
he had such grievous wounds and and several health problems,
his I kind of worked against him, and he's getting
more and more scrunched up. It's kind of like, if
(16:59):
you look, get that iconic painting of Andrew Jackson, which
was actually in eighteen thirty five, was done by a
guy named Ralph Alisa Whiteside Earl. Just google Andrew Jackson
painting is gonna be one of the first ones that
shows up. It reminds me of how you will see
a celebrity's headshot and then you will see a candid
(17:22):
photo of that that poor person just trying to get
to McDonald's. You know, they're not trying to be in
the movie right now, and you see those photos side
by side and go wow, a lot of work went
into one of these. That's kind of what the comparison
of Jackson would have been like at this time. And
he had other names besides King Andrew. King Andrew is
(17:43):
a uh an insult used by his detractors. Also, jackass
was common. They would call him to guess, yeah, but
that's how we got the donkey. That's how the Democratic
Party got the Donkey. People called him jackass so much
they were like, he's like, I like that, I'm keeping
that kind of own it. We're taking it back. His
supporters would call him his supporters and admirers. There's a
(18:06):
ven diagram, but they're always the same thing. His supporters
called him Old Hickory because of his performance in the
War of eighteen twelve. And here's where always see all
these details starts commingle. Let's get back to Lawrence. He
knows no, it was in his mind like that he
(18:27):
has some sort of in controvertible proof that he is
the true king. And that because Andrew Jackson in a
completely different country is a president called King Andrew, that's
somehow all that stopping Lawrence's ascension. So it makes sense
to me. Yeah, okay, yeah, man, all right, well you're
(18:51):
the expert here, so I am right. Yeah. Did I
just sound cue my own self? Yeah, I guess that's
awesome and shout out of course to our very dear
(19:14):
friend Matt Frederick. H Matt Frederick, Yeah, will be coming
uh will be coming along in a later episode hopefully. Uh.
It is birthday season, by the way, for uh, for
the stuff they don't want you to know. Crue. So,
Matt Nolan, I all of birthdays coming up. If you
guys are listening to the episode Happy New Year dudes. Uh. Anyway, Lawrence, Lawrence,
(19:40):
here's this line from Calhoun. Uh. And he was probably
part of the audience and Calhoun said this in just
a few days later January, Lawrence tries to take his
destiny in his own hands. He decides that if fate
will not intervene on his behalf, get rid of this
(20:00):
king andrew himself. He picked a pretty good target. We
have a description from a wonderful Little time dot com
article by Jennifer Latson that describes Old Hickories actual physical
state around this time. And I love I love a
(20:23):
crazy laundry list. Max, can you hit us with this
one and like lean into it. Old Hickory suffered from
nearly every fiscal ailment of magical smallpox, asteo militis, malaria, dysentery, rheumatism,
drops these, Gloria movius, a widespread intestinal inflammation, Amelo dots is,
(20:50):
a waxy degeneration of body tissues, and bronco tassis, which
is inflamed and dilated bronchial tubes. These ail means, in
addition to lingering effects of injury sustaining duels, one which
left the bullet permanently lodged in his lungs, meant that
Jackson began his presidential term racked with pain and fainting
(21:11):
from weakness. So, uh, you know, any any mispronunciations of
those specific medical conditions fall fall on me as well,
because we're looking some of these up. Uh. These are
real conditions and to have all of them at once
is not a walk in the park. This means that
the US president could not pass that presidential fitness test
(21:35):
some of us had to take in school. So Jackson
is you know at this funeral, it's very sad occasion.
We have put aside rhetoric today. I'm gonna behave myself.
You're gonna behave yourself to death is bigger than all
of us. It's the end of the funeral. Jackson's leaving
via the East portico and Richard Lawrence comes up and starts,
(22:01):
you know, hassling him. Security is different at this time, too, obviously,
and Lawrence pulls a pistol from his jacket. It's derringer.
