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Leon Frank Czolgosz biography

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  • 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

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Leon Frank Czolgosz is known as the assassin who killed President William McKinley.

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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.

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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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