From Castro to Trump: Leaders who survived the most assassination attempts in history

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A man armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives charged a security checkpoint outside the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington on Saturday night, firing several shots before being tackled and arrested.

A Secret Service agent was struck by a round but was wearing a bulletproof vest and is expected to survive.

US President Donald Trump, who was attending the annual dinner for the first time, was evacuated from the ballroom along with First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other senior officials.

The suspect, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, 31, is a mechanical engineering graduate of the California Institute of Technology who completed a master’s degree in computer science from California State University in 2025.

Minutes before the attack, he reportedly sent writings to family members in which he referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” and listed grievances against Trump administration policies.

Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC News that Allen “did in fact set out to target folks who work in the administration, likely including the president.”

FBI officers respond to an address connected to Cole Tomas Allen, the shooting suspect at the White House Correspondents Dinner, 26 April, 2026

He faces charges of using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer, with prosecutors indicating further charges are expected.

The attack on Saturday was the third time in less than two years that Trump has been the target of a suspected assassination attempt, following the July 2024 shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which a bullet grazed his ear, and an armed incursion at his West Palm Beach golf club two months later.

It comes at a moment of sustained political violence in the US — and renews a common question throughout history: how close do those who seek to kill leaders actually come to succeeding? Euronews takes a look.

Fidel Castro: 638 attempts — or just eight?

Fabián Escalante, the Cuban intelligence chief who spent decades protecting Cuban President Fidel Castro, estimated the total number of assassination plots against him at between 634 and 638, depending on the account.

His book is titled 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro. A 2006 Channel 4 documentary put the figure at 638.

The figure has been contested, however: the US Senate’s Church Committee, in its 1975 investigation into CIA abuses, confirmed at least eight proven attempts, albeit between 1960 and 1965.

The methods included cigars laced with botulinum toxin, an exploding conch shell planted at Castro’s favourite diving spot, a contaminated wetsuit, and a CIA asset stationed at the Hotel Habana Libre in Havana tasked with dropping poison into Castro’s chocolate milkshake.

The capsule stuck to the freezer shelf and broke when he tried to retrieve it. Castro’s former lover Marita Lorenz smuggled botulinum toxin pills back to Havana hidden in a jar of cold cream, where they dissolved before she could use them.

Castro, who voluntarily stepped down in 2008, died in 2016 at the age of 90.

Cuban Premier Fidel Castro waves a document during his talk to the United Nations General Assembly, 26 September, 1960

King Zog I of Albania: 55

Albanian King Zog I survived more than 55 documented attempts between the mid-1920s and the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939 — more than any other head of state in recorded history bar unconfirmed data on Castro.

Some estimates place the number of feuds personally outstanding against him at around 600.

In 1924, he was shot three times inside the corridors of the Albanian parliament. He refused medical attention and gave a speech to the chamber while still bleeding.

In February 1931, two Albanian émigrés opened fire on him as he left a performance of Pagliacci at the Vienna State Opera.

His aide-de-camp was killed yet King Zog I drew his own pistol and returned fire.

King Zog I was famously a chain smoker, reportedly smoking around 200 cigarettes a day. He died of natural causes in Paris in 1961.

Albania’s Monarch King Zog who will deliver an address from the throne on the inauguration of the new Chamber of the Guilds, 23 March, 1939

Adolf Hitler: 42

Historians have documented at least 42 plots to kill Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler, with the actual number considered higher given undocumented cases.

They range from a Swiss theology student who followed Hitler across Germany until his money ran out to a carpenter named Georg Elser who spent months secretly hollowing out a wooden pillar inside a Munich beer hall to pack it with explosives.

On 20 July 1944, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried a briefcase containing one armed explosive charge into a military conference at Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia.

He placed it under the table beside Hitler and left the room. Hitler lived because Colonel Heinz Brandt, leaning across the table to consult a map, had moved the briefcase to the far side of a heavy oak support beam. The beam took most of the blast.

