--- title: World Leaders Who Survived Multiple Assassination Attempts description: "The frequency of assassinations of heads of state has varied wildly throughout history. Because these events are usually the result of political strife, the more peaceful and prosperous a time period is the less likely there are to be assassination attempts. Or at the very least, the less likely there are to be successful ones carried out by professionals.\n\nBut crazy people are always going to be crazy, and receiving death threats is a daily occurrence for most heads of state. Most of these threats aren't credible, yet it can sometimes be impossible to predict which lunatics are actually planning to follow through with their threats. Even the most popular rulers aren't safe from such attacks, though some proved themselves to be nigh impossible to actually kill.\n\nOf course, not all of these failed assassination attempts were performed by amateurs, either. Today we'll be looking at world leaders who survived multiple assassination attempts, including several hundred failed attempts by the CIA on the same target.\n\n## Queen Victoria\n\nQueen Victoria had the second longest reign of any British monarch, and she is one of the most popular British monarchs of all time as well. Though her popularity did suffer following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, this was a temporary result of her self-isolation while in mourning. This dip in popularity was also largely restricted to England itself, as her isolation wasn't noticed by the larger British Empire who never would have seen Victoria in person anyway.\n\nHowever, despite her incredible popularity, Queen Victoria was the target of eight assassination attempts by seven different men over a span of more than four decades. The first attempt came just three years into Victoria's reign, and the failed assassin was an 18 year old man named Edward Oxford.\n\nEdward was a violent and troubled child who was prone to \"fits of unprovoked, maniacal laughter\". His behaviour was impulsive and erratic, which caused problems when he came of working age. He worked at a number of pubs, though each time he was fired after just a few months. Edward had this tendency to violently assault customers, something which didn't go over well with his employers.\n\nThree days after losing his final job, Edward purchased two pistols which he practiced firing in the garden, though presumably just with powder and no ammo. On June 10, 1840, Edward traveled to Constitution Hill near Buckingham Palace. Victoria and her husband would usually take a carriage ride each evening, so crowds gathered on a nightly basis to catch a glimpse of their beloved queen.\n\nAt around 6 pm the carriage left Buckingham Palace, and Edward fired a pistol. He missed and declared that he had another, so he fired again before the crowd tackled and subdued him. At trial he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to an asylum.\n\nTwo years later, a 19 year old named John Francis would try to assassinate the queen by similar means. After his attempt to open a tobacco shop failed and he was caught trying to rob his landlord, John purchased a gun in May of 1842 and waited for Victoria's evening carriage ride, but when the carriage past his gun didn't fire. John escaped, but Prince Albert had noticed the gun pointed at the carriage.\n\nThe next day, again at Constitution Hill, John leapt from the crowd and fired at the carriage. Because he had noticed the would-be assassin the night before, Albert had ordered the crowd to be filled with police, so John was immediately detained, charged with high treason, and sentenced to death. After much deliberation, Victoria decided to be lenient and commuted his death sentence, instead exiling him to Tasmania.\n\nBarely a month later, another teenager would try to take out Victoria outside Buckingham Palace. Seventeen year old John Bean had become obsessed with the attempt made by Edward Oxford, particularly with his sentence. Edward had learned to paint, play the violin, and to speak French and German while in the asylum. Reporting made it sound like a luxury vacation, and for John who suffered from both dwarfism and a hunchback, this sounded like a dream come true. If he fired a gun at the queen then either he would be executed or sent to an asylum, either of which John felt would be a dramatic improvement over his current lot in life.\n\nAlthough John was arrested after his attempt, he didn't receive either of those punishments. Because his gun was filled with paper and tobacco instead of actual ammunition, the judge ruled that he had never intended to actually harm the queen. He was instead sentenced to 18 months in prison, and the incident was downplayed as much as possible in an attempt to stop future assassination attempts.\n\nThis may have worked, as the next attack didn't occur until 1849, seven years later. William Hamilton was born in Ireland, and he was the first of the attackers that it was even speculated had a political motive, though these allegations were never proven. His attempt went just like the others, firing a pistol at the royal carriage on Constitution Hill. And just like all the others, he missed his target.\n\nHe was found guilty of treason and sentenced to a punishment worse than death: life in Australia. More specifically, seven years hard labour in Australia. While some papers had speculated that William was an Irish revolutionary, others believed getting transported to Australia had actually been his hope all along.