Giuseppe Zangara (September 7, 1900 – March 20, 1933) was an Italian immigrant and naturalized United States citizen who attempted to assassinate the President-elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on February 15, 1933, 17 days before Roosevelt's inauguration. During a night speech by Roosevelt in Miami, Florida, Zangara fired five shots with a handgun he had purchased a couple of days before. He missed his target and instead injured five bystanders and killed Anton Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago.
Early life
Zangara was born on September 7, 1900, in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy. After serving with the Italian Royal Army in the Tyrolean Alps during World War I, he did a variety of menial jobs in his home village before emigrating with his uncle to the United States in 1923. He settled in Paterson, New Jersey, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1929.
Health issues
Zangara had little education and worked as a bricklayer. He suffered severe pain in his abdomen, which doctors told him was chronic and incurable. In 1926 he underwent an appendectomy, but it was no help; if anything, it may have made his pain worse. The doctors who performed his autopsy attributed his abdominal pain to adhesions they found on his gallbladder. In his prison memoir, Zangara himself attributed his pain to being forced to do grueling physical labor on his father's farm from an early age. He wrote that his pain began when he was six years old.
Observers at the time and following his execution have discussed his mental state. Arguments have been made that Zangara was mentally ill, incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and ought to have had an insanity defense presented on his behalf while others have contended that he was sane.
Assassination attempt
On February 15, 1933, Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech at night from the back of an open car in the Bayfront Park area of Miami, Florida, where Zangara was working the occasional odd job and living off his savings. Zangara, armed with a .32-caliber US Revolver Company revolver he had bought for $8 () at a local pawn shop, joined the crowd of spectators, but as he was only tall, he was unable to see over other people and had to stand on a wobbly metal folding chair, peering over the hat of Lillian Cross to get a clear aim at his target from 25 feet away. He placed his gun over Mrs. Cross' right shoulder (She was only about 4 inches taller than he was and weighed 105 pounds).
After Zangara fired the first shot, Cross and others grabbed his arm, and he fired four more shots wildly. Five people were hit: Mrs. Joseph H. Gill (seriously wounded in the abdomen); Miss Margaret Kruis of Newark, New Jersey, (minor wound in hand and a scalp wound); New York detective/bodyguard William Sinnott (superficial head wound); Russell Caldwell of Miami (flesh wound on the forehead); and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was standing on the running board of the car next to Roosevelt. Mrs Cross had powder burns on her right cheek. A Secret Service agent Bob Clark had a grazed hand, possibly caused by the bullet that struck Cermak. The intended target, Roosevelt, was unharmed.
Roosevelt cradled the mortally wounded Cermak in his arms as the car rushed to the hospital; after arriving there, Cermak spoke to Roosevelt, and before he died 19 days later, allegedly uttered the line that is engraved on his tomb: "I'm glad it was me, not you." The Tribune reported the quote without attributing it to a witness, and most scholars doubt it was ever said.
Aftermath
Zangara confessed in the Dade County Courthouse jail, stating: "I have the gun in my hand. I kill kings and presidents first and next all capitalists." He pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. As he was led out of the courtroom, Zangara told the judge: "Four times 20 is 80. Oh, judge, don't be stingy. Give me a hundred years."