Anton Cermak

Fatally wounded on 15 February 1933 in Miami by Giuseppe Zangara, whose shots aimed at president-elect Franklin Roosevelt killed the mayor of Chicago instead.

Overview

Zangara, an unemployed Italian immigrant bricklayer with chronic stomach pain and a generalized hatred of rulers, stood on a wobbly chair in a crowd at Bayfront Park and fired at Roosevelt, newly elected, who was speaking from an open car. A woman grabbed his arm and the shots scattered; Cermak, shaking hands with Roosevelt nearby, was hit in the abdomen and died of peritonitis on 6 March. Zangara pleaded guilty to murder and went to the electric chair within weeks, famously saying he did not fear death because he hated the rich and the rulers. Cermak, the Democratic machine mayor of Chicago, had risen from the coal mines; his death entrenched the Chicago mayoralty for his successor Edward Kelly. Historians still debate how close the republic came to losing Roosevelt before taking office.