\n\nA year later, Victoria would come face to face with her fifth would-be assassin. He was the only one not to use a gun, and also the only one to actually injure her. Robert Pate was a former military man from a wealthy family, but by his late 20s he had already been allowed to quietly retire from the military on account of his growing insanity. Despite his fragile mental state, his wealth still had allowed him to be considered a respectable gentleman. He was seen as a harmless eccentric until June 27, 1850.\n\nVictoria had been visiting her sick uncle in Piccadilly, and that evening, as her carriage left her uncle's mansion, Robert lunged forward and struck Victoria in the head with his metal tipped cane. The blow left Victoria with a black eye and a scar on her forehead, and a better positioned strike with that weapon could have been fatal.\n\nFortunately, the wounds were superficial and she made a public appearance later that night. Robert was sentenced to seven years hard labour in Tasmania, though he was given preferential treatment and light work for most of his sentence on account of his wealth.\n\nThe next attempt on Victoria's life wouldn't come until 22 years later, at the hands of 17 year old Arthur O'Connor. Arthur was from a family of prominent Irish revolutionaries, and he dreamed of following in their footsteps. His dream was to die a hero's death, and he intended to do this by making a massive public spectacle.\n\nArthur's intended goal was to put a gun to Victoria's head and force her to sign an order releasing a group of Irish republican prisoners. After waiting for the guards to be distracted, he scaled the fence to Buckingham Palace, but he was captured before he could get close enough to the queen to put his plan into action. He was sentenced to one year in prison and 20 strokes of a whip. Rather than becoming a legendary Irish hero, he was mocked in the newspapers and denounced by the Irish republican movement.\n\nThe final assassination attempt came in 1882. While most of the assassins had little to no motive, Roderick Maclean was reported as having a very clear motive. Roderick was born into a reasonably well off family, with his father being the owner of a popular magazine named Fun. The family wound up losing all of their money and Roderick suffered an accidental blow to the head as a child, presumably resulting in traumatic brain injury.\n\nBut even though his personality and temperament were drastically changed, he still dreamed of being a writer. So when he mailed his poetry to Queen Victoria and she sent back a curt reply, he decided he had no choice but to kill her. He purchased a gun in Portsmouth then walked over 60 miles to Windsor so he could take a shot at regicide. Before the assassination attempt, he also sent a letter to his sister in which he blamed his actions on her. Roderick was angry that he was only being given an allowance of 6 schillings per week instead of 10, and said this fueled his hatred of the aristocracy and of \"that old lady Mrs. Vic\".\n\nRoderick's shot missed and he was immediately apprehended. At trial he was found \"not guilty, but insane\", which was not a surprising verdict. He had already been declared legally insane two years earlier and been a resident at multiple asylums. Victoria, however, was furious over the verdict, and she pushed for a change to British law that would allow for a verdict of \"guilty, but insane\". The following year she got her wish when the Trial of Lunatics Act of 1883 was passed.\n\n## Pope John Paul II\n\nWe generally don't think of the pope as someone who is likely to fall victim to assassination, though it used to be relatively common. In the early days of Catholicism, popes were routinely martyred, and there was a stretch of 102 years in which seven different popes were assassinated. But that was over 1,000 years ago, and it's been over 700 years since a pope is alleged to have been assassinated.\n\nBut that's only because Pope John Paul II survived two attempts on his life within the span of a single year. The first attempt came on May 13, 1981. John Paul was entering St. Peter's Square to address a crowd when Turkish citizen Mehmet Ali Ağca fired a Browning 9 mm pistol from the crowd, striking the pope multiple times in the abdomen. John Paul lost almost three quarters of his blood and required five hours of surgery.\n\nAlthough the attack was a surprise, the assailant was less of one. Two years earlier, it was reported in The New York Times that Ağca had claimed responsibility for the murder of a Turkish newspaper editor. In the same article it said that Ağca promised to kill the pope if he didn't cancel his trip to Turkey that was planned for November of 1979. The trip was not canceled, so Ağca sought revenge on the pope who he blamed as being responsible for the Grand Mosque seizure that year.\n\nThat was the official story, at least, though many have put forth other motives. The CIA believed that Moscow and the Soviet Union were the ones to hire Ağca, or at the very least they believed that pushing that narrative would help keep public opinion firmly against the Soviets. Some more conspiratorial motives have been proposed as well, though the Moscow narrative is the only one to have received a lot of widespread support, something that has continued to this day.\n\nAğca was captured in the crowd by a nun and several spectators who were able to detain him until police arrived. He was sentenced to life in prison in Italy, though this was a bit redundant as he was already supposed to be serving life in prison in Turkey for the murder of the newspaper editor. Ağca had actually escaped prison six months before traveling to the Vatican, though he would not escape a second time. Two and a half years after the assassination attempt, Pope John Paul II visited Ağca in prison and spoke with him privately for 20 minutes.