Trump, JFK, Lincoln - How shootings change the course of history | Defence in Depth

Assassination - the deliberate killing of prominent political figures - is as old as history itself. Egyptian pharaohs, greek kings and an alarming number of Roman emperors all fell to the assassin’s knife. In the American context, four presidents have been murdered since 1865. All of them shot with a gun and, this week, Donald Trump nearly joined them. We do not yet know why Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump on Saturday, but if history is anything to go by, we must be cautious about jumping to conclusions. You might think that political assassinations are, well, political - but in the USA, that’s not always the case. In this episode of Defence in Depth, Roland Oliphant, senior foreign correspondent at The Telegraph, explains the impact assassinations can have, and what this might mean for Donald Trump in the wake of the attempt on his life. Find our Defence in Depth playlist here: