The recent incident during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where an armed man entered the venue and opened fire while US President Donald Trump and many other White House officials were in attendance, has been the hot topic of the week.
Now, while some reports claim it was unclear whether the shooter was trying to target Donald Trump or not, recent reports claim that the suspect has been charged with attempting to assassinate the US President.
This incident, though, has raised the interesting comparison of other famous leaders who have encountered multiple assassination attempts, among whom the chief name to come up has been Hitler.
Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator who brought Europe to ruin between 1933 and 1945, survived what historians have documented as at least 42 separate attempts to end his life.
Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States, has survived three confirmed assassination attempts and at least three additional serious security incidents since 2024, a frequency of targeted violence that no American president in the modern era has come close to matching.
So, in lieu of that, let us take a look at three times that people tried to assassinate both Donald Trump and Hitler: what happened, who did it, how it nearly worked, and why it didn’t.
PART ONE: Adolf Hitler
1. Maurice Bavaud
November 9, 1938: Munich, Germany
Who: Maurice Bavaud, a 22-year-old Swiss theology student and devout Catholic. Bavaud was convinced that Hitler posed a danger not just to Europe but to Christianity as well.
What happened: Bavaud, who considered Hitler to be an “incarnation of Satan,” purchased a pistol and a press pass and infiltrated the crowd standing for the annual commemorative march marking the anniversary of Hitler’s failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
The student pretended to be a Swiss reporter, took a seat in a grandstand along the parade route and waited to take a shot at Hitler. All he needed was a single clean moment, a gap in the crowd, a clear angle, and a close enough range.
However, as Hitler passed below the grandstand, the thousands of supporters packed around the route raised their arms skyward in the Nazi salute, creating a physical wall between Bavaud’s line of fire and his target. He could not raise his weapon without being immediately detected.
Why it failed: The density of the crowd and the movement by the crowd created an obstruction for Bavaud, not allowing him to take a shot. The student followed Hitler on several other occasions; however, he was unsuccessful before his funds dried up as well.
He eventually jumped onto a train to Paris as a stowaway, was turned over to the police by a conductor, and was interrogated by the Gestapo. After admitting his plans to kill Hitler, he was sentenced to death. In May 1941, he was beheaded via guillotine in a Berlin prison.
2. Georg Elser
November 8, 1939: Bürgerbräukeller Beer Hall, Munich
Who: Johann Georg Elser, a German carpenter born January 4, 1903
What happened: Elser, a simple carpenter with absolutely no military connections, also got the idea to assassinate the Führer during the annual Beer Hall Putsch commemoration speech that was held every November 8th without exception.
Elser used his knowledge as a carpenter to notice that the stone pillar right behind the speaker’s platform supported a large balcony overhead. He then had the thought that if a large bomb were placed within that pillar, it would lead to the entire balcony crashing down, burying not only Hitler but also a number of his ministers and supporters.
Starting in August 1939, he then spent thirty-five consecutive nights inside the beer hall after closing time, carving a precisely measured cavity into that very pillar.
Elser had prepared a bomb with a 144-hour timer, which he installed into the pillar and set it to explode on November 8, 1939, at 9:20 p.m., which is when Hitler would be midway through his speech.
It worked perfectly. The bomb exploded exactly when Elser had calculated it would. The bomb exploded, killing eight people and injuring 57. But Hitler had cut short his speech and had already left.
Why it failed: The attempt failed because Hitler moved the speech up to 8 p.m., which meant he had already finished it by 9:07 p.m. and quickly departed by 9:12 pm.
Elser’s bomb exploded as planned 13 minutes later and brought down the entire building.
It was a train schedule adjustment and a weather report that saved Adolf Hitler’s life. As per reports, fog was forecast, which led to Hitler changing his travel plans from a flight to his private train scheduled for that very night at 9:30 p.m.
This also led to Hitler cutting his speech short from the planned two hours to just a little over one hour.
Elser was arrested at the Swiss border that same night and spent more than five years in a concentration camp. Georg Elser was murdered in Dachau Concentration Camp on April 9, 1945, only weeks before the end of the war.
He was one of the most technically capable and morally clear-sighted resisters the Third Reich ever produced. A plaque was erected in memory of Elser in Königsbronn that says, “I wanted to prevent even greater bloodshed through my deed.”
3. Operation Valkyrie
July 20, 1944: Wolf’s Lair, Rastenburg, East Prussia
Who: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the central operational figure of the most sweeping and carefully organised conspiracy against Hitler ever assembled. Stauffenberg was one of the very few members of the resistance with regular direct access to Hitler’s inner command circle.
