1901
North America · Politics
The new century begins with an assassination.
Anarchist shoots President McKinley
September 6, 1901
At a Buffalo exposition, William McKinley extended his hand to a young man with a bandaged fist. Leon Czolgosz fired twice. The president lingered eight days before gangrene killed him, despite surgeons' desperate efforts under electric light. Theodore Roosevelt, the barrel-chested vice president dismissed as a lightweight, burst into the White House and the century.