4. The Nutjob Who Almost Murdered Teddy Roosevelt
On October 14th, 1912, former US President and then Bull Moose Party presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt got into an open-air car outside his hotel in Milwaukee, and waved his hat at the crowd. Just then, the darkness was lit up by a flash from a .38 Colt revolver – TR had been shot. An aide grappled with the would-be assassin and prevented him from firing another shot, before the crowd joined in.
The culprit, a nutjob Bavarian immigrant named John Flammang Schrank, would have been lynched on the spot if Roosevelt had not intervened: “Don’t hurt him. Bring him here. I want to see him. Roosevelt then asked Schrank “What did you do it for?” When Schrank stayed mum, Roosevelt told the crowd to turn him over to the police. It was an amazing escape.