Quick Facts
- NAME: Leon Frank Czolgosz
- OCCUPATION: Assassin
- BIRTH DATE: May 1873
- DEATH DATE: October 29, 1901
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Alpena, Michigan
- PLACE OF DEATH: Auburn, New York
Best Known For
Leon Frank Czolgosz is known as the assassin who killed President William McKinley.
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Leon Czolgosz - The Anarchist Attacks
Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist immigrant, gunned down William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY.
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Play NowLeon Frank Czolgosz. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 07:06, Jun 20, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807.
Leon Frank Czolgosz. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807 [Accessed 20 Jun 2013].
"Leon Frank Czolgosz." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 20 2013, 07:06 http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807.
"Leon Frank Czolgosz," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807 [accessed Jun 20, 2013].
"Leon Frank Czolgosz," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807 (accessed Jun 20, 2013).
Leon Frank Czolgosz [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 20] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807.
Leon Frank Czolgosz, http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807 (last visited Jun 20, 2013).
Leon Frank Czolgosz. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/leon-frank-czolgosz-235807. Accessed Jun 20, 2013.
Synopsis
Assassin and anarchist Leon Frank Czolgosz shot President William McKinley with a concealed revolver at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. He was immediately arrested. Czolgosz was convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution.
Profile
Assassin, anarchist. Born in 1873 in Detroit, Michigan. One of seven children born to Polish immigrants from Russia, Leon Frank Czolgosz labored on his family's Ohio farm for most of his childhood. After witnessing several violent strikes at large steel factories where he and his brothers worked, Czolgosz became interested in socialist and anarchist teachings.
Czolgosz eschewed his family's Roman Catholic beliefs, and his anarchist doctrine became increasingly fanatic and violent. He was deeply angered by American society and its exploitation of the poor, and he blamed the government. On July 29, 1900, King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated by anarchist Gaetano Bresci in the name of the common man. The act inspired Czolgosz, who duplicated the assassination on September 6, 1901, by shooting President William McKinley with a concealed revolver at the Pan-American Exposition. McKinley died from his wounds on September 14.
Czolgosz was immediately arrested. After refusing an attorney, he was convicted and sentenced to death by electrocution on October 29, 1901, in Auburn Prison in New York.
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Infamous Assassins
View groupThese individuals have etched their names into history by plotting and executing the murders of prominent people. Whether their motivations were political, obsessive, or just plain insane, their high-profile murders earn them fame, fear and revulsion from the public. John Wilkes Booth shocked the nation when he assassinated Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater, James Earl Ray's assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was a tragic chapter in the civil rights struggle. See our picks, along with full biographies, photo galleries and videos, of these and other infamous assassins, who changed the course of history in the most brutal of ways.
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Famous People Named Léon
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Famous People Born in 1873 16 people in this group

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