Brandt was killed. Hitler suffered a perforated eardrum and singed trousers. He killed himself by gunshot in April 1945 as Allied forces advanced on Berlin.

Charles de Gaulle: 31

Thirty-one attempts on France’s Charles de Gaulle are well documented, most of them carried out by the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), a far-right paramilitary group opposed to his decision to grant Algeria independence.

On 22 August 1962, a 12-man squad opened fire on his presidential Citroën DS in the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart.

Of 187 rounds fired, 14 struck the vehicle. De Gaulle and his wife survived uninjured. The car drove away on shredded tyres.

That night, de Gaulle told Prime Minister Georges Pompidou by telephone: “They’re such bad shots.”

He died in November 1970 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm at his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises.

French President Charles de Gaulle speaks at a news conference in Paris, 9 September, 1965

Yasser Arafat: 13

Across the decades leading the PLO, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat faced attempts from Israeli intelligence, rival Palestinian factions, and others.

He survived an Israeli air strike in 1982 that killed others in the same building and a plane crash in the Libyan desert in 1992.

He died in November 2004 in circumstances that remain disputed. Swiss scientists later found traces of polonium-210 in his personal effects.

Whether he was poisoned remains unresolved.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is seen speaking in 1986

Muammar Gaddafi: 5

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi survived a counter-coup attempt in 1969, a machine-gun attack on his convoy in 1984, a US air strike on his Bab al-Aziziya compound in 1986 that killed his adopted daughter, various internal plots, and a suspected British intelligence operation in the 1990s.

He was killed by rebel fighters after being captured near Sirte in October 2011.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi arrives for the inauguration ceremony of South African President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria, 16 June, 1999

Abraham Lincoln: 5

Lincoln was assassinated on 14 April 1865 in a plot organised by John Wilkes Booth, who had also organised two earlier kidnapping plots that collapsed before execution.

A 1864 incident in which a bullet passed through Lincoln’s hat during a late-night ride is sometimes cited, although whether it was deliberate is disputed.

The so-called Baltimore Plot of 1861 — an alleged plan to kill Lincoln before his inauguration — is contested by historians who regard the evidence as unreliable.

The confirmed total of clear attempts before the assassination is two or three.

A bust of former President Abraham Lincoln is pictured in the Oval Office, 14 August, 2025

Josef Stalin: 4

Soviet archives document at least four plots against Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, including an attempt by a 19-year-old student in 1931 and several World War II conspiracies.

Given the secretive nature of the Soviet state, the documented total is likely an undercount.

FILE: Calendars with portraits of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin lie on the ground displayed during a demonstration in Moscow, 7 November 2016

Benito Mussolini: 4

Four people attempted to kill Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the space of 13 months, between November 1925 and October 1926.

Former socialist deputy Tito Zaniboni was arrested in a hotel room overlooking Palazzo Chigi, where he had set up a rifle with a telescopic sight, before Mussolini appeared on the balcony.

In April 1926, Violet Gibson — the 50-year-old daughter of the Irish Lord Chancellor — shot Mussolini at point-blank range in the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome.

The bullet grazed his nose, but he had a bandage applied and continued his itinerary.

In September 1926, anarchist Gino Lucetti threw a bomb at Mussolini’s car on the Via Nomentana. It bounced off and exploded, injuring bystanders.

In October 1926, a shot was fired at Mussolini’s open car in Bologna. A 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni, was seized by the crowd and lynched.

Whether he fired the shot remains disputed. Each attempt was used by the regime to justify the expansion of emergency powers.

Donald Trump: 3

Prior to the incident on Sunday, two confirmed attempts were made on Trump’s life in 2024.

In July, a gunman opened fire at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing Trump’s ear before being killed by the Secret Service.

In September, a man was arrested after being found with a rifle near Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

A third conspiracy, reported by US authorities as Iran-linked, was foiled before it could be carried out.