What happened: The plan had two interlocking parts: kill Hitler at a military briefing using a bomb concealed inside a briefcase, then immediately trigger a nationwide coup, Operation Valkyrie, using the German Reserve Army to seize control of Berlin, neutralise the SS, and negotiate peace with the Allies.
Stauffenberg arrived at the Wolf’s Lair on the morning of July 20 with the device concealed in his briefcase. He placed it next to Hitler during the conference.
The explosives were armed and placed next to Hitler, but it appears they were moved unwittingly at the last moment, behind a table leg by Heinz Brandt, inadvertently saving Hitler’s life.
When the bomb detonated, it killed Brandt and two others, while the rest of the room’s occupants were injured. The only harm to Hitler in this attempt was that his trousers were singed a bit, and he suffered a perforated eardrum and conjunctivitis.
Why it failed: A single, accidental movement of a briefcase behind a solid oak table leg directed the force of the explosion away from Hitler. The plotters, unaware of their failure, attempted a coup d’état.
Stauffenberg and the rest of the conspirators were all later rounded up and executed, as were hundreds of other dissidents. Hitler supposedly boasted that he was “immortal” after the July Plot’s failure, but he became increasingly reclusive in the months that followed and was rarely seen in public before his suicide on April 30, 1945.
Read More: Why Did Hitler Wipe Out Millions Of Jews? Hitler’s Ideology: Demystified
PART TWO: Donald Trump
1. The Butler, Pennsylvania Rally Shooting
July 13, 2024: Butler Farm Show, Butler County, Pennsylvania
Who: Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20 years old, from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The FBI said it believes Crooks, who had bomb-making materials in the car he drove to the rally, acted alone.
Investigators found no threatening comments on social media accounts or ideological positions that could help explain what led him to target Trump before the Secret Service rushed him off the stage.
What happened: Crooks positioned himself on the sloped roof of a commercial building just outside the security perimeter of the rally venue, a location that reportedly provided a clear elevated sightline directly to the stage where Trump was speaking.
He used what the FBI later described as an AR-style 5.56 rifle. While Trump spoke to the crowd, at least five gunshots were heard around 6:15 pm. He dropped down, while multiple US Secret Service agents rushed onto the stage to shield him.
The bullet grazed Trump’s right ear. One attendee, Corey Comperatore, was killed. Two others were critically wounded. Crooks was neutralised by a Secret Service counter-sniper seconds after firing.
Outcome: Trump survived. Several minutes later, he was helped to his feet by the agents and escorted offstage to his motorcade, with blood visible on his right ear and smeared across his face.
The image of Trump raising a bloodied fist toward thousands of supporters became one of the most widely reproduced political photographs in recent memory.
Around six Secret Service employees were suspended without pay after an internal investigation into their handling of the event.
2. The Golf Course Ambush
September 15, 2024: Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, Florida
Who: Ryan Wesley Routh, 58 years old at the time of the attempt, a former roofer from North Carolina with a documented history of erratic behaviour and a self-styled interest in the Ukraine conflict.
A travel nurse who had met Routh in Ukraine described him as “a threat to others” and “a ticking time bomb,” and had notified a Homeland Security agent and the FBI in 2023.
What happened: Ryan Routh’s preparation stretched back at least six months before the attempt itself. Between August 18 and September 15, 2024, Routh’s phone accessed cell towers located near Trump International Golf Club and the President’s residence at Mar-a-Lago on multiple occasions.
He was also reported to have been scouting the terrain for weeks.
On the morning of September 15, Routh arrived at the golf course fence line in the early hours and settled in to wait. Around 2 am, just outside the fence of Trump’s Florida golf course, Routh hid in shrubbery holding an SKS-style rifle. At 1:31 pm, Routh pointed his weapon through the fence line, approximately 400 yards from Trump.
The attempt was rendered unsuccessful, though, when a Secret Service agent patrolling one hole ahead of Trump’s group spotted the rifle barrel and opened fire.
Routh fled, abandoning his weapon and equipment, and was arrested on Interstate 95 within hours.
Law enforcement officers recovered a Norinco SKS rifle equipped with a scope, a loaded magazine containing 19 rounds of ammunition and one round in the chamber, steel armor plates, and a camera affixed to the fence pointing at the sixth green where President Trump was about to play golf.
On September 18, a civilian was reported to have contacted law enforcement about a box that Routh had dropped off with them. After learning of the assassination attempt, they opened it and found a handwritten letter addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.
It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job. Everyone across the globe, from the youngest to the oldest knowsss that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a U.S. president.”
