1960s - Assassinations

Assassinations

The 1960s were marked by several notable assassinations:

• January 17, 1961 – Patrice Lumumba, the Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo. Assassinated by a Belgian and Congolese firing squad outside Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• May 27, 1963 – Grigoris Lambrakis, Greek left-wing MP by far-right extremists with connections to the police and the army in Thessaloniki.
• June 12, 1963 – Medgar Evers, an NAACP field secretary. Assassinated by a member of the Ku Klux Klan in Jackson, Mississippi.
• November 2, 1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, along with his brother and chief political adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. Assassinated by Duong Hieu Nghia and Nguyen Van Nhung in the back of an armoured personnel carrier.
• November 22, 1963 – John F. Kennedy, President of the United States. Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963 while in his open convertible car riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. According to the 1964 report issued by the Warren Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed the president, but there has been consistent speculation ever since that Kennedy's death was the result of a conspiracy. See JFK assassination for more details.
• February 21, 1965 – Malcolm X. Assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam in New York City. There is a dispute about which members killed Malcolm X.
• September 6, 1966 – Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa and architect of apartheid was stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas, a parliamentary messenger. He survived a previous attempt on his life in 1960.
• August 25, 1967 – George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party. Assassinated by John Patler in Arlington, Virginia.
• April 4, 1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader. Assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee.
• June 5, 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, United States Senator. Assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, California, taking California in the presidential national primaries.