1. Giuseppe Zangara 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.
21 Facts About Giuseppe Zangara
1. 2.
Giuseppe Zangara was convicted of murder and executed by electric chair.
3.
Giuseppe Zangara was born on September 7,1900, in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy.
4.
Giuseppe Zangara settled in Paterson, New Jersey, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1929.
5.
Giuseppe Zangara wrote that his pain began when he was six years old.
6.
Arguments have been made that Giuseppe 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.
7.
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 Giuseppe Zangara was working the occasional odd job and living off his savings.
8.
Giuseppe Zangara got on the bench to get a clear aim at his target from 25 feet away.
9.
Giuseppe Zangara placed his gun near Mrs Cross's right shoulder.
10.
Giuseppe Zangara was promptly indicted for first-degree murder in Cermak's death.
11.
Giuseppe Zangara pleaded guilty to the additional murder charge and was sentenced to death by Circuit Court Judge Uly Thompson.
12.
Giuseppe Zangara's sentence required prison officials to expand their waiting area for prisoners sentenced to death and the "death cell" became "Death Row".
13.
Giuseppe Zangara became enraged when he learned no newsreel cameras would be filming his final moments.
14.
The conspiracy theorists suggest that Giuseppe Zangara had been an expert marksman in the Italian Army 16 years earlier, who would presumably hit his target, though sidestepping any issues about Giuseppe Zangara's health issues since his time in the war, his short stature requiring him to stand on a jostled chair, his experience being with a rifle rather than with a pistol from a great distance, and his own statements regarding his target.
15.
Raymond Moley, who interviewed Giuseppe Zangara, believed he was not part of any larger conspiracy, and that he had intended to kill Roosevelt.
16.
Suddenly, Giuseppe Zangara's failed, and unrelated, obsession with killing Roosevelt unintentionally achieves Nitti's goal.
17.
Max Allan Collins' 1983 novel True Detective, first in his Nathan Heller mystery series, features Giuseppe Zangara's attempted assassination of Roosevelt, positing it as an actual attempt on Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.
18.
In HBO's 1998 biopic Winchell, moments after the assassination attempt, Walter Winchell leaps onto the running board of Miami's Police Chief's car, asking for an interview with Giuseppe Zangara, thereby getting at exclusive story for the New York Daily Mirror.
19.
The 2011 fantasy noir novel Spellbound by Larry Correia features Giuseppe Zangara's attempted assassination of Roosevelt.
20.
Giuseppe Zangara is magically enhanced in a plot to inflame bigotry and curtail the civil rights of the magically gifted protagonists of the Grimnoir Society.
21.
Charlaine Harris' fantasy Western Gunnie Rose Series is set in a world in which Giuseppe Zangara succeeded in assassinating Roosevelt, and the United States fractured into several different successor states.