Assassinations

Known as one of the most egotistical Roman emperors, Commodus famously commissioned statues depicting himself as the mythical hero Hercules. He regularly fought as a gladiator, and claimed to be the son of Jupiter. Ultimately his megalomania would be his downfall, when in 192, a conspiracy formed by his mistress and the praetorian prefect went into action.

In the last years of his reign, this Emperor was known for his frequent and extreme executions. When his mistress discovers her name on his list of people who should be killed, she takes matters into her own hands. This marks the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

He was a radio host in Denver that everyone loved to hate, building a career out of insulting everyone, even his own listeners. In 1984, Alan Berg was silenced forever by a militant white supremacist group.

In less than 24 hours, this famous Denver radio host’s murder became headline news across the nation. Radio stations around the country became fearful of copycat crimes and upped their security. This tragic event made the public aware that militant white supremacist groups were active and a dangerous threat in the 1980s.

In 1949, Egypt was on the brink. The rapidly growing Muslim Brotherhood had struck out against the government in opposition to the actions of King Farouk I. Farouk, a young and inexperienced King of Egypt. As the violence increased, and both sides prepared for war, one man would pay the price: Hassan al-Banna.

A devout Muslim, teacher and scholar, he originally set out to help Egypt return to its more culturally focused roots. Instead, the Brotherhood he helped create began using violence to achieve its goals. On February 12th, 1949, Hassan al-Banna saw firsthand the violence he was trying to rein in.

Orphan. Conman. Felon. Prisoner. Messiah. Malcolm X emerged from a life of crime, reborn under the gospel of the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad. But as Malcolm came to national attention as the face and voice of "Black Nationalism" in the late 1950s, rifts began to form in the organization, and soon Malcolm would be in danger... not from outside forces, but from men within his own brotherhood.

In March of 1964, Malcolm X officially broke away from the Nation of Islam to start his own organization. His rivalry with his former mentor, NOI leader Elijah Muhammad, quickly escalated from a personal dispute to an ideological battle with international consequences. After nearly a year of conflict, NOI enforcers were dispatched to silence their defector once and for all.

On February 21st, 1965, multiple shooters opened fire at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Within half an hour, Malcolm X was pronounced dead and Talmadge Hayer was in police custody. However, in the coming days, investigators were met with more questions than answers.

Amidst the slow decline of the Russian aristocracy, a drunk, uneducated peasant arrived in St. Petersburg claiming to have mystical powers. His name was Grigori Rasputin and he became one of the Tsar's most trusted advisors. In 1916, a wealthy young aristocrat Prince Felix Yusupuv, saw a chance to redeem his reputation by saving Russia from its massively unpopular wizard-advisor.

Prince Felix Yusupov's perfectly-laid plans to kill Rasputin didn't go as smoothly as he'd hoped. By the time the affair was over in 1916, Rasputin was poisoned, beaten, shot and drowned.The Bolshevik Revolution had officially begun.

In this special crossover with the hosts from Cults, we explore the charismatic preacher, Jim Jones, and his congregation’s move from San Francisco to the newly-constructed jungle settlement of Jonestown, Guyana in 1977. The move was intended to keep the Peoples Temple far away from the prying eyes of the U.S. government and media, who'd been looking into Jones' abuses and financial crimes.

As the sun began to set in Guyana on November 18, 1978, five bodies laid dead on the Port Kaituma airstrip. But the real carnage was still to come. By nightfall, over 900 people would be dead at the Peoples Temple’s Jonestown compound.

Famed actor John Wilkes Booth was rehearsing with a touring company in St. Louis, when he pointed a prop pistol at his castmate and said, "If you were President Abraham Lincoln, what a chance I'd have." He may have been joking at the time, but two years later in 1865, Booth's chance finally arrived.

John Wilkes Booth was a nationally-renowned star actor, but his most memorable performance at Ford's Theater in D.C. would take place in the presidential box. On April 14, 1865, when the Civil War was all but officially over, Booth and his co-conspirators set in motion a last-ditch plan to destabilize the Union government.

Just days after the Civil War came to an end in 1865, the nation was thrown into chaos once again when President Abraham Lincoln was killed. The ensuing manhunt for his killer, John Wilkes Booth, would test the loyalties of the still-divided country.

