On this day, July 2, in 1881, President James Garfield was shot at a railroad station in the District.

The shooter was Charles J. Guiteau, a lawyer who was angry because he failed to secure a federal job. Guiteau waited for Garfield at the railroad depot, on the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue in Northwest, jumped from a crowd and shot the president twice with a .44-caliber revolver.