Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield (who would die of complications from his wounds on September 19).
Charles Julius Guiteau ( ghih-TOH; September 8, 1841 – June 30, 1882) was an American writer and lawyer who assassinated James A. Garfield, president of the United States, on July 2, 1881. Guiteau falsely believed he had played a major role in Garfield's election victory, for which he should have been rewarded with a consulship. He was so offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris that he decided to kill Garfield, and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died two months later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime, and was hanged five months later.