He aims at Jackson and he fires and nothing happens. Well,
something does happen, It fires, but no bullet comes out. Yeah,
(22:25):
Jackson is just fine. I mean well, saying he's fine
is Navy max re member. He might be sixty seven,
he might be old, he might be sickly, but he's
still Andrew Jackson. So so his response isn't like get
behind people or get like, you know, his security take
care of But he goes, oh you serious. He charges
at the guy with his old hickory cane and starts
(22:48):
clubbing Lawrence. That is his instant response is I'm gonna
beat this guy up. And it gets worse because Lawrence,
as it turns out, had another pistol. Yes, so so
Jackson Jackson is like Wsland whip a snap out or whatever,
and then he starts to go into town on him
(23:09):
with this cane and then Lawrence is like fending it
off and pulls out his second pistol, his second firearm
also loaded. He pulls the trigger again. Boom, that's right,
nothing nothing uh nothing not not I mean maybe like
(23:36):
uh uh, I mean it's a dager. From the kick
goes how loud do we expect this thing to be?
It's like the smallest gun ever made. Not really, but
it basically is. Yeah, it's it's no howardser. And by
now Jackson's crew his entourage are hip to the game.
(23:56):
So they grab Lawrence and they physically pull him away,
and Jackson is unharmed. I mean, he's still racked with
medical problems, but he doesn't have a gunshot to add
to those. And uh, he is livid and he will
be paranoid for the rest of his life. I would
hate to be one of the members of his entourage
(24:18):
and say, you know, hey, sorry, that guy slipped by
you and tried to shoot you and then did it again. Yeah.
I mean, security at this time was not great. I mean,
and it should be pointing out this is the first
assassination attempt that we know of, at least against the
sitting president in history of this country. I mean, so
(24:39):
maybe they just didn't think about it, but it is
still pretty bad. But I mean, we have to talk
about the pistols. So it's just like, yeah, the thing,
like were these things malfunctioning? Were they wrong? Like how
did this guy because he was right next to Jackson,
a boy at the point, It wasn't like he was
like shooting from a long distance. How did Jackson not
get shot? And we don't really know. Yes, yeah, we
(25:04):
are not sure because both of the pistols we're working,
he had loaded them. He may have beef. Yeah, they
were beef. They were beat Laura Lawrence may not have
been in the best mental state, but he was about
his business when it came to fire our maintenance and
(25:26):
loading these and they continue like. There was testing done
on them later, and the testing found that this is
per u S Senator Thomas hart Benton. The testing found
that every time they tried to fire either of these
pistols afterwards, they fire per normal and they could fire
(25:47):
accurately at a distance of thirty feet or so. This
is where we get to a weird lottery. This is
I think the stuff. You really can't explain. The calculated
likelihood of both pistols misfiring on that day in is
something like a hundred and twenty five thousand to one.
(26:10):
So Jackson won the lottery twice in a row. I mean,
I feel like there has to have been something else
that happened, but I mean, we don't know, and I
mean it sounds like they just both misfired from everything
we've read, and I mean, which is like, wow, Jackson, Uh, good,
good on you. I guess you won the lottery. But
(26:30):
then I want to backtrack to something Jackson actually said
when he was clubbing Lawrence. It's kind of weird. It
doesn't actually make a ton of sense, except if you
think about it, because you mentioned the paranoia that he
had after this, and probably the paranoia that he had
plenty of beforehand. But so when he's like charging at Lawrence,
he's clubbing him, and he's screaming, let me alone, let
(26:52):
me alone, I know where this came from, which is
a weird kind of line to be screaming. It's like,
let me alone, I know where this came from. He's like,
you're a whig operative or something. But he does seem Yeah,
he does seem to, at least in his mind, have
a an understanding of a conspiracy behind this assassination attempt.