\n\nTo this day it is unknown what they talked about, but the pope publically stated that he forgave his would be assassin. In 2000, after Ağca had served nearly 20 years of his life sentence, the Italian president pardoned Ağca at the direct request of John Paul. He was then transferred back to Turkish prison for another 10 years before being paroled.\n\nBut before all of that happened, on May 12, 1982, just one day before the anniversary of the first assassination attempt, John Paul was attacked in Fatima, Portugal by Juan María Fernández y Krohn, a disgruntled member of the clergy.\n\nWhile the first assassin was believed by many to have been in league with the Soviets, the second assassin believed that the pope was the one who was working with the Soviets. John Paul had been in attendance at the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, and he had continued to implement the modernized policies put forth by the council. For example, if you've ever attended a Catholic mass that wasn't performed in Latin, Vatican II is the reason why.\n\nJuan was opposed to the reforms of Vatican II, and he believed that John Paul was a communist agent sent by Moscow to infiltrate the Vatican. As the pope traveled through Fatima, Juan, dressed in his traditional clergy attire, emerged from the crowd and shouted, \"Down with the Pope, down with the Second Vatican Council\". He then stabbed John Paul with the 16 inch (40 cm) bayonet of a German Mauser rifle, though he had not gotten close enough for the wound to be fatal or even particularly deep.\n\nBelieving he had completed his mission, Juan allowed himself to be arrested without a fight. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and excommunicated from the church. Unlike with Ağca, John Paul never publically forgave Juan for the assassination attempt.\n\n## Fidel Castro\n\nWhen it comes to failed assassination attempts, there is no world leader in history more iconic than Fidel Castro. The United States and Cuba had been allies, and the US was willing to look past what an authoritarian Fulgencio Batista was because it was deemed beneficial to the nation. But once Castro seized power and made Cuba the first communist nation in the western hemisphere, the relationship between the two nations dramatically changed.\n\nThe CIA wanted Castro dead, and they wanted him dead immediately. Arguably the first attempt was the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. It wasn't an assassination attempt strictly speaking, but had it been successful there was a good chance it would have resulted in Castro's death. However it was not successful, it was a disaster. The invasion was launched by 1,400 Cuban exiles supported by the United States military, and things went horribly.\n\nFollowing this botched invasion, the CIA decided to resort to more direct, covert means of taking out Castro. In total, it is believed that the CIA planned at least 634 assassination attempts, though not all of the plans were enacted. Many definitely were enacted, though obviously unsuccessfully.\n\nOne of the most popular methods of attempt to kill Castro was to poison him with botulinum toxin, one of the deadliest toxins known to humans and also what they use to perform Botox. Many of these attempts involved getting people close enough to Castro that they could poison his food, though they also tried to poison cigars with botulinum. Usually the would-be assassin would either get caught by Castro's security or get cold feet and abandon the mission, though sometimes they simply failed. An employee at a restaurant Castro frequented was paid off by the CIA to poison Castro's chocolate milkshake with botulinum, but the employee was so nervous that he accidentally destroyed the poison capsules while trying to open them.\n\nWhile poison is a pretty standard form of assassination, some of the CIA's plans were much less orthodox. Similar to the poison cigars, there were also allegedly plans for exploding cigars. That story is less substantiated than the others, so it may have been an urban legend created by someone who watched one too many Looney Tunes cartoons. However, there was a very legitimate plan created by the CIA to blow up Castro using cartoon style violence.\n\nCastro was a big fan of scuba diving, so the plan was to plant a big, beautiful seashell in an area where he was known to dive. The shell would be filled with explosives and set to detonate as soon as it was picked up. This sounds like a ridiculous plan, as it would rely on Castro diving in the area the shell was planted, seeing the seashell by the seashore, and finding it so irresistible that he just had to pick it up. And while that all is a ridiculous and luck based plan, that's not the reason the CIA never enacted it. They simply couldn't find a seashell large enough to fit the amount of explosives necessary to kill Castro.\n\nBut maybe the CIA wasn't cut out for murder. The government is supposed to enforce laws, not violate them, so perhaps this was just too far out of their wheelhouse. To that end, they offered the mafia $150,000 to assassinate Castro. The mafia declined the money, instead promising to do it for free because they loved their country. And that was definitely the real reason, not because they wanted to have leverage over the president.\n\nHowever, the mafia wasn't any more successful than the CIA had been. They tried a combination of botulinum toxin and good, old fashioned gun violence, but nothing worked. One assassin who got closest was a former lover of Castro's, Marita Lorenz. Marita's father was a captain on luxury cruise ships, and she happened to be on board one of these ships with him near Cuba shortly after Castro took power. Castro and some of his men boarded the ship, and he and Marita began having an extended affair.