When Sara Ambrusko married her childhood neighbor Fred Tokars in 1986, she thought she'd found her ticket to a life of safety and security in the idyllic suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. But the secrets Fred kept locked away in their basement would put them both in life-or-death danger.

The weekend after Thanksgiving in 1992, Sara Tokars was kidnapped from her driveway and shot in the head on a quiet street in Cobb County, Georgia. The eyewitness descriptions of her assailant - a young black man with a gun - painted a vivid portrait for the media of urban crime seeping into the suburbs. But as the truth unraveled, the full story became much more complicated, and more worrisome.

The son of a famed Roman general, Caligula, was beloved by the Roman military from his infancy. But the young emperor's cruelty and reckless behavior pushed the head of his military guard, renowned war hero Cassius Chaera, to topple the ruler he'd helped create.

After slaying Emperor Caligula, Cassius Chaera ordered the Praetorian Guard to kill every living member of Caligula’s family line and liberate Rome from the corrupt royal bloodline. But an oversight would threw Rome into more chaos than anyone could have imagined.

It is widely believed the President of Mexico, Álvaro Obregón, was behind the 1923 murder of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. After losing countless battles, and his right arm, to Villa’s militia, Obregón certainly had a reason to want revenge.

When former Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was gunned down by a band of assassins in 1923, suspicion immediately swirled around the sitting president, Álvaro Obregón. The murder’s aftermath threatened to launch Mexico into another bloody civil war.

Gavrilo Princip grew up on stories of Serbian martyrs who died defending their country from oppression. In 1914, at the age of 19, Gavrilo resolved to join their ranks by killing the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand.

When he took aim at the Archduke on June 28th, 1914, Gavrilo Princip hoped to end the Austrian Empire’s reign and cement his place in history as a revolutionary. He succeeded - and started a world war in the process.

In 1960, Joy Adamson published her book Born Free, which chronicled her time raising an orphan lioness to be able to survive the Kenyan wild. But for Paul Ekai, a former employee, Joy's tyrannical approach to how she handled her staff drove him to do the unthinkable.

When Joy Adamson's body was discovered by her assistant in 1980, it was quickly assumed that she had been attacked by a lion. But when the investigation led to former employee, Paul Ekai, his confession and retraction only added to the mystery.

Every member of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's security team was hand-picked and thoroughly vetted to ensure their loyalty. One of her most trusted bodyguards, 25-year-old Beant Singh, protected the Prime Minister's life with unwavering devotion for years - until 1984, when Gandhi authorized an attack on the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holiest site of the Sikh religion.

Two martyrs were made in Delhi on October 31, 1984: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was shot to death by her bodyguard Beant Singh; and Singh, who was shot to death by other members of the Prime Minister's security force. Both sides of the conflict between the Indian government and the Sikh religion were rallied to action, but there was much more bloodshed to come before they could find peace.

In March 1969, James Earl Ray pled guilty to the murder of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel. Three days later, he rescinded his confession and declared that he was a fall man for a larger conspiracy. His claims sparked dozens of conspiracy theories that persist to this day.

In 1978 Harvey Milk became the first openly gay man to ever win an elected office in the US. He was initially friends and allies with fellow City Supervisor Daniel White, until a grudge spurred White to sneak a gun into city hall and commit a double homicide.

Harvey Milk's abrupt murder left the gay community of the late 1970s reeling. Tensions only mounted when his killer was acquitted after mounting the so-called, "Twinkie Defense" sparking San Francisco's infamous White Night Riots.

The Good King Wenceslaus, or as he was originally known, Duke Václav I, sought to bring Christianity to Bohemia and maintain peace with the Holy Roman Empire. He was thwarted in both these efforts when his brother, Boleslav the Cruel, stabbed him to death on the steps of a church in Prague in 935.

Jeremias Chitunda spent his adult life fighting to liberate colonial Angola, and then battling against communist rebels. But he continued to sacrifice his ideals to his president's ego and US interests until a deadly massacre erupted in late Halloween, 1992.

On the evening of December 10, 1964, singer Sam Cooke checked into a motel expecting a sexual dalliance with one of his fans. In the early hours of the next morning, he was shot to death by the motel manager. While she later claimed self-defense, many believe Cooke was assassinated for his civil rights activism.