(27:15):
I also want to point out that you'll find some
historians arguing that the humidity of the day may have
may have contributed to the pistols misfiring, but that's it's
still not proven. Also, just a side note, if we
ever do this as a historical reenactment, other people watch
(27:37):
Jackson beat the snot out of this guy until they
thought Jackson might actually kill him. They're like, this old
man is going to kill him. Davy Crockett is in
the audience. Max. Davy Crockett is one of the people
who says, yeah, I don't know, okay, okay, now let's
separate him. It's all been fun. Yeah, big guy, you've
(28:00):
your fine. Let's let's chill out. Let's look at your nap, buddy,
Let's get you up that nap and you can go
yell at I don't know, you can't yell at TV.
Where would he yell at? I don't know, probably yell
at some bird or something outside a bear. So we
we also want to thank, by the way, Lorraine Boss,
who wrote an excellent article in the Smithsonian about this
attempted assassination. We're also pulling in some some other sources
(28:24):
and observations here, like the travelogue you mentioned Max. So
Jackson was convinced this attack was politically motivated. This was
the first attempt to assassinate a sitting president, and the
media and the public went nuts. Talk about the proliferation
(28:47):
of speculation and conspiracy theories here. Jackson himself was certain,
and he says, I know where this came from. He
was certain that a rival politician named George Poindexter was
behind it. He thought, point extra hired Lawrence to kill him.
The problem was, Jackson's certitude didn't seem to be backed
(29:11):
up by evidence. Yeah. No, I mean, like, I mean,
I guess it would make sense considering all the visual
of the time, But it also makes way more sense
that this guy, as we later found was just you know,
not all there say at least, But I mean, this
didn't stop Jackson from you know, going out and pretty
much declaring that this is fact and that all these
(29:32):
wigs must pay. Martineau actually has an account of that
night when everyone was like hanging out afterwards. Yeah, later,
same day, later that night, she goes to a party.
M Jackson is at this party. Before we proceed with this,
what is this party for? Is this party just a
(29:53):
part of the Hardy schedule? Is it a party like
a wake party for the guy that there's there at
a funeral? Or is it a party because Jackson survived
someone trying to shoot him twice and then he beat
the living ship it out of him? Beat me, please,
max self peep. I love it. You know, that is
a good question. I I'm tempted to think that it
(30:16):
was already planned. I'm tempted to I don't know, somebody
correct me on this. I'm tempted to think there was
something already planned, but it became a celebration of a
couple of different things, you know what I mean? Like you, uh,
you have a friend whose birthdays on July five, and
you were already having a July fourth party that weekend,
(30:37):
so you know, double up, bang for your buck. So
it's like it's like someone who's born in Christmas and
has to celebrate their Christmas President a birthday presidents at
the same time. They really get skimped out that way. Yeah,
I feel for you folks. You know, um the moral
fortitude that you have grown. That's the real present, is
something that some other line your parents fed you. Anyway,
(31:00):
here's what Martineau says at this at this party, right
after someone tried to kill the president before two hours
were over, the name of almost every eminence politician was
mixed up with that of the poor maniac who caused
the uproar. Jackson protested, in the presence of many strangers
that there was no insanity in the case. I was silent,
(31:21):
of course. He protested that there was a plot and
that the man was a tool, and at length quoted
the Attorney General as his authority. It was painful to
hear a chief ruler publicly trying to persuade a foreigner
that any of his constituents hated him to death. And
I took the liberty of changing the subject as soon
(31:42):
as I could. What do you change the subject to? You?
Are you like? Wow? Yeah, that's crazy. So is this
the Washington eggnog recipe? So tell me the story. I
up that bullet in your lunge, right, I mean, yeah,
I feel like you'd be hard person to change the
subject of. It's if you change the subject, and they
(32:04):
would listen to you change the subject, then immediately go
back to what they were talking about. He seems like
that type of person. And I mean what is interesting
also about this is, I mean we've seen this, unfortunately
with a lot of conspiracy theories and less cle of
years there if you yell them loud enough, you don't
actually have to put any truth behind it, and that
we saw that in this case. So despite no evidence
(32:26):
of this conspiracy, I mean, there's absolutely no connection whatsoever
to the Wigs hiring Lawrence to kill Jackson, Sensationalism took
over the story. It was just everywhere, absolutely And I
do want to say that some conspiracy theories with the
benefit of retrospect, do end up being true, just actual conspiracies,
(32:47):
but this was definitely a blossoming of conspiracy theories where evidence,
if there was any evidence, took a far back seat.
