Back to the front page
American History

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

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

13. ‘He Pinked Me’

The shirt worn by TR when he was shot. History Channel

After getting shot, Teddy Roosevelt reached inside his shirt and felt around, until he encountered a dime-sized hole. He turned to an aide and remarked: “He pinked me“. TR then coughed into his hand a few times, and seeing no blood, determined that his lung had not been pierced. He directed that he be driven to the Milwaukee Auditorium, to address the waiting audience.

The hefty speech, squeezed into his jacket pocket, had combined with a glass case and a dense overcoat to slow the bullet. It was later recovered lodged against his fourth rib, on a trajectory to his heart. As to the shooter, Schrank had dreamt that the assassinated president William McKinley had urged him to avenge him by killing his vice president and successor, TR. Schrank was deemed legally insane, and was institutionalized until his death in 1943.

Written by

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.

Keep reading

Advertisement