1835- Andrew Jackson becomes first U.S. president to experience an assassination attempt.  The attempt was made by Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter. He went up to the president as he was exiting the House chamber of the Capitol Building. Lawrence pulled out a gun to to shoot the president, but the gun misfired. Jackson took his cane and bashed Lawrence on the head several times. Lawrence pulled out a second gun to try to shoot again, but that gun misfired as well. Jackson’s aides eventually pulled the two men apart.

Lawrence was most likely mentally unstable and didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but the 67-year old president was convinced that his political party, the Whigs, hired the man to assassinate him, since the Whigs and the Democrats were fighting over Jackson’s attempt to dismantle the Bank of the United States. Martin Van Buren also became paranoid of assassins and always carried two loaded pistols on his wherever he went.

Lawrence spent the rest of his life in a mental institution. Later, it was determined that the chances of the guns both misfiring was one in 125,000.