\n\nOver the course of this affair, Marita claimed to have become pregnant with Castro's child. She then said that when she told him, he drugged her and she awoke in a hospital with her pregnancy having been terminated. She went back to the United States with no plan to return to Cuba following that, but she wound up making one more trip.\n\nMarita's mother had worked for the OSS, the precursor organization to the CIA, and her mother's contacts saw a way to both take out Castro and give Marita the revenge she desired for her forced abortion. She was given botulinum pills and called to meet with Castro again. He sent a private plane to pick her up, but she couldn't poison him. Some accounts say that she couldn't bring herself to, while others say that the pills she was storing in a jar of cold cream melted in the heat and became unusable.\n\nDuring her rendezvous with Castro, she confessed to having been sent there to kill him, though she denied working directly with the CIA. In response to this, Castro handed her his pistol and told her to shoot him, but she couldn't do it. According to Marita, Castro wasn't surprised at all, telling her, \"You can't kill me. Nobody can kill me.\" Since the assassination attempt failed and they were already in the room together, they just decided to have sex instead.\n\nIn 1976, President Ford signed Executive Order 11905 in an attempt to reform the intelligence community. It explicitly stated, \"No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.\" Despite this, the CIA's attempts on Castro's life continued all the way until at least the year 2000, when Cuban exiles led by a CIA operative attempted to blow up Castro at a speaking engagement in Panama.\n\nThese are just some of the attempts on Castro's life, but there were many more. The CIA even had plans to assassinate his reputation instead, though these were pretty ridiculous. Some of those plans involved removing Castro's beard or making him trip balls on LSD while giving a radio speech. All of the CIA's plans may have been failures, but nobody can say they weren't at least trying to be creative.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Queen Victoria survived eight assassination attempts over four decades, despite her popularity.\n- Pope John Paul II survived two assassination attempts within a year, one by a Turkish citizen and another by a disgruntled clergyman.\n- Fidel Castro faced at least 634 assassination attempts by the CIA, including creative but unsuccessful methods.\n- Many assassination attempts on heads of state are driven by political strife or personal grievances.\n- Some assassins were motivated by mental illness or personal issues rather than political reasons.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Who was the first person to attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria?\n\nThe first attempt on Queen Victoria's life came from an 18-year-old man named Edward Oxford.\n\n### How many assassination attempts did Queen Victoria survive?\n\nQueen Victoria survived eight assassination attempts by seven different men over a span of more than four decades.\n\n### What was the motive behind Roderick Maclean's assassination attempt on Queen Victoria?\n\nRoderick Maclean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria after she sent a curt reply to his poetry, which fueled his hatred of the aristocracy.\n\n### How many assassination attempts did Pope John Paul II survive?\n\nPope John Paul II survived two assassination attempts within the span of a single year.\n\n### What was the motive behind Mehmet Ali Ağca's assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II?\n\nMehmet Ali Ağca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II because he blamed the pope for the Grand Mosque seizure and had previously threatened to kill the pope if he didn't cancel his trip to Turkey.\n\n### What was the motive behind Juan María Fernández y Krohn's assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II?\n\nJuan María Fernández y Krohn attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II because he believed the pope was a communist agent sent by Moscow to infiltrate the Vatican.\n\n### How many assassination attempts did Fidel Castro survive?\n\nThe CIA planned at least 634 assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, though not all of the plans were enacted.\n\n### What was one of the more creative assassination attempts planned by the CIA on Fidel Castro?\n\nOne of the more creative assassination attempts planned by the CIA involved planting a large, explosive-filled seashell in an area where Castro was known to scuba dive.\n\n### What was the CIA's response after President Ford signed Executive Order 11905?\n\nDespite Executive Order 11905 explicitly stating that no employee of the United States Government shall engage in political assassination, the CIA's attempts on Castro's life continued all the way until at least the year 2000.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: World Leaders Who Survived Multiple Assassination Attempts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk-bLURbXoU)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Conferentie_Restoring_Justice_for_Ukraine_-_Toespraak_procureur-generaal_voor_Engeland_en_Wales_Victoria_Prentis.jpg) by Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/world-leaders-who-survived-multiple-assassination-attempts.