A paper in Boston was saying, rumor is circulating a
thousand stories. They were probably at a loss trying to
figure out which to print. People were asking media questions,
very valid questions. Was Richard Lawrence a hired assassin? And
(33:12):
if so, logically who hired him? These are the things
that immediately went through Jackson's mind when he realized he
wasn't going to die from that first gunshot, picked up
the cane and his like weird kill bill moment. Uh,
he immediately, you know he I would not be surprised
if in his mind at that point he's physically beating
(33:32):
Point Dexter, you know, and that's what he's thinking of.
But the two main suspects in Congress are his Jackson's
former VP Calhoun, who has to go to the Senate
and publicly declare his innocence, and then the President of
course says it's that bastard Point Dexter, the senator from Mississippi. Uh,
(33:53):
he's involved in this and it was never proven again,
but it probably cost index or his reelection because that's
some bad pr What did the Whigs do? The Whigs say,
the conspiracy goes even deeper. The Whigs named Andrew Jackson
as the chief conspirator in his assassination attempt. They say, look,
(34:15):
everybody knows you're a jerk and you're trying to make
America forget that and like you because you survived this
fake assassination attempt. Shades of Alex Jones here. Uh, but
you teased it you teased it really well, Max, Was
there a conspiracy? No, Richard Lawrence was just not right.
(34:46):
So obviously this guy tries to kill a president, he's
gonna go to trial. He goes to trial, and yeah,
it becomes very very evidence. So not he did the
painter believe the president had killed his father. He believed
that Andrew Jackson had killed Richard Lawrence's father, which no,
(35:08):
he was also convinced he was a fifteenth century king,
King Richard the third, not not a descendant. He thought
he was Richard. He was Richard Lawrence the third. He
thought that, and he was also I mean, so a
little context right here. This is when Jackson's trying to
(35:31):
get rid of the Bank of the United States. At
this point in time, the the centralized the bank, blah
blah blah. That's a big thing that's going on in
history here. And he's convinced that the bank is going
to pay his money, and Jackson's doing that so he
will not get his money, as we can see, not
really all there. Yeah, but he's got he's got a lot.
(35:53):
He's got a lot of confidence, which goes a long
way in this country. Confidence. Here's one of our cinematic moments.
The famous attorney Francis Scott Key is the chief prosecutor.
The trial happens just a few months later in April
of eighteen thirty five, and during the trial, King Richard
(36:17):
Lawrence the third says to the jurors, it is for me, gentlemen,
to pass upon you, and not you upon me. Yeah. Yeah.
He was actually found not guilty because of because the
reasons of insanity, and he was confined to a hospital
for the mentally ill until his death until eighteen sixty one. Yeah,
(36:39):
I mean, he he was never convicted of his crime, though,
I think about that. Yeah. Also, we have to point
out that if we're being if we're being completely honest,
this is a pretty harsh punishment because hospitals for the
mentally ill, all all facilities for people with mental issue
(37:00):
whose are terrible places. Well not all, that's hyperbolic, but
the majority of them are very very bad places at
this time in the US and in Europe. If we're
being if we're being honest, So so what does Jackson think? Uh?
The guy who tried to kill him twice has been
ruled insane. Congress has done some investigations, The Court of
(37:24):
public opinion, as adjourned, they found no conspiracy. Is Jackson happy?
Is Old Hickory satisfied? Oh no, he's still not. Now
he's uh, he's still beefing it. He is so beefed
right now. This guy he thinks. He says, look, there
(37:48):
must have been some kind of cover up, because I
still think the Wigs were somehow involved the Whig Party.
