Presidential Trivia Answers (July 26 & 27)

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(1) QUESTION: How many Presidents have been the target of a failed assassination?  Which Presidents?

ANSWER: Five close calls.  Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump.  Jackson was saved when the assassin’s pistol mis-fired.  Roosevelt was saved because the bullet hit his thick campaign speech in his suit.  Ford was saved once because the assailant failed to chamber a round in her pistol. A second time, he was saved because the assailant’s first shot missed.  The second went awry because a bystander grabbed her shooting arm.  Reagan was injured but thrown into a car by Secret Service, as many of us remember.  Trump was saved when he turned his head at the extreme last second.  Harry Truman could arguably be added to this list, but the assassin never got close enough to fire directly at him.  One White House police officer was killed (likely saving Truman).  Another officer was wounded.

(2) QUESTION: Two would-be assassins were female.  Which President(s) were their targets?

ANSWER: Gerald Ford, as detailed above.

(3) QUESTION: Which President was the first to use an armored car?

ANSWER: FDR. The Secret Service website describes the car: “Originally belonging to infamous gangster Al Capone, the car was seized by the Treasury Department in 1932 on an income-tax evasion charge. The car's armor actually was comprised of only bulletproof glass; the body of the car was still vulnerable.”