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/world-leaders-who-survived-multiple-assassination-attempts datePublished: 2026-07-02 dateModified: 2026-07-02 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/Kk-bLURbXoU/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 993d1460e9058023e07a73e30aaf39077010b667554ebf028865d359ea74a987 tokens: 5596 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/world-leaders-who-survived-multiple-assassination-attempts.md.summary.md --- The frequency of assassinations of heads of state has varied wildly throughout history. Because these events are usually the result of political strife, the more peaceful and prosperous a time period is the less likely there are to be assassination attempts. Or at the very least, the less likely there are to be successful ones carried out by professionals. But crazy people are always going to be crazy, and receiving death threats is a daily occurrence for most heads of state. Most of these threats aren't credible, yet it can sometimes be impossible to predict which lunatics are actually planning to follow through with their threats. Even the most popular rulers aren't safe from such attacks, though some proved themselves to be nigh impossible to actually kill. Of course, not all of these failed assassination attempts were performed by amateurs, either. Today we'll be looking at world leaders who survived multiple assassination attempts, including several hundred failed attempts by the CIA on the same target. ## Queen Victoria Queen Victoria had the second longest reign of any British monarch, and she is one of the most popular British monarchs of all time as well. Though her popularity did suffer following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, this was a temporary result of her self-isolation while in mourning. This dip in popularity was also largely restricted to England itself, as her isolation wasn't noticed by the larger British Empire who never would have seen Victoria in person anyway. However, despite her incredible popularity, Queen Victoria was the target of eight assassination attempts by seven different men over a span of more than four decades. The first attempt came just three years into Victoria's reign, and the failed assassin was an 18 year old man named Edward Oxford. Edward was a violent and troubled child who was prone to "fits of unprovoked, maniacal laughter". His behaviour was impulsive and erratic, which caused problems when he came of working age. He worked at a number of pubs, though each time he was fired after just a few months. Edward had this tendency to violently assault customers, something which didn't go over well with his employers. Three days after losing his final job, Edward purchased two pistols which he practiced firing in the garden, though presumably just with powder and no ammo. On June 10, 1840, Edward traveled to Constitution Hill near Buckingham Palace. Victoria and her husband would usually take a carriage ride each evening, so crowds gathered on a nightly basis to catch a glimpse of their beloved queen. At around 6 pm the carriage left Buckingham Palace, and Edward fired a pistol. He missed and declared that he had another, so he fired again before the crowd tackled and subdued him. At trial he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to an asylum. Two years later, a 19 year old named John Francis would try to assassinate the queen by similar means. After his attempt to open a tobacco shop failed and he was caught trying to rob his landlord, John purchased a gun in May of 1842 and waited for Victoria's evening carriage ride, but when the carriage past his gun didn't fire. John escaped, but Prince Albert had noticed the gun pointed at the carriage. The next day, again at Constitution Hill, John leapt from the crowd and fired at the carriage. Because he had noticed the would-be assassin the night before, Albert had ordered the crowd to be filled with police, so John was immediately detained, charged with high treason, and sentenced to death. After much deliberation, Victoria decided to be lenient and commuted his death sentence, instead exiling him to Tasmania. Barely a month later, another teenager would try to take out Victoria outside Buckingham Palace. Seventeen year old John Bean had become obsessed with the attempt made by Edward Oxford, particularly with his sentence. Edward had learned to paint, play the violin, and to speak French and German while in the asylum. Reporting made it sound like a luxury vacation, and for John who suffered from both dwarfism and a hunchback, this sounded like a dream come true. If he fired a gun at the queen then either he would be executed or sent to an asylum, either of which John felt would be a dramatic improvement over his current lot in life. Although John was arrested after his attempt, he didn't receive either of those punishments. Because his gun was filled with paper and tobacco instead of actual ammunition, the judge ruled that he had never intended to actually harm the queen. He was instead sentenced to 18 months in prison, and the incident was downplayed as much as possible in an attempt to stop future assassination attempts. This may have worked, as the next attack didn't occur until 1849, seven years later. William Hamilton was born in Ireland, and he was the first of the attackers that it was even speculated had a political motive, though these allegations were never proven. His attempt went just like the others, firing a pistol at the royal carriage on Constitution Hill. And just like all the others, he missed his target. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to a punishment worse than death: life in Australia. More specifically, seven years hard labour in Australia. While some papers had speculated that William was an Irish revolutionary, others believed getting transported to Australia had actually been his hope all along. A year later, Victoria would come face to face with her fifth would-be assassin. He was the only one not to use a gun, and also the only one to actually injure her. Robert Pate was a former military man from a wealthy family, but by his late 20s he had already been allowed to quietly retire from the military on account of his growing insanity. Despite his fragile mental state, his wealth still had allowed him to be considered a respectable gentleman. He was seen as a harmless eccentric until June 27, 1850. Victoria had been visiting her sick uncle in Piccadilly, and that evening, as her carriage left her uncle's mansion, Robert lunged forward and struck Victoria in the head with his metal tipped cane. The blow left Victoria with a black eye and a scar on her forehead, and a better positioned strike with that weapon could have been fatal. Fortunately, the wounds were superficial and she made a public appearance later that night. Robert was sentenced to seven years hard labour in Tasmania, though he was given preferential treatment and light work for most of his sentence on account of his wealth. The next attempt on Victoria's life wouldn't come until 22 years later, at the hands of 17 year old Arthur O'Connor. Arthur was from a family of prominent Irish revolutionaries, and he dreamed of following in their footsteps. His dream was to die a hero's death, and he intended to do this by making a massive public spectacle. Arthur's intended goal was to put a gun to Victoria's head and force her to sign an order releasing a group of Irish republican prisoners. After waiting for the guards to be distracted, he scaled the fence to Buckingham Palace, but he was captured before he could get close enough to the queen to put his plan into action. He was sentenced to one year in prison and 20 strokes of a whip. Rather than becoming a legendary Irish hero, he was mocked in the newspapers and denounced by the Irish republican movement. The final assassination attempt came in 1882. While most of the assassins had little to no motive, Roderick Maclean was reported as having a very clear motive. Roderick was born into a reasonably well off family, with his father being the owner of a popular magazine named Fun. The family wound up losing all of their money and Roderick suffered an accidental blow to the head as a child, presumably resulting in traumatic brain injury. But even though his personality and temperament were drastically changed, he still dreamed of being a writer. So when he mailed his poetry to Queen Victoria and she sent back a curt reply, he decided he had no choice but to kill her. He purchased a gun in Portsmouth then walked over 60 miles to Windsor so he could take a shot at regicide. Before the assassination attempt, he also sent a letter to his sister in which he blamed his actions on her. Roderick was angry that he was only being given an allowance of 6 schillings per week instead of 10, and said this fueled his hatred of the aristocracy and of "that old lady Mrs. Vic". Roderick's shot missed and he was immediately apprehended. At trial he was found "not guilty, but insane", which was not a surprising verdict. He had already been declared legally insane two years earlier and been a resident at multiple asylums. Victoria, however, was furious over the verdict, and she pushed for a change to British law that would allow for a verdict of "guilty, but insane". The following year she got her wish when the Trial of Lunatics Act of 1883 was passed. ## Pope John Paul II We generally don't think of the pope as someone who is likely to fall victim to assassination, though it used to be relatively common. In the early days of Catholicism, popes were routinely martyred, and there was a stretch of 102 years in which seven different popes were assassinated. But that was over 1,000 years ago, and it's been over 700 years since a pope is alleged to have been assassinated. But that's only because Pope John Paul II survived two attempts on his life within the span of a single year. The first attempt came on May 13, 1981. John Paul was entering St. Peter's Square to address a crowd when Turkish citizen Mehmet Ali Ağca fired a Browning 9 mm pistol from the crowd, striking the pope multiple times in the abdomen. John Paul lost almost three quarters of his blood and required five hours of surgery. Although the attack was a surprise, the assailant was less of one. Two years earlier, it was reported in The New York Times that Ağca had claimed responsibility for the murder of a Turkish newspaper editor. In the same article it said that Ağca promised to kill the pope if he didn't cancel his trip to Turkey that was planned for November of 1979. The trip was not canceled, so Ağca sought revenge on the pope who he blamed as being responsible for the Grand Mosque seizure that year. That was the official story, at least, though many have put forth other motives. The CIA believed that Moscow and the Soviet Union were the ones to hire Ağca, or at the very least they believed that pushing that narrative would help keep public opinion firmly against the Soviets. Some more conspiratorial motives have been proposed as well, though the Moscow narrative is the only one to have received a lot of widespread support, something that has continued to this day. Ağca was captured in the crowd by a nun and several spectators who were able to detain him until police arrived. He was sentenced to life in prison in Italy, though this was a bit redundant as he was already supposed to be serving