Outcome: Routh was convicted on all five federal counts. U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones stated at sentencing: “An attempted assassination of a presidential candidate is an attack on our democratic process and the rule of law itself. This assassination attempt was stopped by the courage and professionalism of U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Robert Fercano, whose decisive actions protected lives and prevented a national tragedy.”
Routh was sentenced to life plus 84 months in federal prison in February 2026.
3. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner Attack
April 25, 2026: Washington Hilton, Washington, D.C.
Who: Cole Tomas Allen, 31, a mechanical engineer, computer science postgraduate and secondary school tutor from Torrance, California. Allen earned a degree in mechanical engineering at Caltech, the California Institute of Technology, in 2017, before going on to receive a master’s in computer science at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in 2025.
What happened: According to reports, Allen had planned the attack weeks in advance. On April 6, 2026, Allen made a reservation at the Washington Hilton for three nights from April 24 to April 26.
The hotel was the same building hosting the dinner. Allen was a guest inside the secured perimeter before it was fully sealed. The suspect was seen leaving his 10th-floor room, dressed in black and carrying a shotgun, a handgun and several knives in a black bag. He used an interior stairwell to bypass heavily monitored areas of the hotel.
At approximately 8:40 pm, Allen approached a security checkpoint on the Terrace Level leading to the hotel’s ballroom. He ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun.
A U.S. Secret Service officer wearing a ballistic vest was shot once in the chest.
Trump, Melania Trump, Vice President Vance, and Cabinet members were evacuated immediately. When asked about the moment the shots rang out, Trump told reporters, “I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray. I thought it was a tray going down.”
The security failure that allowed Allen to bring a disassembled long gun into a hotel hosting the president drew immediate scrutiny.
FBI Director Kash Patel stated, “The evidence is abundantly clear: Cole Tomas Allen travelled to Washington D.C. for the purpose of assassinating President Trump and targeting members of the Trump administration. Thanks to the heroic actions of our brave law enforcement partners who acted quickly and professionally, Allen did not succeed — and now, he will be held fully accountable.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, still in black-tie attire from the evening, said at a press conference: “Cole Allen now faces the full weight of federal justice. This alleged assassin was stopped because of the courage and professionalism of law enforcement officers who responded without hesitation by doing their jobs. Because of them, the President of the United States, administration officials and all attendees at the dinner were safe.”
Survivor’s Luck?
Hitler, with his 42 assassination attempts, and Trump’s assassination and security incidents, do bring up a deeply uncomfortable pattern: the worse the ruler, the harder they seem to be to remove.
This is not just limited to Hitler and Trump, but over the course of history, several tyrannical rulers have seen attempts being made against them; however, they still somehow managed to remain in power for a concerningly long time, leading to the suffering of the citizens, various problems in the economy and socio-political unrest.
Take Muammar Gaddafi, the ruler of Libya for almost 42 years, who was only thrown out of power and killed after the First Libyan Civil War in 2011. He managed to survive decades of opposition, CIA plots, and a U.S. airstrike on his compound in 1986 before finally falling.
Saddam Hussein outlasted a Gulf War, international sanctions, and multiple internal coups before a full-scale invasion finally brought him down. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, might have ended the monarchy in the region; however, it simply replaced it with the Ayatollah’s regime.
Ruhollah Khomeini reigned for 10 years from 1979 to 1989, while his successor, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, ruled from 1989 to 2026, a whopping 37 years, before being assassinated during the 2026 Iran war.
In colonial India, independence fighters attempted numerous attacks on British officials, from the 1907 Muzaffarpur bombing to countless other acts of resistance, and the Empire barely flinched, holding on for another four decades.
Now, some might take it to be some survivor’s luck; however, the answer is a bit more complicated than that. The kind of authoritarian power these leaders bring out is led by a whole system of loyalty bought with fear, of information controlled, of institutions captured, and of succession plans.
Experts have also raised the point that simply assassinating a dictator will not really help in dismantling the bad state of society. The apparatus will survive the operator.
This has been brought up after the recent assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader as well, where many commented on how the Ayatollah regime will just replace one oppressor with another. And the citizens will continue to suffer still.
So, if any real change needs to be brought up, then the system needs to be changed and upgraded.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Al Jazeera, BBC, History.com
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Donald Trump, trump assassination attempt, trump assassination, trump assassination attempt shooter, Correspondents’ Dinner, Correspondents’ Dinner 2026, Correspondents’ Dinner 2026 shooting, hitler assassination attempt, hitler, adolf hitler, hitler assassination, Hitler assassination plan, Operation Valkyrie 1944
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