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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s Escapades, and Other Lesser Known Historic Events

Khalid Elhassan January 21, 2020 33 min

William Carver - Butch Cassidy — Butch Cassidy, far right, The Sundance Kid, far left, and other members of the Wild Bunch gang. Wikimedia

14. Teddy Roosevelt Saved His Would-Be Assassin

John Flammang Schrank, Teddy Roosevelt’s would-be assassin, in police custody. Fine Art America

The assassination attempt on Teddy Roosevelt’s life had been made at about 8 PM, as he got into an open air car outside his hotel, waving his hat to the crowd. Just then, the darkness was lit up by a flash from a .38 Colt revolver – the former president had been shot. An aide grappled with the would-be assassin and prevented him from firing another shot, before the crowd joined in.

The culprit, a deranged Bavarian immigrant named John Flammang Schrank, would have been lynched on the spot if Roosevelt had not intervened. “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here. I want to see him“, Roosevelt told the crowd. He then asked Schrank “What did you do it for?” When Schrank stayed mum, TR told the crowd to turn him over to the police.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.