life in prison in Turkey for the murder of the newspaper editor. Ağca had actually escaped prison six months before traveling to the Vatican, though he would not escape a second time. Two and a half years after the assassination attempt, Pope John Paul II visited Ağca in prison and spoke with him privately for 20 minutes. To this day it is unknown what they talked about, but the pope publically stated that he forgave his would be assassin. In 2000, after Ağca had served nearly 20 years of his life sentence, the Italian president pardoned Ağca at the direct request of John Paul. He was then transferred back to Turkish prison for another 10 years before being paroled. But before all of that happened, on May 12, 1982, just one day before the anniversary of the first assassination attempt, John Paul was attacked in Fatima, Portugal by Juan María Fernández y Krohn, a disgruntled member of the clergy. While the first assassin was believed by many to have been in league with the Soviets, the second assassin believed that the pope was the one who was working with the Soviets. John Paul had been in attendance at the Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, and he had continued to implement the modernized policies put forth by the council. For example, if you've ever attended a Catholic mass that wasn't performed in Latin, Vatican II is the reason why. Juan was opposed to the reforms of Vatican II, and he believed that John Paul was a communist agent sent by Moscow to infiltrate the Vatican. As the pope traveled through Fatima, Juan, dressed in his traditional clergy attire, emerged from the crowd and shouted, "Down with the Pope, down with the Second Vatican Council". He then stabbed John Paul with the 16 inch (40 cm) bayonet of a German Mauser rifle, though he had not gotten close enough for the wound to be fatal or even particularly deep. Believing he had completed his mission, Juan allowed himself to be arrested without a fight. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and excommunicated from the church. Unlike with Ağca, John Paul never publically forgave Juan for the assassination attempt. ## Fidel Castro When it comes to failed assassination attempts, there is no world leader in history more iconic than Fidel Castro. The United States and Cuba had been allies, and the US was willing to look past what an authoritarian Fulgencio Batista was because it was deemed beneficial to the nation. But once Castro seized power and made Cuba the first communist nation in the western hemisphere, the relationship between the two nations dramatically changed. The CIA wanted Castro dead, and they wanted him dead immediately. Arguably the first attempt was the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. It wasn't an assassination attempt strictly speaking, but had it been successful there was a good chance it would have resulted in Castro's death. However it was not successful, it was a disaster. The invasion was launched by 1,400 Cuban exiles supported by the United States military, and things went horribly. Following this botched invasion, the CIA decided to resort to more direct, covert means of taking out Castro. In total, it is believed that the CIA planned at least 634 assassination attempts, though not all of the plans were enacted. Many definitely were enacted, though obviously unsuccessfully. One of the most popular methods of attempt to kill Castro was to poison him with botulinum toxin, one of the deadliest toxins known to humans and also what they use to perform Botox. Many of these attempts involved getting people close enough to Castro that they could poison his food, though they also tried to poison cigars with botulinum. Usually the would-be assassin would either get caught by Castro's security or get cold feet and abandon the mission, though sometimes they simply failed. An employee at a restaurant Castro frequented was paid off by the CIA to poison Castro's chocolate milkshake with botulinum, but the employee was so nervous that he accidentally destroyed the poison capsules while trying to open them. While poison is a pretty standard form of assassination, some of the CIA's plans were much less orthodox. Similar to the poison cigars, there were also allegedly plans for exploding cigars. That story is less substantiated than the others, so it may have been an urban legend created by someone who watched one too many Looney Tunes cartoons. However, there was a very legitimate plan created by the CIA to blow up Castro using cartoon style violence. Castro was a big fan of scuba diving, so the plan was to plant a big, beautiful seashell in an area where he was known to dive. The shell would be filled with explosives and set to detonate as soon as it was picked up. This sounds like a ridiculous plan, as it would rely on Castro diving in the area the shell was planted, seeing the seashell by the seashore, and finding it so irresistible that he just had to pick it up. And while that all is a ridiculous and luck based plan, that's not the reason the CIA never enacted it. They simply couldn't find a seashell large enough to fit the amount of explosives necessary to kill Castro. But maybe the CIA wasn't cut out for murder. The government is supposed to enforce laws, not violate them, so perhaps this was just too far out of their wheelhouse. To that end, they offered the mafia $150,000 to assassinate Castro. The mafia declined the money, instead promising to do it for free because they loved their country. And that was definitely the real reason, not because they wanted to have leverage over the president. However, the mafia wasn't any more successful than the CIA had been. They tried a combination