On this day, Jan. 30, in 1835, a deranged man tried to shoot President Jackson in the first known assassination attempt of an American president. Richard Lawrence believed he was King Richard III of England and that Jackson had killed his father.
Jackson was leaving a funeral service for a South Carolina congressman at the U.S. Capitol when Lawrence stepped from the crowd and pulled the trigger on his pistol.
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The gun failed to fire. A second pistol misfired, too.
The president caned Lawrence, who was wrestled into submission by several men, including Davy Crockett.
Lawrence was prosecuted by Francis Scott Key, the man who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was eventually committed to what is now St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he died in 1861.
– Scott McCabe