And in eighteen thirties Evans the end of his presidency,
someone asked him if he has any regrets, And that's
a question that can be tricky for a lot of
public figures to navigate, and they're very rarely honest about it.
(38:12):
So he says, yes, I regret I was unable to
shoot Henry Clay or to hang John c kel who
the worst enemies started friends. I guess, I guess. So,
I mean, I don't think granted Henry Clay had been
an opponent his for a long time, I mean, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
(38:32):
If it wasn't for Henry Clay, he would have in
president in saying that's a good thing, that's a thing,
but yeah, I'm as soupan He went to his grave
believing that Richard Lawrence was hired by those guys. Yeah,
and you know, maybe I'm mythologizing a bit to say
that he and Calhoun were friends. Because of the way
(38:53):
the appointment of the vice president works back in that time,
it's very different from the way a vice president works today.
I feel like they have changed that law by that
point because a little weird history thing. It was the
runner up in elections became the VP. I think they
changed that after Aaron Burr became the VP, because everyone's like,
Aaron burn should not be the president. They were found
with Aaron Burn's the VP. But Aaron Burr nearly became
(39:16):
president in eighteen hundred and if you've seen Hamilton's you know,
Aaron Burns not a good guy in history. That's right,
That's right. It's the twelfth Amendment. It was eighteen uh yeah,
to be used in the A T O four election. Okay, yes,
So so they probably did appear to get along at
(39:36):
some point, but they became bitter enemies, is to take away.
And now we're we've got to talk about a couple
of other failed assassination attempts, just to bring some attention
to these, because if you're a kid in the US,
you know all the stories about the successful assassination attempts
(40:00):
and odds are you're very aware of two, and you
may not know too much about the other ones. You're
aware of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater,
and you're aware of the assassination of John Kennedy at
that motorcade in Dallas, but you might not be aware
of all the other attempts to assassinate US presidents. Again,
(40:22):
it's a very dangerous job. Sarry Ice Road Truckers. Uh.
You you are statistically, I think, probably safer than a president.
I mean, that is so true. To put in summary,
Eight of the forty six presidents in our in our
country's history have died in office. I mean four of
them have been natural causes, natural causes and putting quotations.
(40:44):
We're not sure about two of them. Yeah, but there's
four that have been assassinated. Obviously, you said JFK. You
you said Abraham Lincoln. Those are the two of very
famous ones. But then also we have William McKinley, Yeah,
it was assassinated, And then we have Garfield was assassinated too,
and they're not as famous. Oddly enough, McKinley is the
one that surprised me because it was actually his VP
(41:05):
became very famous, which is Theodore Roosevelt. But what gets
even more mind blowing is when you see how many
assassination attempts there have been, and there's a lot more
in history now because you know, Secret Service have gotten
more sophisticated, the classifying of documents that we know about
attempts against like you know, recent presidents such as you know,
(41:27):
Bush Obama, such as those because we just have more
sophisticated technology, and then planning online. But there were some
assassination attempts that were pretty pretty scary. So Ben I
suggest we each do one. We just pick our favorite one.
We do one, Okay, I'll play your reindeer games. I'm
gonna go with you know what, I'm gonna go with
(41:50):
someone that we we should probably talk about more often
on this show. I'm gonna go with William Howard Taft.
That's a good one, right there. What about you? Man? Um,
I'll go with FDR. It's not now actually scratch that.
I'm going in Theodore Roosevelt. He wasn't technically a president
at this point, but I'm gonna go with it. Perfect
all right, Here we go So William Howard Taft is
(42:13):
probably most commonly known for two things. One being president
and then you know all his public service. He was
a Supreme Court justice as well, and as senator. This
guy went through the ranks. Um. He's also known for
being stuck in a bathtub, which is those are just
(42:36):
like two big things. So it's a it's a one
and a two. Be there's no one. It's a one
to be. Let's be honest about Taft. The one is
he got stuck in the bath The two be so okay,
So it's nine. And Taft is supposed to meet with
(42:57):
the president in Mexico at the time, a guy named
poor Feario Dias. This is going to be the first
ever meeting of this sort between Mexico and the US.