of botulinum toxin and good, old fashioned gun violence, but nothing worked. One assassin who got closest was a former lover of Castro's, Marita Lorenz. Marita's father was a captain on luxury cruise ships, and she happened to be on board one of these ships with him near Cuba shortly after Castro took power. Castro and some of his men boarded the ship, and he and Marita began having an extended affair. Over the course of this affair, Marita claimed to have become pregnant with Castro's child. She then said that when she told him, he drugged her and she awoke in a hospital with her pregnancy having been terminated. She went back to the United States with no plan to return to Cuba following that, but she wound up making one more trip. Marita's mother had worked for the OSS, the precursor organization to the CIA, and her mother's contacts saw a way to both take out Castro and give Marita the revenge she desired for her forced abortion. She was given botulinum pills and called to meet with Castro again. He sent a private plane to pick her up, but she couldn't poison him. Some accounts say that she couldn't bring herself to, while others say that the pills she was storing in a jar of cold cream melted in the heat and became unusable. During her rendezvous with Castro, she confessed to having been sent there to kill him, though she denied working directly with the CIA. In response to this, Castro handed her his pistol and told her to shoot him, but she couldn't do it. According to Marita, Castro wasn't surprised at all, telling her, "You can't kill me. Nobody can kill me." Since the assassination attempt failed and they were already in the room together, they just decided to have sex instead. In 1976, President Ford signed Executive Order 11905 in an attempt to reform the intelligence community. It explicitly stated, "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." Despite this, the CIA's attempts on Castro's life continued all the way until at least the year 2000, when Cuban exiles led by a CIA operative attempted to blow up Castro at a speaking engagement in Panama. These are just some of the attempts on Castro's life, but there were many more. The CIA even had plans to assassinate his reputation instead, though these were pretty ridiculous. Some of those plans involved removing Castro's beard or making him trip balls on LSD while giving a radio speech. All of the CIA's plans may have been failures, but nobody can say they weren't at least trying to be creative. ## Key Takeaways - Queen Victoria survived eight assassination attempts over four decades, despite her popularity. - Pope John Paul II survived two assassination attempts within a year, one by a Turkish citizen and another by a disgruntled clergyman. - Fidel Castro faced at least 634 assassination attempts by the CIA, including creative but unsuccessful methods. - Many assassination attempts on heads of state are driven by political strife or personal grievances. - Some assassins were motivated by mental illness or personal issues rather than political reasons. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who was the first person to attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria? The first attempt on Queen Victoria's life came from an 18-year-old man named Edward Oxford. ### How many assassination attempts did Queen Victoria survive? Queen Victoria survived eight assassination attempts by seven different men over a span of more than four decades. ### What was the motive behind Roderick Maclean's assassination attempt on Queen Victoria? Roderick Maclean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria after she sent a curt reply to his poetry, which fueled his hatred of the aristocracy. ### How many assassination attempts did Pope John Paul II survive? Pope John Paul II survived two assassination attempts within the span of a single year. ### What was the motive behind Mehmet Ali Ağca's assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II? Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II because he blamed the pope for the Grand Mosque seizure and had previously threatened to kill the pope if he didn't cancel his trip to Turkey. ### What was the motive behind Juan María Fernández y Krohn's assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II? Juan María Fernández y Krohn attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II because he believed the pope was a communist agent sent by Moscow to infiltrate the Vatican. ### How many assassination attempts did Fidel Castro survive? The CIA planned at least 634 assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, though not all of the plans were enacted. ### What was one of the more creative assassination attempts planned by the CIA on Fidel Castro? One of the more creative assassination attempts planned by the CIA involved planting a large, explosive-filled seashell in an area where Castro was known to scuba dive. ### What was the CIA's response after President Ford signed Executive Order 11905? Despite Executive Order 11905 explicitly stating that no employee of the United States Government shall engage in political assassination, the CIA's attempts on Castro's life continued all the way until at least the year 2000. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: World Leaders Who Survived Multiple Assassination Attempts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk-bLURbXoU) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Conferentie_Restoring_Justice_for_Ukraine_-_Toespraak_procureur-generaal_voor_Engeland_en_Wales_Victoria_Prentis.jpg) by Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken / openverse, by-sa. ## Related Coverage