14. The Lunatic Who Tried to Assassinate Andrew Jackson
By the time he made it to the White House, Andrew Jackson’s reputation as a seriously dangerous dude to anger had been so well established, that only a lunatic would try to assault him. However, America never had a shortage of lunatics, and one of them became the first to attempt a presidential assassination by taking a shot at Jackson.
Richard Lawrence, a house painter, was in the habit of angrily muttering to himself about Andrew Jackson. On January 30th, 1835, he was seen sitting in his shop, cackling to himself, before suddenly getting up and exiting, with the exclamation: “I’ll be damned if I don’t do it!” The “it” he referred to was killing Andrew Jackson.