And additionally, it's gonna be the first time a US
president has entered the has crossed the US Mexican border
as it stands at that time. And in the in
(43:18):
this article, we found by Audrey w U five infamous
presidential assassinations and attempts. The news of the meeting led
to a bunch of assassination threats against both the Mexican
and the US president, such that multiple armed force groups,
(43:38):
multiple intelligence groups on both sides of the border were
all enlisted to try to provide security. October six, nine,
day of the summit, there's a Texas ranger walking around.
He gets worried that there's somebody out there with a pistol.
The guys he's well, he was walking for sure, so
maybe they're related and was grandfather or something great grandfather? Yes, yes, uh, okay,
(44:06):
we gotta we gotta bring that one back later in
a later episode. So okay, it's kind of all right.
This guy Texas ranger walking not walker, is looking around
because he hears that there is an individual in the
(44:27):
crowd at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce standing armed
along the route that the US and Mexican presidents are
going to take justice Taft and Diaz are passing. The
ranger finds the man, disarms him and restrains him. So
this doesn't feel as climactic maybe as the Lawrence Jackson
(44:52):
assassination attempt, because the firearm never like, it never got
to the point necessarily of even those presidents being aware
that their lives were at risk. And you have to
ask yourself, Um, I asked myself this all the time.
How would history have changed if water both of those
men were assassinated. It's an impossible question to answer, but
(45:14):
it is a fascinating one because if Half died that day,
then all of the other influence he had on us
government would have never come to pass. Yeah, I mean
has said it's an impossible question to answer completely, so
I'm not gonna really try to answer it, but it
(45:34):
People don't think of Taft as influential as he really was.
I mean, he was known like because you know, Teddy
result was known for burking out the trust, but in
four years, Half broke up more trust than him. And
as he said, he was the chief Justice of the
Supreme Court for nine years. This guy is very influential,
very important. We would probably know more about him if
(45:55):
he had a second term. And that's where we get
back to Teddy Roosevelt and his assassination attempt. M hm. So,
for for those who don't know this, Teddy Roosevelt was president,
Teddy Roosevelt decided he wanted to go hunt lions in Africa.
I'm pretty sure that's actually what he told people who
was going to go to and so then he was like,
you guys should vote for Taft. Tafts was pretty good,
(46:16):
but then Teddy Roosevelt came back and said, I want
to be president again, and they were like, we like Taft.
So Terry Roosevelt was like, well, they obviously like me better.
So he made his own party called the Bull Moose Party,
and he ran against Taft in nineteen twelve. Oddly enough,
this is how we got Woodrow Wilson, who was not
a favorite. He was not considered really in competition, but
(46:38):
because they split the vote, he got the election. But
let's go to a date October fourteenth, nineteen twelve. Eddy
Roosevelts getting up on a stage to give a speech.
He's got this big, fifty page main script. He was
known for, like Jackson, talking a lot and being very loud,
and maybe not as angry and racist as Jackson, but
(47:01):
he was known for being a very passionate speaker. But
there was a gentleman in the crowd by the name
of John Schrank. Mm hmm. I said that one, right, Shank,
It's like a dollar store Shrek. Let's go with it.
So Johnny Johnny asked, we'll call him. I'm gonna call
him that he has come under the impression that I
(47:25):
guess his favorite president, William McKinley, was secretly murdered. Remember
we mentioned he was one of four presidents ssassinated by
no other than Teddy Roosevelt, So Teddy Roosevelt could have
sent to the role of presidency. Remember this was in
one so eleven years passed by this point. But Johnny
s is just waiting in there in the crowd. Roosevelt
(47:46):
gives up there to give a speech, and he pulls
out a cult revolver, a big gun, and shoots it
and hits Teddy Roosevelt right in the chest. And then
Teddy Roosevelt turns his head and looks at Johnny ass
and says, don't hurt him to the crowd, what you
do that for? Remember this guy who just got shot
(48:07):
is there and he's like, what did you do that for?