When Sam Cooke’s life was tragically cut short at the age of 33, two funeral services were held in separate states to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to pay their respects. His music would serve as a guiding light through the second half of the 1960s as America negotiated a new relationship with race, identity, and culture.

On the morning of July 2, 1881, President James Garfield entered the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, DC ready to leave for vacation. As he walked through the waiting room, he was suddenly shot in the back by a man angry that he hadn’t received a position in Garfield’s administration, Charles Guiteau.

After being shot by Charles Guiteau, President James Garfield manages to survive for 80 days. However, because his doctors failed to adhere to modern medical practices, Garfield suffers a long and painful death. Meanwhile, the delusional Charles Guiteau eagerly awaits his rescue by Chester A. Arthur as the gallows pole comes closer and closer into view.

After centuries of colonial rule, newly elected Prime Minister Boutros Ghali strove to build bridges with the native Egyptian people and their British overlords. But his many compromises marked him as an enemy to the state in the eyes of nationalists like Ibrahim Nasif al-Wardani.

Prime Minister Boutros Ghali's murder signalled that the time for revolution was nigh. Egyptian nationalists staged protests, rioted, and even resorted to even more assassinations in an attempt to overthrow the colonialist British.

Following the American Civil War, Congressman James Hinds advocated for civil rights legislation to help former slaves integrate into American society. The Ku Klux Klan took notice, ultimately making him the first sitting Congressman ever assassinated.

The death of Arkansas Congressman James Hinds in 1868 emboldened the Ku Klux Klan to commit even more acts of violence, spurring other equal-rights activists to fight all the harder. The century to follow would be marked by continued clashes between civil rights advocates and hate groups.

India’s so-called “Bandit Queen,” assassinated in New Delhi on July 26, 2001. Sher Singh Rana confessed that he killed Phoolan to avenge her 1981 massacre of over 20 upper caste men. But Rana’s vengeful killing was part of a far bigger battle.

The 2001 assassination of Phoolan Devi devastated Indians at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and served to highlight the continuing issue of inter-caste violence. In the wake of her murder, Sher Singh Rana’s decade-long trial would further impact the community.

Once good friends, the conflicts that developed between Walter Smith and game warden Guy Bradley would ultimately grow into an obsession for revenge and murder. Track the events leading up to Bradley’s horrific death in the Florida Everglades in 1905.

On July 8, 1905, Walter Smith turned himself in to authorities after admitting to shooting Guy Bradley. The bizarre events that transpired after Bradley’s killing would spark nationwide outrage—helping usher in the Conservation Movement of the early 20th Century.

From humble beginnings to becoming South Korea's second president in 1963, Park Chung Hee’s time in office pitted the booming economy against the rigid censorship of his authoritarian regime. But not everyone would endorse his brand of politics...

The death of Park Chung Hee would remain in the minds of the public for years after his assassination as citizens debated how his years in the Blue House influenced generations of politics in South Korea.

When German forces occupied France during World War II, French leaders such as Navy Admiral leader Fançois Darlan sided with Adolf Hilter and joined forces. The French government was fractured, and a resistance was soon forged, targeting the Admiral toward his removal from power.

After Bonnier de la Chapelle confessed to the murder of Admiral Francois Darlan it appeared police had an open and shut case. But that was only the beginning as a series of conspiracy theories surfaced as to who was really behind the assassination.

He was one of the most infamous serial killers of the 20th century, murdering 17 young men between 1978 and 1991 through a variety of cruel and unusual methods. But how did Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the era's most monstrous killers, get his start?

It was a murderous rampage that could have possibly been stopped. Although Jeffrey Dahmer failed numerous times to turn his life around, his multi-year killing spree also went ignored by his family, neighbors, sentencing judges, and court-appointed therapists.

While on probation after an early release from prison in March of 1990, Jeffrey Dahmer continued his wave of sadistic violence. A chance event would finally lead to his arrest, and a media spectacle would bring Dahmer to the masses.

Undiagnosed schizophrenia and misplaced religious beliefs all conspired to lead Mark David Chapman to believe he was destined for great things. In 1980, he read a magazine article that seemed to point him toward his fate—he was going to be the man to murder former Beatle John Lennon.