And Johnnys is just son. He's like huh, and then
you just say. He says nothing. He's apprehended the dragon away.
And then Roosevelt, being the absolute badasset he is, turns
his head and he says, friends, I shall ask you
to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether
you fully understand it that I had just been shot,
(48:29):
but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose,
and you have buns his shirt and shows all the blood.
So it turns out that he has manuscraped his glass.
He had all this stuff in his breast pocket and
that's where the bullet did it hit. So he still
got hurt. The bullet still went through, but it wasn't
as you know, deadly as you would think. So, you know,
(48:50):
people like his aids and stuff like, okay, Mr President,
we have to get the hospital. You gotta go and
h No, I am, I'm here to give a speech.
I'm giving my speech. Come on, come on, He said,
I'll give a short one. How about that, guys, I'll
give a short one. Okay. He goes on for ninety
minutes because he's Teddy Roosevelt, and then he eventually leaves,
goes to the doctor and what's funny enough, as they're like, well,
let's just leave the bullet in there. So similar to Jackson,
(49:12):
he just lived the rest of his life with a
bullet in his chest. Did not win re election, by
the way. No and Shrink ended up being found guilty
of the attempt, but like Lawrence before him, he was
sentenced to spend the rest of his life in an asylum.
In his case, he was in the state of Wisconsin. Uh. Yeah,
(49:32):
and it's strange Teddy Roosevelt goes on to live until right.
I think we could we could put both of those
stories in our official list of underrated assassination attempts. Yeah,
most definitely. I mean there were real attempts that was
both of them got fair. I mean Teddy literally got shot,
(49:52):
and I mean, I guess we don't really know from
the story who the assassin at the Taft assassination was
going forward to going for tap through the Mexican president.
But where was he going for both? I mean, unfortunately
a lot of these stories there are multiple people wounded
and killed, so, um, we don't know. But it's like
(50:12):
these were both very very close to really changing the
whole thing of history. And Ben, I'm gonna set you
up for one more. I don't know if it's I
would really call it an assassination attempt, but it was
an assault on a sitting president. And I know talking
to you off off, Mike offline, Uh, this is a
personal favorite of years. So I'm just gonna let you
(50:34):
take this one away. Oh man. Yeah, let's double dragon
this one first, Uh, Max, can we can we play
the clip? We'll play this for you, ridiculous history and
see if you can guess what this is about. All right, well,
(50:59):
ding ding d prize to everybody who heard that and
just recalled one of the Uh. I always say hilarious,
but of fascinating. It was pretty hilarious, dude. This video
on the rag, Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's kind of
gone viral. Uh So it's December four. For six years,
(51:21):
the US has been searching for weapons of mass destruction
and Iraq and they're just not finding any. Then President
George W. Bush visits the country before he plans to
leave office, and he is there with the Prime Minister
of Iraq at the time, Nori alb Meliki. Uh and
they're gonna have a news conference in Baghdad, and Bush says,
(51:47):
Bush is trying to tell this crowd of people, Hey,
this conflict went on longer than people wanted. You know,
nobody loves a war, but this has been necessary for
quote world peace. And that's where we meet our hero
of the pranks today. Yes, that hero is Muntadar Alzaiety.
(52:07):
Apologies once again for my pronunciations there. So he is
a twenty eight year old journalists working for the Egyptian
based television service called Al back Dotti, and he stood
up and he has something he wanted to say to Mr. Bush.
But it wasn't just with his words. It was with
this I don't know it. Would you call them his actions? Yes? Yes,
So he takes off a shoe and he starts to scream,
(52:31):
this is a gift from the iraqis this is a farewell,
kiss you. Dog shouts in in Arabic, and he flings
his shoe at the president who Matrix dodges it. Matrix
dodges it, and I will say it w had some
moves man, very quickly. This one's going straight for his head. Uh.
(52:53):
Not the same to be said for the second shoe.
So Alzaieti reaches for his other shoe, because you know,
we worked two shoes, and he throws it while screaming
this is for the widows, the orphans and those who
were killed in Iraq. Yeah and uh, these are serious things.
And this journalist, who is overcome with the with the
(53:16):
horrors of war, has chosen not to use a firearm.
I would say this means that it counts much less
as an attack and much more as a protest. Right,
it is a protest. You also have to know that
there's a reason he's throwing shoes and not tomatoes or something.
(53:37):
Shoes in in this part of the world can be
used as great instruments of insults because the implication is
that you are lower than dirt. You are beneath my feet,
You are beneath the feet of this country. You monster,
is basically what this journalists the same. But if you
look at the video that we just played a clip from,
(53:58):
you'll see that the four or U S President is
kind of smirking after he does that first first dodge,
which is objectively is a good dodge, and then he
kind of tells secure secret security to stand down. Weird
story in case anybody's wondering what happened to the shoe, Well,
the shoes were you would naturally expect them to be
(54:20):
booby trapped somehow, but they were not packed with explosives,
nothing like that. They were regular shoes. They were this
guy's shoes. He took off his shoes and threw him, uh,
threw him as a protest the shoes. I heard Max
that the shoes themselves after they were revealed to be
just regular regular shoes. Uh, they were actually destroyed with prejudice,
(54:42):
like exploded. Oh yeah, I mean I feel like that's
if you send the president anything that he doesn't want
or they think might be dangerous, I feel they just
blow it up. Do you agree with that, like assessment
therapet I feel like it's within your abilities and privileges
as comman under in chief executive privilege there. Yeah, you could.
(55:03):
You could just say I don't like it, blow this up, Like,
but sir, it's a it's a from your child, right, yeah, right,
it's a watercolor painting from the son of the ambassador.
It's like, okay, well I get a picture of me
holding it and then blow it up, and then blow
it up. It's gonna cost me nightmares. Get this out
(55:24):
of my office. Well it's just gonna be the background
of all these photos and it's just gonna it's really
that's all anyone's gonna talk about it clashes, you know,
I don't want to be the watercolor president. Uh like
L O L. We don't know if that actually happens,
but we hope you enjoyed this. Look at failed assassination attempts,
(55:44):
and we hope it prompts all of us to think
about how history could have played out differently if any
of these attempts had been successful. I want to begin
the ended of our show by thanking, of course one
and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Let's also thank
our special guest, Max Williams. We soak it up, man,
(56:09):
I'm so, but let's not forget to uh thank the
researcher of this article, Mr Max Williams. Yes, yes, also
our research associate. Uh. And now we're done. But it's
also special thanks to our amazing great research associates Jeff
Bartlett and Zach Williams. They're amazing. They're the true m
v p s of the show. Yeah. Gabe Bluesier also
(56:30):
now hosting this Day in History class. I want to thank,
of course, Jonathan Strickland, a K the quizt Or, Chris
rossiotis Eve's Jeff co One. Thank Anna who came on
recently as well. I also want to say I know
where he said it, but Max, this is a lot
of fun, man, and you know that. Nolan. I always
love it when when you are able to come on
(56:52):
air with us. Even just a little bit. Uh So,
I hope that all of our fellow ridiculous historians out there,
I hope you enjoyed max On as much as I did.
Everybody tune in. We've got some more special guests on
the way. We're going to explore some strange stories about marathons,
fast food, those spoilers. Other than that, meantime, the last
(57:13):
and most important thanks that I want to give, at
least max is to our good friends write or die.
Mr Noel Brown. Noel, hope it did you proud. So
I'm gonna end the episode the way that you always do.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
(57:38):
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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